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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 65 (1981)

Issue: 9. (September)

First Page: 1684

Last Page: 1684

Title: Depositional Systems of Continental Margin of Eastern Gulf of Mexico West of Peninsular Florida: A Possible Modern Analog to Some Depositional Models for Permian Delaware Basin: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Larry J. Doyle

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Facies relations and the Jacka and Thompson (1979) interpretation of the response of the Permian Delaware basin margin to glacially induced sea-level fluctuations provide a scaled-down model which is useful in coming to understand their Pleistocene-Recent analogs on the massive west Florida continental margin. Both have a high sea-level stand system which consists of a nearshore band of clastics grading into a skeletal carbonate facies and a reefal barrier on the outer aspect of the shelf. Beyond the reef lies a band of reef talus, a carbonate slope, and base-of-slope deposits which include mass wasting debris and carbonate turbidites. The low sea-level model of the Delaware basin margin, along with reconnaissance seismic and surficial sediment data from the west Florida argin, provides a basis for a hypothesis for low sea-level stands of the latter in which drainage would be rejuvenated across the shelf. The clastic bank would be extended perhaps resulting in channelized delivery of clastics to the otherwise dominantly carbonate slope and base of slope deposits.

Parallels between the two systems are, of course, not exact and care must be taken not to go too far with the analogy. However, as we learn more about the sedimentology of the west Florida margin, we may be able to take the comparison further and perhaps to reverse the flow, providing some insight into the interpretive problems remaining to be solved in the Delaware basin margin.

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