Deepwater Fan Giants and Mountains of Mud: A Caribbean Kaleidoscope of Ancient Seascapes and Hidden Continents
Dr. Lesli Wood
Robert J. Weimer Distinguished Professor of Sedimentary and Petroleum Geology
Colorado School of Mines.
Abstract:
The southeastern Caribbean Margin has been tectonically active throughout much of the Miocene to present with the Caribbean plate obducting the Atlantic plate to the east, and obliquely colliding with the South American plate to the south. Mix in two of the largest continent-draining river systems in the world; the Orinoco and the Amazon Rivers, and you have huge sedimentation rates over-filling the basin, generating enormous mass failure, and over-pressuring the subsurface to build mountain of mud on the seafloor. All of these elements interact to produce an area of the world that is likely the most sedimentologically dynamic of anywhere on Earth. A mega-merge of ~50,000 sq km of 3D seismic data, some of which reaches nearly 33,000 m (100,000 feet) deep, is enabling us to view the seismic geomorphologic evolution of this enigmatic and energy rich province as never before. Extensional faults, mobile mud withdrawal and transtensional pull-apart processes produce enormous amounts of accommodation. This accommodation has been filled for the past 15 million years by deltaic progradation, tectonic-activity and over-accumulation triggered mass failures, and alongshore-current transported sediments. This talk will visit the processes and deposits of a basin that does not play by passive margin rules. Where leveed channels weave their way 250 km basinward through extremely complex and enormous seafloor topography to deposit in the Orinoco Fan. This region holds the entire post-Cretaceous history of the northern South American continent. Although its complexity has baffled geoscientists for 100 years, new data are revealing its secrets
Bio:
Lesli J. Wood (lwood@mines.edu)
…is the Robert J. Weimer Distinguished Professor of Sedimentary and Petroleum Geology at Colorado School of Mines. She holds a Ph.D. from Colorado State University (1992) in Earth Resources. Dr. Wood is the current President of the SEPM Society of Sedimentary Geology and has won numerous awards for her science and her scientific publications, including most recently the AAPG Robert Berg Award for singular contribution to petroleum exploration, SEPM Honorary Life Membership, and the 2024 EAGE Bob Mitchum award for Best Paper in Basin Research. Lesli spent five years in the energy industry before moving to the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Wood is proud to have graduated over 90 young scientists who are leaders in the energy industry, government and academia. She currently teaches a new generation of students exploring from the deepest depths of Earth’s global seafloor to planets at the margins of our solar system.
Registration is Open, Click the Dunes Below!
This is an in-person and online event!
The cost is $30.00 for current members and $40.00 for non-members. Zoom registration is $10.00 ($5.00 for students). Unemployed individuals may sign up for lunch for just $20.00. Students may sign up for lunch for $20.00. Persons who do not wish to have lunch are welcome for a $20.00 fee. Walk-ins may purchase a lunch for the standard fees ($30.00 or $40.00) although quantities are limited. Walk-ins without a lunch are charged a $15.00 fee.
Please submit reservations by 10:00 a.m. the Friday before the talk.
Reservations may be secured online or by e-mail at information@rmssepm.org