Prograding low-density turbidite systems and oil traps at the Lower Paleogene Chicontepec Foreland Basin, East-Central Mexico

Abstract

The Lower Paleogene Chicontepec Foreland Basin at the southern region of the Tertiary Tampico-Misantla Basin at East-Central Mexico, resulting from the loading pressure of the uplifted and thrust-folded front of the Sierra Madre Oriental, on the passive, unfolded and thermally in subsidence Cretaceous basement, during the northeastward tectonic stresses from the Laramide Orogeny, against the Tuxpan Island eastern. The foreland basin consists stratigraphically of complex low density turbidite systems, being their detached and non-channelized outer-fan lobe facies the most conspicuous, composite by disperse and discontinue sandy lenses with tight and highly cemented calcareous lithofacies, micro-fractured and with micro-vugs by dissolution. The hydrocarbons flowed vertically from the underlay Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic rocks through the NW-SE dextral transpressive strike-slip fault planes and fractures, then spread laterally toward the micro-fractured sandy lenses and within the unconformable erosive surfaces, bounding the depositional systems (systems tracts), at different levels of the Chicontepec stratigraphic column, in a hybrid petroleum system with low permeability unconventional reservoirs.

Mineralogy, Geochemistry, and Stable Isotopes (C, O, S) of Hot Spring Waters and Associated Travertines near Tamiahua Lagoon, Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico (Mexico)

“…Later, this was followed by a lateral regime that predominated during the Cenozoic [92]. These dextral transpressive slip fault and fracture systems also had an NW-SE orientation [93], affecting the Chicontepec Formation and originating new migration routes for hydrocarbons. These events share the same NW-SE direction, which is in accordance with the fractures identified at different points of the carbonate formations (N05° W to N17° W).…”

Geological map of the distribution of igneous Cenozoic rocks in central Tampico-Misantla Basin

“…The San Felipe Formation has been de-fined as alternating limestone and shale of Conacian to Lower Santonian age, with altered volcanic ash interbedded with laminated limestone (Velasco-Tapia et al, 2016). Mendez Formation has been described as shale (Aguayo-Camargo et al, 2018) and marl (Segerstrom, 1962), being its main lithology. The Mesozoic succession was folded and trusted during Late Cretaceous to Paleogene contractional Mexican Orogeny responsible for the MFTB and MFB (Eguiluz-de Antuñano et al, 2000;Fitz-Díaz et al, 2018;Juárez-Arriaga et al, 2019b).…”