About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 17 (1933)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 488

Last Page: 522

Title: Reynosa Problem of South Texas, and Origin of Caliche

Author(s): W. Armstrong Price (2)

Abstract:

Caliche is used as a genus of Previous HitsoilNext Hit-mineral accumulations, including calcareous, siliceous, ferruginous, aluminous and nitrogenous varieties in young, mature, and aged stages. Calcareous caliche (some travertine, sinter or tufa), quartzite, chalcedony, opal, iron oxides and hydrated oxides, kaolinite, bauxite, and laterite occur as caliches.

Prolonged leaching of the surface Previous HitsoilNext Hit on young plains and peneplains, with deposition of leached minerals in a constantly descending zone 3-10 feet underground, forms horizontal layers of caliche minerals to produce a formation, the duricrust, of surficial, continental origin, transgressing older beds. Climatic zonation of caliches is noted. Previous HitSoilNext Hit carbonates accumulated in semi-arid, less soluble Previous HitsoilNext Hit minerals in humid, zones. After strong leaching removes carbonates, less soluble caliches accumulate even in the arid zones. Desert caliches are tough, including the glazes.

The Reynosa formation consists of 85 feet of upper caliches, alluvial sands, silts, and gravels formed on a post-Oakville or post-Lagarto plain, with several Previous HitsoilTop (caliche) beds. The Lower Reynosa is slightly thicker (not 600 or 1,500 feet, as some report), including gray sandstones, gray clays and conglomerates with gravel and tufa pisolites. Compact pisolitic tufa of the lower beds with land snails is of spring origin (associated with faults?).

The Reynosa, including outliers up the dip, transgresses Lagarto to Cretaceous beds. The Pliocene-Pleistocene contact may separate the upper and lower divisions.

The main body of the Reynosa, capped by caliche, holds up the Reynosa Plateau or cuesta, which has a mature karst topography of knolls and basins floored in the beds overlapped by the caliche. Few rivers cross the plateau. Porous sands and gravels of the Reynosa furnish water for wells and feed many streams which head in the plateau or at its east foot. The caliche obscures and confuses stratigraphy and interferes with geophysical prospecting. Karst basins (palanganas) are not diastrophic in origin but may be modified by "structure."

Pay-Per-View Purchase Options

The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.

Watermarked PDF Document: $14
Open PDF Document: $24

AAPG Member?

Please login with your Member username and password.

Members of AAPG receive access to the full AAPG Bulletin Archives as part of their membership. For more information, contact the AAPG Membership Department at [email protected].