Abstract

Lower Cretaceous depositional systems of southwestern Oaxaquia, in south-central Mexico, were influenced by initiation of a continental arc on mainland Mexico and subsequent accretion of the Guerrero composite arc terrane to mainland Mexico. The Atzompa Formation, defined herein, which crops out in the Sierra de Tentzo, constitutes a succession of conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone, and limestone with Early Cretaceous fauna and detrital zircon maximum depositional ages that range 126–123 Ma (late Barremian to early Aptian). The lower part of the Atzompa records a transition from alluvial to deep lacustrine depositional environments, suggesting the early stages of an extensional basin; overlying deposits of anabranching axial fluvial systems that flowed to the NE–SE accumulated after a period of rapid subsidence in the Tentzo basin, also formerly undescribed. Fluvial facies grade up-section to tidal deposits overlain in turn by a carbonate ramp succession that contains late Barremian to early Aptian fossils. The ramp deposits of the uppermost Atzompa Formation are overlain on a sharp contact by basinal carbonates of early Albian age.

The Tentzo basin, formed due to crustal extension of the overriding plate in a backarc setting, was characterized by very high rates of sedimentation (3.6 mm/yr) during the early stages of basin formation (rift initiation and rift climax), and slower rates during the development of tidal systems and the carbonate ramp (post-rift stage). Regional and local subsidence took place in the backarc region of the Zicapa magmatic arc, which was established in the western margin of Mexico by Hauterivian time. Abrupt deepening following Atzompa Formation deposition is attributed to flexural subsidence related to collision of the Guerrero composite volcanic terrane with the western margin of Mexico. Following late Aptian accretion of the Guerrero terrane to Oaxaquia, the carbonate basin eventually shallowed to become a carbonate platform that faced the Gulf of Mexico.