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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

GCAGS Transactions

Abstract


Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions
Vol. 43 (1993), Pages 97-107

Relating Sequence Stratigraphy to Lithostratigraphy in Siliciclastic-Dominated Shelf Settings, Paleogene, Central-East Texas.

Andrew J. Davidoff, Thomas E. Yancey

ABSTRACT

Sequence stratigraphy of the Gulf Coast Paleogene section is best known from sections in Mississippi and Alabama. Paleogene sediments in eastern Texas are significantly different from those to the east in two important respects. First, these rocks were deposited at very high, and rapidly varying sedimentation rates. Second, at the outcrop these rocks commonly include sediments deposited in marginal to non-marine environments. As a result, lithostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic relationships in eastern Texas are significantly different from those in the eastern Gulf.

The lithostratigraphy is strongly influenced by remote tectonic events which delivered pulses of sediment to the basin. These sedimentation pulses have produced long term regressive-transgressive cycles. Typical cycles show a progression from open-marine shales, to shallow-marine and coastal sandstones, to non-marine sediments, and then back through shallow-marine and coastal sandstones, to open-marine shales. Groups and formations generally subdivide the strata into sand- or shale-dominated units which have been produced by regressive-transgressive cycles, and are inherently time transgressive.

Eustatic sea-level changes have produced Vail-type stratigraphic sequences. These sequences are composed of transgressive and highstand systems tracts. Lowstand deposits occur farther basinward. Sequences are superimposed upon regressive-transgressive cycles produced by sedimentation pulses. Formations may contain several stratigraphic sequences or may be contained within a single sequence. Stratigraphic surfaces produced by eustatic change approximate time lines and cut across lithostratigraphic boundaries. Changes in eustatic sea-level and sedimentation rate have combined to produce a complex history of changing depositional environments and shoreline position.


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