Early Eocene (Ypresian) palynology of marine sediments from the colombian Caribbean

Abstract

The Caribbean area is currently considered a frontier basin for hydrocarbon exploration; however, the knowledge of the Cenozoic geological evolution is controversial and requires to be reviewed as new information becomes available. This study integrates for the first-time calcareous microfossils and palynomorphs and proposes a biostratigraphic framework for the early Eocene (Ypresian), in two marine sequences obtained from the ANH Piedras Blancas 1-X and ANH San Cayetano 1-X wells drilled in the Sinu-San Jacinto basin. This information was compared with palynological publications in the Llanos, Llanos Foothills, Middle Magdalena Valley, Catatumbo, and Maracaibo basins. The new information from the Caribbean suggests that the marine palynomorph events reported in the Llanos are diachronic, but they concur with global records in low-middle latitude. Similarly, we extend the biostratigraphic range of some terrestrial palynomorphs considered traditionally of Oligocene-Miocene until Ypresian. In the studied wells lateral changes of facies (turbiditic fan to outer fan-abyssal plain) seem to control the preservation and abundance of calcareous microfossils (calcareous nannofossils and planktonic foraminifera), however, the terrestrial palynology did not show stronger variation.