Dedication to William L.
Fisher
Leonidas T. Barrow Chair in Mineral Resources
Department of Geological Sciences
Dean, Jackson School of Geosciences
University of Texas at Austin
This volume on the Maracaibo
Basin, Venezuela, is dedicated to
William L. Bill Fisher, who has been
a tireless proponent of research and
mentor of graduate students engaged
in research on the Maracaibo Basin.
Bill was born and raised in
Illinois and holds a B.S. degree in
geology and an honorary D.Sc. in
geology from Southern Illinois
University, and an M.S. and a Ph.D.
in geology from the University of
Kansas. He was named director of
the University of Texas (UT) at
Austin Bureau of Economic
Geology and state geologist of
Texas in 1970, a position he held for
nearly 25 years. In the mid-1970s he
took a leave of absence to serve as
assistant secretary for Energy and
Minerals at the U.S. Department of
the Interior. During his years as
director of the Bureau of Economic
Geology, the agency developed into
one the worlds leading applied
geological research groups in basi-
nal and hydrocarbon studies. Bill is a
past president of the AAPG, American
Geological Institute, the American
Institute of Professional Geologists,
the Austin Geological Society, and
the Gulf Coast Association of Geo-
logical Societies. He is a fellow and
former councilor of the Geological
Society of America and a member of
the National Academy of Engineer-
ing. He is a longtime adviser to state
and federal officials and testifies fre-
quently to the U.S. Congress.
After a career of more than
40 years with the University of
Texas, Fisher continues an active
teaching and research program in the
Department of Geological Sciences
where he holds the Leonidas T.
major, petroleum geologist, and phi-
Barrow Centennial Chair in Mineral
Resources. His research focuses on
both carbonate and clastic rocks with
scales of study ranging from basin-
wide to reservoir scale. He currently
is primary supervisor for a group of
20 M.S. and Ph.D. level graduate stu-
dents and is co-supervisor to another
8 students. He has published more
than 200 articles, reports, and books.
He has taught seismic stratigraphy
and petroleum geology to graduate
students for many years, including
the leading of sequence stratigraphy
field trips to the Guadalupe
Mountains of west Texas (see photo).
Bill has worked tirelessly to
establish the UT Jackson School of
Geosciences, which is a federation
begun in 2001 between the three
geoscience units of the University of
Texas at Austin: the Department of
Geological Sciences, Institute for
Geophysics, and Bureau of Economic
Geology. The Jackson School was
v
founded in 2001 from a generous
bequest from a 1940 UT geology
lanthropist, John A. Jackson and his
wife Katherine G. Jackson. The pur-
pose of the Jackson School is to
enhance the education of under-
graduate and graduate students and
the research of students, faculty,
and staff, through the collective syn-
ergy and collaboration of 125 faculty
and research scientists, 300 under-
graduate and graduate students, and
100 support and administrative staff.
On September 1, 2005, Bill was
named the inaugural dean of the
Jackson School of Geosciences at
the University of Texas, which is cur-
rently the largest geoscience depart-
ment in the world.
Throughout his career, Bill has
been committed to promoting oppor-
tunities for students from outside
the United States and for increas-
ing the ethnic diversity of the grad-
uate student population of the
Department of Geological Sciences.
He has been the primary supervisor
for graduate students from Brazil,
Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina,
Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, and
Romania, among others.
Many of these students have
returned to their countries to
become leaders in academia and the
oil industry and have in turn pro-
moted the higher education of the
younger generation of geoscientists.
Bill is also active in the recruitment
of U.S.-born minority students to the
Department of Geological Sciences
and has recently initiated a partner-
ship between UT Austin and Fort
Valley State University in Georgia, a
historic minority college in Georgia.
On a national level, the American
Geological Institute created the
William L. Fisher Geosciences
Endowed Fellowship, which allows
a recent Ph.D. in geosciences to
spend 1216 months in Washington,
D.C., working as a staff member of
a member of Congress or on a con-
gressional committee. The fellow-
ship allows a mechanism to transmit
geoscientific knowledge on issues
relating to the environment, resources,
natural hazards, and federal science
policy.
He has supervised more than
30 Venezuelan graduate students
since 1987. Eleven of these students
conducted M.S. or Ph.D. level
vi
research on the Maracaibo Basin.
Their theses and published results
form the core of information pre-
sented in this volume.
We dedicate this volume to
Bill as not only a mark of respect,
but also one of affection.

OT H E R F E AT U R E S
Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Special Issue Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . v
House of Delegates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Geoscience Meetings Calendar . . . . . 580
Education Calendar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Instructions to Authors . . . . . . . . . . . 656
Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Book Releases and Reviews . . . . . . . 699
ON COVER Oblique view from the
southwest of the 50,000-km2 Maracaibo
Basin, Venezuela, using 90-m resolution
topographic data collected by NASAs
Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission in
2000 and obtained through the CGIAR
Consortium for Spatial Information
(http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/). The dark area
in the center of the image corresponds to
Lake Maracaibo (maximum water depth
is 35 m). Two orthogonal seismic reflection
lines provided by PDVSA show the major
sequences and structures beneath the lake
area (cf. A. Escalona and P. Mann beginning
on p. 479 of this issue). As a host to 14 giant
oil fields and with a past cumulative
production of 30 BBOE, the Maracaibo
supergiant basin is the most prolific
oil basin in the western hemisphere.
Image was prepared using Fledermaus
visualization software provided by
IVS3D (for an animation of this image
see http://www.ig.utexas.edu/research/
projects/cbth/).
Printed in the U.S.A.
VOLUME 90 NUMBER 4 APRIL 2006
3 - D A N ATO M Y O F A S U P E R G I A N T :
M A R AC A I B O B A S I N , V E N E Z U E L A
Introduction to the Maracaibo Basin theme issue
Paul Mann and Alejandro Escalona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Regional geologic and tectonic setting of the Maracaibo supergiant basin,
western Venezuela
Paul Mann, Alejandro Escalona, and Mara Vernica Castillo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
Tectonic controls of the right-lateral Burro Negro tear fault on Paleogene
structure and stratigraphy, northeastern Maracaibo Basin
Alejandro Escalona and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Deep structure of the Merida Andes and
Sierra de Perija mountain fronts, Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela
Leonardo Duerto, Alejandro Escalona, and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Cretaceous to Holocene structural and stratigraphic development
in south Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, inferred from well and
three-dimensional seismic data
Mara Vernica Castillo and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Deeply buried, Early Cretaceous paleokarst terrane,
southern Maracaibo Basin, Venezuela
Mara Vernica Castillo and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
Sequence-stratigraphic analysis of Eocene clastic foreland basin
deposits in central Lake Maracaibo using high-resolution well
correlation and 3-D seismic data
Alejandro Escalona and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
Early and middle Miocene depositional history of the
Maracaibo Basin, western Venezuela
Jos I. Guzmn and William L. Fisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
An overview of the petroleum system of Maracaibo Basin
Alejandro Escalona and Paul Mann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
Petrophysical and seismic properties of lower Eocene
clastic rocks in the central Maracaibo Basin
Alejandro Escalona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AAPG thanks
The Geology Foundation and the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson
School of Geosciences
at The University of Texas at Austin
Petrleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA)
and the AAPG Foundation for financial support of this
issue of the Bulletin
Introduction to the Maracaibo AUTHORS
Paul Mann  Institute for Geophysics, John
Basin theme issue A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geo-
sciences, University of Texas at Austin, 4412
Paul Mann and Alejandro Escalona Spicewood Springs Road, Building 600, Austin,
Texas 78759; paulm@utig.ig.utexas.edu
With past production of 30 billion bbl of oil, the Maracaibo Basin Paul Mann is a senior research scientist at the
of Venezuela is at the top tier of the worlds most prolific super- Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at
giant basins. This special issue includes nine papers that describe Austin. He received his Ph.D. in geology at the
all aspects of this unique basin, including its modern tectonic and State University of New York in 1983 and has
geologic setting, its tectonic history since the Late Jurassic, its published widely on the tectonics of strike-slip,
stratigraphy and structure, and its petroleum system. Although a rift, and collision-related sedimentary basins.
A current focus area of research is the interplay
mature basin, the Maracaibo Basin is by no means "played out."
of tectonics, sedimentation, and hydrocarbon
Conservative reserve estimates top 14 billion bbl; modern sec-
occurrence in Venezuela and Trinidad.
ondary recovery methods now being applied to older production
wells could increase these estimates considerably. These reserve Alejandro Escalona  Institute for Geophys-
estimates, combined with its strategic location in the central part ics, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School
of the western hemisphere, will ensure that the Maracaibo Basin of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 4412
will be of interest to the AAPG North American and international Spicewood Springs Road, Building 600, Austin,
membership for many years to come. Texas 78759; escalona@utig.ig.utexas.edu
Information for the articles in this special issue is drawn from a Alejandro Escalona is a postdoctoral researcher
series of masters theses and Ph.D. dissertations completed in the at the Institute for Geophysics, University
period of 1990 to 2003 by 11 Venezuelan students at the Jackson of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. in
School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, along with geology at the University of Texas at Austin in
2003 where he focused on the stratigraphic
students from universities in the United States and Europe. William
and structural evolution of the Maracaibo
L. Fisher, the current dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences,
Basin, Venezuela. He is currently interpreting
played a critical role in promoting this long-term international
subsurface data from offshore Venezuela
academic partnership between the National Company of Vene- in order to link offshore and on-land Cenozoic
zuela, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), and the University of depocenters.
Texas at Austin. Ernest Mancini, current AAPG editor, was sup-
portive of this theme issue as an alternative to publishing a book.
Funding and data for much of the student research that appears
in this issue was provided by PDVSA, the Petroleum Research
Fund of the American Chemical Society, and the University of Texas
Jackson School of Geosciences. The contribution of 3-D seismic
data to us by PDVSA for the Maracaibo Basin has been especially
useful in unraveling the complex structural and stratigraphic his-
tory of this supergiant basin.
We are now embarking on a comprehensive new three-year
regional study of the on- and offshore areas of the northern margin
of South America, including the countries of Colombia, Venezuela,
Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guyana. This
new phase of our work is funded by an industry consortium that
includes BHP Billiton, BPTrinidad and Tobago, British Gas T&T

Copyright #2006. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Manuscript received October 20, 2005; final acceptance October 20, 2005.
DOI:10.1306/intro900406

AAPG Bulletin, v. 90, no. 4 (April 2006), pp. 443 444 443
Ltd., ExxonMobil, Newfield Exploration, Petrobras,
PDVSA, Repsol, and Shell. We gratefully acknowledge
continuing software support from ArcGIS, Landmark,
and IVS3D.
Our studies over the past 15 yr concerned basic
mapping of subsurface geology and correlation of re-
gional "tectonosequences" with the structural and strati-
graphic history known from previous, high-quality out-
crop studies, which, in the hydrocarbon-rich regions
of Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago,
date from the early part of the 20th century. We are
now in a better position to integrate these studies into
a more global framework to evaluate the role of eus-
tasy, the regional and environmental controls on re-
servoir and source rock deposition, and regional tec-
tonic events related to the development of the plate
boundary zone. To keep abreast and organize this
444 Introduction to the Maracaibo Basin Theme Issue
tremendous amount and type of information, we are
currently organizing all of the disparate data types into
a GIS database.
At the time of this writing, we are laying the
groundwork for a second AAPG special issue focused
on the offshore geology of northern South America
and its correlations to the on-land basins and geologic
events. In comparison to the on-land basins, the off-
shore in this region is remarkable for its lack of sig-
nificant hydrocarbon discoveries. For example, there
are 39 giant oil and gas fields in the combined areas of
Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago, but
only 3 of these giants have been discovered in the off-
shore, marine environment. This present special issue
and planned future AAPG special issues will provide a
firm geologic foundation upon which a systematic off-
shore exploration strategy can be conducted.