EL MENE, Beds

TERTIARY (Miocene)

State of Falcón, Venezuela

Author of name: probably S. H. Williston and C. R. Nichols.

Original reference: R. A. Liddle, 1928, p. 261.

Original description: none.

The name "El Mene beds", referring to certain beds in the neighborhood of El Mene de Mauroa, western Buchivacoa district, appears in Liddle (1928, p. 261) under the discussion of the Agua Clara shale, as follows:

''Various local names have been given to parts or all of this Upper Oligocene horizon, of which the most important are: Quiros beds, El Mene beds, La Planchada oil sands, Curamichate oil sands."

No further details are given.

Williston and Nichols (1928, p. 449) also mention the El Mene, without definition, as follows:

"The reviewers are in accord with Liddle's correlation of the Quiros beds, with the El Mene beds, with the Hombre Pintado oil-bearing horizons the La Planchada and at least part of the Cauderalito lime; they do not agree, however, that this formation is the equivalent of the Agua Clara shale... The paleontological evidence throughout Liddle's book indicates that the Quiros, El Mene, Hombre Pintado, and at least part of the Cauderalito lime are more closely related to the lower Socorro series than to the Agua Clara formation."

The references by Sutton (1946) to divisions of the El Mene established by "Williston and Nichols, 1928, p. 449" are therefore misleading, since their only mention of El Mene is as quoted above; presumably Sutton was thinking of unpublished work. He correlates the "El Mene marine series" of Williston and Nichols, "with the lower Miocene La Rosa formation" (p. 1694); the "El Mene carbonaceous series" with the Lagunillas formation (lower and middle Miocene) (p. 1700); and the "El Mene sandstone series" with the La Puerta.

Liddle (1946, p. 434) lists the "El Mene de Maroa (sic) beds" as a synonym of the Agua Clara but gives no description.

The "El Mene or Cerro Pelado beds" of Mackenzie (1937, p. 281) from the Cerro Azul uplift in northwest Barinas, were presumably believed by him to be equivalent to the El Mene, in Buchivacoa but have since been proved much older (upper Eocene) and renamed the Altamira formation (Sutton 1946, p. 1686).

Homonyms of the El Mene de Mauroa are: the El Mene formation of Hedberg and Sass (1937), Eocene of north-central Zulia; the "El Mene Sandformation" of Senn (1935) (El Mene Acosta sands of Senn, 1940), El Mene de Acosta or El Mene of Liddle (1946) all referring to beds in eastern Falcôn. Although Liddle's 1928 use of the name has chronological priority, the absence of published description plus the fact that the name El Mene is no longer used for beds in the Buchivacoa region, make it possible to definitely eliminate the term from consideration. The term is not used by Halse (1937, 1947) in his papers on the El Mene de Mauroa area.

Frances de Rivero