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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: G1adden Plate Boundary, Pull Apart Basin, Belize
By
The junction of the North American
and Caribbean plates in Belize has created
a complex structural setting for oil
and gas exploration. Recently acquired
seismic data, offshore Belize, has been
used
to identify three structural
provinces, from west to east: A shallow
thrust zone, a narrow upthrown wrench-faulted zone and a deeper extensional
basin, named the Gladden Pull Apart
Basin. Hydrocarbon leakage along recent
faults appears to have depleted the shallow
structures to the west, but the pull
apart basin has a thick sequence of low
frequency, clay-dominated sealing rocks
with the potential
to preserve hydrocarbon
accumulations in Cretaceous carbonate
banks. These buried carbonate
rocks are of the same age and depositional
environment as Mexico's Golden
Lane/Tabasco Reforma carbonate banks
which contain world class giant oilfields.
Seismic interpretations of offshore Belize have been integrated with gravity and magnetic data. This integrated interpretation helped to locate the thick cretaceous carbonate banks. Airborne geochemical surveys detected oil seeps on the eastern and western basin margins.
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