Ramp-Style Deposition of Oligocene Marine Vedder Formation, San Joaquin Valley, California: ABSTRACT

Abstract

The Oligocene Vedder formation consists of well-sorted medium to fine-grained marine sand and shale in the subsurface of the eastern San Joaquin Valley. Updip, this formation interfingers with nonmarine/lagoonal facies known as the Walker Formation. This relationship appears to be transgressive because the marine Vedder generally overlies the Walker Formation. Downdip, the Vedder sands interfinger with middle to lower bathyal shale in a progradational manner, forming upward-coarsening patterns in well logs. Depositional water depths for the shale were determined from benthic foraminifera assemblages. The Vedder formation is approximately 750 ft thick along its updip part, and gradually thickens to 1500 ft downdip. Overall deposition geometry, determined from well-log correlations and seismic data, is generally parallel and downlapping. A prominent shelf-slope break is not evident. Rather, depositional surfaces are tabular or broadly lobate, with a depositional slope of 5/sup 0/-10/sup 0/. This geometry of constant slope between nonmarine and deep marine water depth is termed a ramp. The depositional style and geometry are similar to that of the Oligocene upper Pleito Formation, which crops out in the San Emigdio Mountains on the southern margin of the San Joaquin Valley. The Vedder formation was deposited subsequent to a period of rapid subsidencemore » (about 50 cm/1000 years), as determined from geohistory analysis of well data on the Bakersfield arch. This rapid subsidence may have induced deposition in a ramp geometry, rather than a shelf-slope configuration.« less