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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

West Texas Geological Society

Abstract


GEOLOGY OF THE BIG BEND AREA AND SOLITARIO DOME, TEXAS, 1986
Pages 117-124

An Eocene Carbonate Lacustrine Deposit, Brewster County, West Texas

Bart D. Collinsworth, David M. Rohr

Abstract

Thick massive beds of nonmarine limestone are exposed in the Elephant Mountain quadrangle, Brewster County, Texas. This Eocene carbonate ranges from approximately 1 to 60 m in thickness, and is intercalated with the lowermost formations of the Buck Hill volcanic group: the Pruett Tuff, the Crossen Trachyte, and the Sheep Canyon Basalt.

The carbonate rocks which were deposited in this lake consist primarily of pure to impure silty limestones with no dolomite or evaporites. This deposit contains various features including oncolites, algal stromatolites, fresh-water gastropods, ostracodes, stromatolitic travertine, fossil tufa, silicified wood, and fossilized overlapping grasses, all suggesting a shallow, low to moderate energy, littoral facies.

These fresh-water limestones, representing continuous carbonate sedimentation, were deposited in an open basin (through drainage) system. They indicate no extreme environmental changes, but instead suggest that a relatively wet, possibly subhumid, climate prevailed throughout lacustrine deposition.


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