Sedimentology and chemostratigraphy of a Valanginian carbonate succession from the Baja Guajira Basin, northern Colombia

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The Kesima Member of the Palanz Formation constitutes the first record of Cretaceous marine sedimentation along the Baja Guajira Basin, northern Colombia. Sedimentologic and petrographic analyses suggest a deposition along a coral reef dominated rimmed carbonate platform.87 Sr/ 86 Sr values between 0.707350 and 0.707400 suggest a Valanginian (136 -132 Ma) depositional age for the Kesima Member. A positive anomaly on the δ 13 C values of ~2.2‰ suggests that this rimmed carbonate platform registered the Valanginian Weissert oceanic anoxic event. Although the Weissert oceanic anoxic event resulted on a major drowning of the Circum Tethyan carbonate platforms, it seems to have not affected those from the Circum Caribbean, where several shallow marine carbonate platform successions crop out. The Kesima Member displays a change from an organically produced carbonate factory into an inorganically produced, ooids dominated, carbonate factory during the peak of the Weissert event δ 13 C anomaly. This change in the carbonate factory, which may represent a major perturbation of the marine carbonate budget along tropical settings during the Weissert event, coincides with a major decrease in global sea level. Finally, the age of the Kesima Member is considerably older than that of other Cretaceous carbonate successions cropping out in other northern South America sedimentary basins (i.e. Perija-Merida, Cesar-Rancheria). Differences in the timing of the Cretaceous marine incursion along northern South America, together with the differences in the Triassic-Jurassic stratigraphy of several sedimentary basins in northern South America, suggest that the Baja Guajira and Maracaibo basins remained as an isolated tectonic block separated from northern South America after the breakup of Pangea. KEYWORDS:

A Middle to Late Miocene Trans-Andean Portal: Geologic Record in the Tatacoa Desert

“…(A) Schematic paleogeography of late Paleocene-early Eocene times (1: Woodring, 1957;2: Guerrero et al, 2000;3: Montes et al, 2003;4: Ruiz et al, 2004;Martin-Gombojav and Winkler, 2008;5: Bayona et al, 2011;6: Ayala-Calvo et al, 2012;7: Bayona et al, 2013;8: Bayona, 2018). (B) Schematic paleogeography (Ayala-Calvo et al, 2012;Cardona et al, 2014) of latest Eocene-early Oligocene times (1: Grosse, 1926;2: Woodring, 1957;3: Caicedo and Roncancio, 1994;4: Kolarsky et al, 1995;5: Parnaud et al, 1995;6: Christophoul et al, 2002;7: Gomez et al, 2005a;8: Bayona et al, 2008;9: Rodriguez and Sierra, 2010;10: Xie et al, 2010;11: Borrero et al, 2012;12: Cardona et al, 2012;13: Herrera et al, 2012;14: Ochoa et al, 2012;15: Zapata et al, 2014;Moreno et al, 2015;16: Manco-Garces et al, 2020).…”

First record of the Valanginian positive carbon isotope anomaly in the Mendoza shelf, Neuquén Basin, Argentina: palaeoclimatic implications

“…The origin of the carbon positive anomaly has been the cause of many controversies (Lini et al, 1992;Weissert et al, 1998;Hennig et al, 1999;Melinte and Mutterlose, 2001;Bartolini, 2003;Erba et al, 2004;Duchamp-Alphonse et al, 2007;Aguirre-Urreta et al, 2008;Price and Nunn, 2010;Gómez Peral et al, 2012;Charbonnier et al, 2013;Meissner et al, 2015;Silva-Tamayo et al, 2016). This contribution provides new C and O isotope data, as well as a record of the palaeotemperature data, which makes it possible to understand better the palaeoenvironmental context, considering the sedimentological and palaeontological features of the studied deposits.…”

“…The Valanginian positive δ 13 C excursion was first recorded by Cotillon and Río (1984) in the Gulf of Mexico (DSDP Site 535). It was then described by many authors in different basins throughout the northern hemisphere (Lini et al, 1992;Weissert et al, 1998;Hennig et al, 1999;Melinte and Mutterlose, 2001;Bartolini, 2003;Erba et al, 2004;Duchamp-Alphonse et al, 2007;Price and Nunn, 2010;Charbonnier et al, 2013;Meissner et al, 2015;Silva-Tamayo et al, 2016), and subsequently in the Neuquén Basin Gómez Peral et al, 2012) (Fig. 1), in the southern hemisphere.…”