USGS Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/USGS

USGS · 70021471

Evolution of Cupido and Coahuila carbonate platforms, early Cretaceous, northeastern Mexico

Christoph Lehmann·David A. Osleger·Isabel P. Montanez·William V. Sliter·Annie Arnaud Vanneau·Jay L. Banner
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The Cupido and Coahuila platforms of northeastern Mexico are part of the extensive carbonate platform system that rimmed the ancestral Gulf of Mexico during Barremian to Albian time. Exposures of Cupido and Coahuila lithofacies in several mountain ranges spanning an ∼80000 km 2 area reveal information about platform morphology and composition, paleoenvironmental relations, and the chronology of platform evolution. New biostratigraphic data, integrated with carbon and strontium isotope stratigraphy, significantly improve chronostratigraphic relations across the region. These data substantially change previous age assignments of several formations and force a revision of the longstanding stratigraphy in the region. The revised stratigraphy and enhanced time control, combined with regional facies associations, allow the construction of cross sections, isopach maps, and time-slice paleogeographic maps that collectively document platform morphology and evolution. The orientation of the Cupido (Barremian-Aptian) shelf margin was controlled by the emergent Coahuila basement block to the northwest. The south-facing margin is a high-energy grainstone shoal, whereas the margin facing the ancestral Gulf of Mexico to the east is a discontinuous rudist-coral reef. A broad shelf lagoon developed in the lee of the Cupido margin, where as much as 660 m of cyclic peritidal deposits accumulated. During middle to late Aptian time, a major phase of flooding forced a retrograde backstep of the Cupido platform, shifting the locus of shallow-marine sedimentation northwestward toward the Coahuila block. This diachronous flooding event records both the demise of the Cupido shelf and the consequent initiation of the Coahuila ramp. The backstepped Coahuila ramp (Aptian-Albian) consisted of a shallow shoal margin separating an interior evaporitic lagoon from a low-energy, muddy deep ramp. More than 500 m of cyclic carbonates and evaporites accumulated in the evaporitic lagoon during early to middle Albian time. Restriction of the platform interior dissipated by middle to late Albian time with the deposition of peloidal, miliolid-rich packstones and grainstones of the Aurora Formation. The Coahuila platform was drowned during latest Albian to early Cenomanian time, and the deep-water laminites of the Cuesta del Cura Formation were deposited. This study fills in a substantial gap in the Cretaceous paleogeography of the eastern Gulf of Mexico coast, improving regional correlations with adjacent hydrocarbon-rich platforms. The enhanced temporal relations and chronology of events recorded in the Cupido and Coahuila platforms significantly improve global correlations with coeval, economically important platforms worldwide, perhaps contributing to the determination of global versus regional controls on carbonate platform evolution during middle Cretaceous time.

Explore related subjects

Geological Society of America BulletinArticle

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Christoph Lehmann, David A. Osleger, Isabel P. Montanez, William V. Sliter, Annie Arnaud Vanneau, Jay L. Banner. 1999. Evolution of Cupido and Coahuila carbonate platforms, early Cretaceous, northeastern Mexico. https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1999)111%3C1010%3Aeocacc%3E2.3.co%3B2

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related USGS reports

USGS2025

An empirical test of maximum depositional age through paired LA-ICP-MS and CA-ID-TIMS detrital zircon analysis with implications for the “Nevadan orogeny” in the Sierra Nevada foothills, California, U.S.A.

The interpretation of maximum depositional age (MDA) from U-Pb detrital zircon data acquired via laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) or secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is now routine; however, to date only a few studies have presented tests of such MDAs by subsequently analyzing a subset of the same detrital zircon grains with the more accurate and precise chemical abrasion–isotope dilution–thermal ionization mass spectrometry (CA-ID-TIMS) method. We first generated LA-ICP-MS dates and MDAs from three turbidite sandstone samples of the Late Jurassic Mariposa Formation (Sierra Nevada foothills, California) containing large proportions of young detrital zircon grains (at the time of sediment deposition). We then removed 4–5 of the apparent youngest grains from the epoxy mount and analyzed them with CA-ID-TIMS. Despite a lack of low Th/U or high U (ppm) characteristics that might indicate U-Pb system disturbance, all LA-ICP-MS dates are younger than corresponding CA-ID-TIMS dates, on the same grain, by up to 11.8 m.y. when considered as point estimates. Only two out of 13 paired analyses overlap within error at 95% confidence. We interpret MDAs from our CA-ID-TIMS dates to be the youngest CA-ID-TIMS dates (YTDs). LA-ICP-MS MDAs based on fewer dates from the young tail of the youngest date distribution perform the worst (i.e., furthest from CA-ID-TIMS MDAs), whereas LA-ICP-MS MDA methods that incorporate more dates from the youngest date distribution perform better; the best performing method in all cases is the maximum likelihood algorithm–minimum. The performance of tested LA-ICP-MS MDA methods is improved by removing statistical outlier dates and by removing visually young “outlier” dates that drift away from the primary distribution of young dates. Our paired LA-ICP-MS/CA-ID-TIMS MDA workflow shows that the accuracy of MDA can be significantly improved by conducting CA-ID-TIMS on as few as four grains from a sample. The combination of our new CA-ID-TIMS MDAs with published CA-ID-TIMS analyses and petrochronology on the nearby Guadalupe igneous complex provides sub-million-year resolution of contemporaneous igneous and sedimentary systems during deformation and clarifies the timing of regional deformation that defines the local “Nevadan orogeny.” Rocks in the upper plate of the Bear Mountains fault zone have a CA-ID-TIMS YTD MDA of 151.71 ± 0.23 Ma, and rocks of the lower plate have a CA-ID-TIMS YTD MDA of 149.92 ± 0.11 Ma. These new MDAs, in conjunction with the observation of fabric-bearing Mariposa Formation xenoliths in the ca. 149.65 ± 0.10 Ma Guadalupe igneous complex, suggest that rocks in the upper plate of the Bear Mountains fault zone represent a slightly older (~2 m.y.) section of Mariposa Formation that was deformed and intruded prior to being juxtaposed against, and further deformed with, a slightly younger lower-plate section of Mariposa Formation in actively deforming, fault-bounded basins. Our observations are not consistent with traditional models that require that sedimentation of the Mariposa Formation ended by ca. 155 Ma. Instead, we interpret our data to be consistent with other evidence for a continuum of deformation in Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous time and document that the regional “slatey cleavage” observed in the greater Mariposa Formation and used to define the “Nevadan orogeny” in our study area is largely younger than 149.92 ± 0.11 Ma.

California↗
USGS2025

Origin and evolution of mafic volcanism associated with 3 m.y. of andesite production at the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster, southern Washington Cascade Range

More than 3 m.y. of mafic volcanism near the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster in the southern Washington Cascade Range, USA, lends insight into the evolution of basalts and the subarc mantle at a long-lived, major arc volcanic locus. We contribute field observations, 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates, paleomagnetic directions, and bulk rock and mineral compositions to characterize nine mafic units that erupted in association with the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster. The time frame of mafic volcanism, ca. 3.6 Ma to 60 ka, encompasses the lifespan of the central volcanic cluster (3.1 Ma to 115 ka), with a lull from ca. 2.7 Ma to 1.4 Ma. A climactic period of voluminous mafic activity and far-traveled lava flows, including construction of the Hogback Mountain shield volcano, coincided with voluminous andesite eruptions from the central volcanic cluster. The basaltic rocks in the Goat Rocks area are calc-alkaline to barely tholeiitic and have high field strength element depletion relative to large-ion lithophile elements characteristic of calc-alkaline basalts (CAB) of the Cascade volcanic arc. Unlike at neighboring andesitic volcanic centers (Mounts Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier), no other mafic end members such as high-aluminum olivine tholeiite (HAOT) or intraplate-type basalt (IPB) are present at or near the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster, although some of the calc-alkaline basalts in this study have IPB-like affinities. The Goat Rocks mafic units exhibit two main temporal trends in composition: (1) the most primitive basalts erupted earlier, compared to less primitive and more evolved compositions later, and (2) high field strength element concentrations are higher in the younger basalt units relative to the oldest two. In contrast to these temporal trends, the mafic units define two compositional groups that recur through time, a low-Sr and a high-Sr group, each with distinct trace element and Sr and Nd isotope ratios. Although radiogenic isotope ratios are generally aligned with High Cascades CAB and HAOT, some extend toward IPB of Mount Adams and Simcoe Mountains volcanic field. Olivine-dominated crystal fractionation at shallow pressure from a small range of parent magma compositions accounts for much of the variation among the basalts and basaltic andesites. A high-pressure fractionation model is plausible for only one of the youngest basalt units (basalt of Walupt Lake volcano). Mafic recharge and crustal assimilation accounts for the incompatible-element enriched composition of basaltic andesites erupted during construction of the largest andesitic centers, further supporting sustained basalt mass flux and thermal energy driving andesite genesis. We model the most primitive members of the Goat Rocks mafic units as partial melts of successively less depleted mantle in time. Variable degrees of fluxing with fluids and melts from subduction explain the distinction between high-Sr and low-Sr groups. We propose that mantle metasomatism by ancestral subduction and fluid-flux melting is heterogeneously distributed through the local subarc mantle and played a greater role in the genesis of the high-Sr basalt group. The limited range of primitive basalt types around the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster contrasts with the much greater diversity of basalts throughout the southern Washington to northern Oregon Cascade arc. On the other hand, the central volcanic cluster encompasses nearly the entire diversity observed at neighboring composite volcanoes. In the case of the Goat Rocks area at least, and perhaps attributable to the entire region, this means that the genesis of diverse intermediate magmas is independent from and does not require vastly different parental basalt compositions.

California, Oregon, Washington↗
USGS2025

A 400-k.y. perspective on arc volcanism: An exceptional explosive eruption record from Central Mexico

Volcanic eruption records provide key information for hazard planning but suffer from a time-dependent loss of resolution, hindering long-term evaluations of volcano behavior. Here, we investigate an exceptional sedimentary sequence from Lake Chalco, on the SE edge of Mexico City, which provides a perspective on volcanic activity over hundred-thousand-year time scales, and we develop a methodological and analytical protocol applicable to core datasets globally. The lava-dominated base of the sequence (~105 m) is followed by ~155 m of lateral-collapse derived deposits and overlain by ~295 m of lacustrine sediments containing at least 450 visible tephra fall deposits (TFDs), spanning 400 k.y. These TFDs include 205 events sourced from large-magnitude (predominantly volcanic explosivity index [VEI] ≥5) silicic explosive eruptions, principally from regional polygenetic sources, and 205 deposits from the nearby Sierra Chichinautzin volcanic field (SCVF). A gradual decline in both frequency and apparent magnitude in the silicic eruption record is consistent with the gradual migration of volcanism south along the adjacent Sierra Nevada volcanic range, toward Popocatépetl. In contrast, the SCVF-derived deposits imply persistent but episodic activity, on time scales of 40–70 k.y., suggesting that the SCVF has been more continuously active than previously recognized. Decoupled trends between the SCVF and regional silicic sources implies that the total magmatic flux is not dictated at the arc scale, or by external (e.g., climatic) drivers, but instead reflects the independent development of individual volcanic systems. The records indicate a minimum long-term frequency of impactful eruptions on Mexico City to be one per 900 years (>1 cm tephra deposited) or 9000 years (≥10 cm tephra).

Central Mexico↗