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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Rocky Mountain Section (SEPM)

Abstract


Mesozoic Paleogeography of the West-Central United States: Rocky Mountain Symposium 2, 1983
Pages 133-157

Late Mesozoic Paleogeography of Mexico

Paul Enos

Abstract

The paleogeography of Mexico during the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous shows a broad shelf extending west from the Gulf of Mexico to at least central Mexico. Few details are preserved of a eugeosynclinal belt that lay along the Pacific coast.

Late Jurassic paleogeography was dominated by major salt and evaporite basins interspersed with a complex of islands, low-relief carbonate shelves, and shallow basins. Pelagic carbonate deposition prevailed in eastern Mexico during the Early Cretaceous (Neocomian-Aptian) while terrigenous clastics were supplied from northwestern Mexico. Low-relief carbonate shelf margins developed in northeastern Mexico. Mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) deposition developed steep-sided, high-relief, platforms fringed by rudist reefs in eastern Mexico. Eugeosynclinal deposition prevailed in western Mexico. Terrigenous clastic sediment encroached into central Mexico from the west during the Late Cretaceous as uplift began in the Laramide fold belt. Pelagic limestones grading upward into calcareous shales record filling of the deep mid-Cretaceous basins throughout the Late Cretaceous.


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