La Formación Los Picachos en la Sierra de Los Chinos, Sonora, México

Abstract

The Sierra Los Chinos is located in east-central Sonora, where three stratigraphic sequences whose ages that vary from Lower Cretaceous to Tertiary are exposed. The Lower Cretaceous succession is composed of the Agua Salada, Lampazos and Los Picachos Formations. A second sequence of Upper Cretaceous strata is constituted by volcanosedimentary rocks; while a third sequence of the Tertiary rocks is comprised by volcanic and intrusive rocks and by the sedimentary Baucarit Formation. The Lower Cretaceous rocks are strongly folded and faulted, the outstanding structures are the anticlines and synclines oriented NW-SE, with vergencies either to the northeast or to the southwest faulting in the area is mainly normal and trust faults. The Alamo section is separated into 5 informal units (A, B, C, and D), which correspond to the Los Picachos Formation.The Los Picachos Formation exposed in The Alamo range has a thickness of 560 m. and is constituted by 4 lithics packages, the presence of rudist inside the clasts that constitute a package of conglomerates near the base, as well as the rudist Coalcomana sp. in the unit A and of orbitolinids and calcispheres (Pithonella ovalis) near the top, allow us to assigne it to the middle to upper Albian. The textural characteristics of the limestone beds, as well as its faunal content indicate that these sediments were deposited in a shallow water outer-neritic marine environment with local development of ooidal banks and rudist bioherms.