CAPAYA, Formation

TERTIARY (Oligocene)

States of Anzoátegui and Monagas, Venezuela

Author of name: H. D. Hedberg and A. Pyre, 1944.

Original reference: H. D. Hedberg and A. Pyre, 1944, p. 22.

Original description: ibid.

The name Capaya tongue or member as part of the Santa Inés formation or group was first published by Hedberg and Pyre (1944, p. 22). It coincides with what Hedberg (1937-a, p. 2004; 1937-b, p. 661) had previously described as the lower (sandstone) member of the Carapita formation in Quebrada Carapita. The unit is named from San Antonio de Capaya, about 6 kilometers south of Bergantín in northeastern Anzoátegui. It is described as 2,200 feet (in Quebrada Carapita) of fine-grained, greenish and brownish-gray and "pepper and salt", thick-bedded, finely laminated sandstones up to 40 feet thick, and brownish-gray, silty shales with seams of iron-claystone concretions and occasional coal beds. The unit thickens westward to merge with the Capiricual formation in the Barcelona area.

Hedberg (1937-a, p. 2006; 1937b, p. 661) described the foraminifera of his original Carapita formation, stating that in the lower sandy member of the formation they are scarce and predominantly arenaceous. He assigns a probable middle Oligocene age to the unit.

Hedberg (1950, p. 1201) raised the unit to formation rank. The formation grades into the overlying Carapita formation and into the underlying Naricual formation of the Merecure group. It is included by some geologists into the latter. It outcrops along a distance of some 50 kilometers in a northwest-southeast direction in northeastern Anzoátegui and is encountered in subsurface sections of northwestern Monagas.

Cecily Petzall