CARVAJAL, Formation

QUATERNARY (Pleistocene)

State of Trujillo, Venezuela

Author of name: Q. A. Abadilla, 1928 (private report).

Original reference: Sutton, 1946, p. 1712, 1713.

Original description: ibid.

Q. A. Abadilla created the names Carvajal and Dividive in 1928 (private report) of which the latter was introduced in the literature by Sutton (1946, p. 1712) as Dividive formation but in the same paper (see footnote, p. 1712) a change to Carvajal formation (misspelled as Carvajal) was suggested because "Dividive" proved to be a homonym of Senn's (1935) Dividive.

Sutton (1946, p. 1712, 1713) stated that the formation consists of massive, commonly cross-bedded, poorly stratified, loosely consolidated, brown, micaceous sands and gravels which are prominently exposed near the village of Dividive on the Agua Viva-Sabana de Mendoza Railway in west-central Trujillo. The gravels are made up of poorly sorted pebbles and cobbles of igneous and metamorphic rocks which are very similar to those found in the conglomerates of the Betijoque formation. The gravels represent alluvial cone, fan, and outwash plain deposits. The thickness of the formation varies from 0 to 150 meters (0 to 492 feet). The formation is unconformable on all older rocks and is overlapped locally by Recent sediments. The Carvajal gravels are limited to the borders of the elevated regions and attain their maximum development adjacent to the foothills and along some valleys of the Mérida Andes. The formation contains no fossils and has been assigned to the Pleistocene in view of its position in the section.

Leo Weingeist