Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
TOMAS
FEININQEP
Quito, Ecuodor
AbahcI Large reserves of petroleum in the Oriente of Ecuador are prawnt in sedimentory racks deposited on a continental h l f during the Cretaceous. The petroleum was not
genwoted in these rocks, but in the fino-grained terrigenous
c h i c sediments of a contemporaneous continental-rise
prism deposited in deeper water farther west. The rise sediments subsequently were metamorphosedand are now part
of the metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Cordillera of the
Andes. At the beginning of deformation of the continentolrise sediments, caused by the onset of subduction during the
Maostrichtion, most of the petroleum in the northern part of
the prism was driven upward ond eastward porallel with
bedding. Thus much of the petroleum entered the shelf rocks
lotorally. More complex deformation of the continental-rise
sediments in the south prevented the escape of petroleum
there. The trapped petroleum subsequently was converted to
graphii by metamorphism. Quantitative wlculations show
that the proposed mechanism is rwronoble and, thus, may
have applications elsewhere and should be considered in
planning exploration for petroleum in racks deposited an
continental shelves. A single carbon analysis of metamorphic
rocks from the south end of the Eastern Cordillera suggests
that the graphite content also diminishes southward. If true,
this augurs well for the finding of oil in fields currently under
explorotion toward the east in Peru.
Andean Foothills
A belt of uplifts, in part with complex structures, forms prominent but discontinuous ranges
that separate the upper Amazon basin from the
high Andes on the west (Campbell, 1970, p. 2729). These uplifts bring to the surface older rocks
that range from the pre-Macuma lower Paleozoic(?) Pumbuiza Formation in the Cutucu uplift
(Fig. 1) to the Napo Formation throughout the
foothills.
The uplifts which produced the Andean foothills are young structures and formed at the end
of the Miocene (Campbell, 1970, p. 22). Many are
bordered on the east by large reverse faults. Extinct volcanoes stand atop parts of the Napo
1167
uplift (Fig. l), culminating in Sumaco, a spectacular fresh composite cone 3,900 m high, 55 km
north-northeast of Puerto Napo.
Eastern Cordillera
The high Andes rise abruptly west of the foothills belt. The loftiest chain of the Ecuadorian
Andes is the Eastern Cordillera with summit elevations commonly in excess of 4,000 m. Most of
this cordillera is composed of pelitic and quartzose metamorphic rocks with steeply dipping foliation. These rocks are cut locally by intermediate
to silicic stocks and small batholiths. Parts of the
cordillera are crowned by active or dormant andesite volcanoes more than 5,000 m high.
All of the metamorphic rocks belong to the
greenschist facies. The presence of abundant garnet and chloritoid, the local occurrence of kyanite, and the absence of andalusite show that the
rocks belong to the Barrovian, or medium-pressure-facies series of regional metamorphism.
Rocks in the northern half of the Eastern Cordillera belong mainly to the upper greenschist facies. They consist principally of thoroughly recrystallized medium-grained mica schist. Rocks
of lower grade, such as weakly recrystallized
phyllite and slate, are present in a narrow belt
adjacent to the Andean foothills. A few kilometers south of the Banos-Puyo road (Fig. l), the
grade of the metamorphic rocks of the Eastern
Cordillera drops sharply and most are phyllite,
slate, and fine-grained quartzite not unlike those
adjacent to the foothills belt farther north.
An outstanding feature of the low-grade rocks
in the south is their abundance of graphite. The
dominant dark-gray phyllite and slate are sooty,
even coally; where weathered, they readily soil
the hands. Correlative rocks of higher metamorphic grade in the north are far less graphitic, light
colored, and with little obvious graphite. The contrast in graphite content of metamorphic rocks
from the northern and southern partsof the Eastern Cordillera is brought out in chemical analyses
(Table 1).
Ceologic Synthesis of Cretaceous-Tertiary of
Eastern Ecuador
The Hollin and Napo Formations were deposited in a shallow sea which transgressed from the
west. The source of the clastic sedifnents was the
deeply weathered Guyana shield on the east. The
limestone beds of the Napo Formation are chiefly
bioclastic rocks deposited during periods of diminished influx of terrigenous clastic sediments.
The shoreline zone of this sea is indicated by the
sandy facies of the Napo Formation in eastern
Oriente.
1168
Tom6s Feininger
Torn& Feininger
Location
Percent Carbon
1.
2.
3.
Saraurcu
Papallacta-Baeza road
Banos-Puyo road
0.13
0.33 average 0.25
0.30
4.
5.
East of Cuenca
San Lucas
::::
average 0.65
The metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Cordillera are traditionally interpreted to be Paleozoic
and F'rcuunbrian(?) (Tschopp, 1953; Sauer, 1965,
p. 26; W c i o Nacional de Geologia y Mineria,
1969; Campbell, 1970, p. 25). The arguments
mustered to support the proposed antiquity of
these rocks are that they are metamorphic, structurally complex, and not in any way correlative
lithologidy with the relatively orderly sequence
of supposedly younger rocks of the upper Amazon basin farther east. This age interpretation is
here considered erroneous. Rather, I intend to
show that the parent sediments of the metamorphic rocks are contemporaneous with the Hollin
and Napo Formations. Similar suggestions have
been advanced by Liddle (in Liddle and Palmer,
1941, p. 14) and Faucher et al (1968, p. 46).
The traditional paleogeologic reconstruction of
eastem Ecuador during the time of Hollin-Napo
deposition has been to show ,the area of the present Andean foothills and upper Amazon basin as
a broad shallow seaway, bounded on the east by
the emergent Guyana shield, and on the west by
the similarly emergent Eastern Cordillera (Sauer,
1965, p. 66-61; Campbell, 1970, p. 14). A strong
argument against this interpretation is the absence of evidence indicating the proximity of land
on the west. In fact, the westernmost outcrops of
the Hollin and Napo Formations suggest that
they were deposited in deeper water than were
rocks of the same formations farther east. The
Hollin, for example, contains increasingly abundant shale partings westward, and the sandstone
bodies in the Napo Formation on the east are
replaced toward the west by shale and limestone
(Campbell, 1970, p. 15-16).
1171
FIG. 2--Schematic cross sections along line A-B of Fig. 1: (A) at close of Napo deposition; (B) at beginning
of Tena deposition; (C) at close of Tena deposition. Symbols: hachures, continental basement; x's, oceanic
basement; ruled and dotted, sediments and metamorphic rocks (in C) of continental-rise prism; black, Napo
Formation excluding sandy facies; blank, Hollin Formation and sandy facies of Napo; crosses, intrusive rocks;
checks, volcanic rocks; dotted, Tena Formation and equivalent sediments shed westward; upper fine line, sea
level; heavy line, 250C isogeotherm. Note: Benioff zone greatly oversteepened because of vertical exaggeration
of sections.
nic orogen-the
first vestige of the modem
Andes-at the site of the present Eastern Cordillera (Fig. 2C).
Recent findings from the Cuenca basin in the
high Andes of southern Ecuador strongly support
this proposed series of events. Here, Bristow
(1973, p. 1I) traced without interruption the lateral passage of fine-grained schist and phyllite of
the Eastern Cordillera into pelitic and sandy, turbiditic, sediments of the fossiliferous Upper Cretaceous Yunguilla Formation. The Yunguilla here
is interpreted as the distal western part of the continental-rise prism that was pushed eastward during telescoping of the prism that accompanied deformation and metamorphism (Fig. 2C).
Geologic mapping farther west is less detailed.
East of Cuenca, however, passage of the Hollin
and Napo Formations into low-grade metamorphic rocks at the base of the Eastern Cordillera
appears gradational (Faucher et al, 1968, p. 46;
Rudolph Trouw, written commun., 1974). Significantly, no geologist during more than one-half
century of exploration for oil has reported rocks
of either the Hollin or Napo Formations lying
unconformably on metamorphic rocks of the
Eastern Cordillera.
ORIGIN
OF PETROLEUM IN THE ORIENTE
The petroleum fields of the Ecuadorian Oriente
are entirely in the north (Fig. 1). Preliminary estimates of in situ oil (Table 2) show that 98 percent
are north of lat. 1"S. Most production is from the
top of the Hollin Formation, although the sandy
facies of the Napo is the chief producer in the
Tom& Feininger
Table 2. Estimated i n s i t u O i l i n Oriente of Ecuador
( b i l l i o n s of b a r r e l s ) *
Proved
Probable
Total
% of Total
North of l a t . 1S.
3.948
2.744
6.692
98
South o f l a t . 1s.
0.013
0.128
0.141
3.961
2.872
Total
6.833
100
- .-. - ..-- ---
* D i r e m i o n General d e Hidrocarburos, Q u i t o .
Cordillera
The low-grade metamorphic rocks in the south
of the Eastern Cordillera are richly graphitic. The
origin of the graphite is enigmatic. A vegetal origin is doubtful, because a continental rise far
from land is an unlikely environment for the accumulation of plant remains. Also, my own
searches during the past six years have failed to
reveal a single plant fossil. The graphite in these
rocks is uniformly distributed as microscopic dust
along foliation and parallel bedding planes.
1173
would be unlikely that the only petroleum in a petroleum reserves of the Oriente are related spacontinental-rise prism would be at its oceanward tially so directly to the graphite-poor metamordistal end. On the contrary, the presence of petro- phic rocks of the Eastern Cordillera. The pore
leum in the distal part of the prism is considered fluids including the contained oil were in large
here as compelling evidence that petroleum oc- part expelled eastward from the continental-rise
curred throughout the prism prior to its meta- sediments into the Hollin Formation in the north,
morphism.
where the metamorphic rocks of the Eastern CorDuring the Maestrichtian the onset of subduc- dillera are relatively improverished in graphite. In
tion initiated deformation and raised pressures of the south, fluids were unable to escape and the
the pore fluids (oil and connate water) in the con- entrapped oil was converted to graphite upon
tinental-rise sediments. Where the initial defor- metamorphism.
A question to be answered is why the low-grade
mation produced relatively simple open folds, the
fluids were driven upward and eastward along rocks in the south are graphitic. Why, in this probedding, away from the trench. At the former posed mechanism, were pore fluids driven prefershelf edge, the fluids present in the lower part of entially from the sediments that today are the relthe continental-rise prism found easy access into atively higher grade metamorphic rocks in the
the correlative Hollin Formation. They entered north?
this porous formation laterally from the west and
The metamorphic rocks in the south are decidprogressively displaced eastward the connate wa- edly more intensely deformed than are those in
ter in the Hollin. Upward escape of fluids was the north. From the Banos-Puyo road north, folihindered by the largely impervious shale and ation and bedding generally are planar, whereas
limestone of the overlying Napo Formation. Oil in the south the rocks are so thoroughly crumpled
saturation of the Napo occurred later, caused by that structural attitudes other than axes of minor
slow upward permeation of oil from the underly- folds can be measured in very few places. It is the
ing Hollin. Fluids in the stratigraphically higher relatively greater degree of deformation of the
part of the continental-rise prism were not able to rocks in the south that there impeded the escape
enter the correlative Napo because of the im- of pore fluids. Two possible causes for this
permeability of that formation. Here fluids were inequality of deformation north and south come
concentrated in the continental-rise sediments to mind.
just west of the shelf edge.
One may have been that subduction and deforAs deformation of the continental rise prism mation began in the north, to quicken later in
proceeded, folds became tighter and beds increas- pace and migrate southward. Rocks in the north
ingly were crumpled and broken by faults. Fur- thus would have had a longer metamorphic histother migration of fluids was now impossible. Si- ry and achieved a higher grade than those in the
multaneously, isogeothermal surfaces over the south prior to the seaward jump of the trench in
subjacent Benioff zone rose, and increasingly de- the early Tertiary. Initial deformation of rocks in
formation was accompaliied by metamorphism. the south therefore would have been more intense
Petroleum in the fluids which were unable to es- and accompanied by more faulting than would
cape was distilled destructively to leave a graphite have been true for rocks in the north.
residue. The concentration of oil in the continenAnother cause of the more intense deformation
tal-rise sediments that abutted the impermeable of the metamorphic rocks in the south could have
N a p Formation left particularly abundant resi- been the influence of the Canonaco arch (Campdues of graphite upon metamorphism. One such bell, 1970, p. 8). This broad, deeply buried, baseremarkable "graphite muck" has been noted by ment swell protrudes westward from the Guyana
Britton Wherry (oral commun., 1974) between the shield to impinge on the Eastern Cordillera a few
westernmost outcrops of the N a p Formation kilometers south of Puyo (Fig. 1). The arch may
and schists of the Eastern Cordillera in the Rio have offered greater mechanical resistance during
Antisana, located 30 km northwest of Puerto deformation than was offered by basement rocks
N a p (Fig. 1).
under the continental-rise prism sediments farWhere the onset of deformation of the conti- ther north. Forced against a relatively unyielding
nental-rise sediments produced not simple open basement, the continental-rise sediments in the
folds, but complex folds and myriads of small south would have been more intensely deformed
faults, migration of fluids was not possible. With than those farther north. Also, if the arch is rethe onset of metamorphism, the oil contained in flected at depth by a root, the greater thickness of
the fluids was destroyed and left a uniformly dis- basement under the arch could have partly insulated the overlying rocks from the rise of isopersed graphite residue in the rocks.
Clearly, it is no coincidence that the prolific geothermal surfaces during subduction. This
1174
Tom& Feininger
Quantitative Calculations
To be considered seriously, the hypothesis proposed here must be quantitatively reasonable. A
few simple calculations show that it is.
The proved and probable oil reserves of the
Oriente are 6.833 x 109 bbl (Table 2). The average API gravity of Oriente oil is 30" (Direccion
General de Hidrocarburos, @to, oral commun.).
At 100F, the density of the Oriente oil is 0.8618
g/cc (Levorsen, 1954, Tables A-3, 8-14). The
weight of the reserves is therefore 9.36 x I@ metric tons.
Little or no petroleum is known in south Oriente. I assume therefore that the graphite content
of the metamorphic rocks south of the BanosPuyo road, 0.65 percent by weight (Table I), is
the residue of an initial petroleum content representative of the entire continental-rise prism
north to the Colombian border. The average carbon content of the metamorphic rocks from the
Banos-Puyo road north is only 0.25 percent by
weight (Table I), a difference of 0.40 percent.
Each cubic kilometer of metamorphic rock in the
north thus contains 1.076 X 107 metric tons less
carbon than in the south (average measured rock
density 2.69 g/cc). If one assigns the difference to
oil with 85 percent carbon (Mason, 1966, p. 238)
that was lost by being driven out toward the east
during deformation of the continental-rise sediments prior to metamorphism, each cubic kilometer of carbon-depleted metamorphic rock is the
source of 1.266 x 107 metric tons of oil. The oil
reserves of the Oriente thus can have come from
only 73.9 cu km of metamorphic rock as now exposed in the Eastern Cordillera from the BanosPuyo road north.
Metamorphic rocks underlie 720 sq km of the
Eastern Cordillera between the Banos-Puyo road
and the Colombian border (Servicio Nacional de
Geologia y Mineria, 1969). At first glance, the
source rock here proposed appears overly prolific; the volume of rock required, integrated over
the area of outcrop, is a layer only 103 m thick. It
must be kept in mind, however, that the reserve
figures (Table 2) are but a fraction of the total
amount of petroleum involved. For example, the
figures exclude the tens of millions of tons of asphalt that impregnate the Hollin as economic deposits in outcrops on the Napo uplift in the vicinity of Puerto N a p (Britton Wherry, unpub. rept.).
The figures also exclude the rich but noneconomic oil impregnation of the Napo Formation that
underlies 20,000 sq km of the western Oriente
north of lat. 1S. If the petroleum content of this
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Soc., 54 p.
Campbell, C. J., 1970, Guide to the Puerto Napo area,
eastern Ecuador with notes on the regional geology of
the Oriente basin: Ecuador Geol. Geophys. Soc., 40
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Dickinson, W. R., 1974, Subduction and oil migration:
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Dietz, R. S., and J. C. Holden, 1966, Miogeoclines (miogeosynlines) in space and time: Jour. Geology, v. 74,
p. 566-583.
Faucher, B., R. Joyes, F. Magne, J. Sigal, R. Vernet, J.
C. Granja V., J. C. Granja B., R. Castro, and G.
Guevara, 1968, Estudio preliminar sobre 10s principales problemas geologicos concernientes a la exploration petrolera del Oriente Equatoriano: Ecuador
Min. de Indust. y Com., 53 p.
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Liddle, R. A., and K. V. W. Palmer, 1941, The geology
and paleontology of the Cuenca-Azogues-Biblian region, Provinces of Canar and Azuay, Ecuador: Am.
Paleontology Bull., v. 26, p. 360-421.
Mason, B., 1966, Principles of geochemistry, 3d ed.:
New York, John Wiley, 329 p.
Miyashiro, A., 1973, Metamorphism and metamorphic
belts: New York, Halsted Press, 492 p.
Quinn, A. W., and H. D. Glass, 1958, Rank of coal and
metamorphic grade of rocks of the Narragansett basin of Rhode Island: Econ. Geology, v. 53, p. 563576.
Sauer, W., 1965, Geologia del Ecuador: Ecuador Edit.
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Servicio Nacional de Geologia y Mineria, 1969, Mapa
geologico de la Republica del Ecuador, scale I:l,
000,000: Quito.
Tschopp, H. J., 1953, Oil explorations in the Oriente of
Ecuador, 1938-1950: AAPG Bull., v. 37, p. 2303-2347.