PUEBLO CUMAREBO, Beds

See PUEBLO CUMAREBO, Limestone

PUEBLO CUMAREBO, Limestone

TERTIARY (upper middle Miocene)

State of Falcón, Venezuela

Author of name: R. A. Liddle, 1946.

Original reference: R. A. Liddle, 1946, p. 434, 536-537.

Original description: ibid.

Liddle (1946, p. 434) wrote: "The upper members of the Agua Salada group which are, from base to top: A2 clays, Bachacal beds, Miogypsina limestone Capadare or Pueblo Cumarebo limestone, and zone A1 of the clays, are locally fossiliferous". On p. 467 he asserted: "In the central and eastern portions of the Falcón Region, the upper beds of the Caujarao formation or the lower beds of La Vela formation are referred to as the Capadare or Pueblo Cumarebo formation. In some localities these marry, algal limestones and shales appear to be more closely related to the Caujarao formation, in other areas, especially where they overlap various older formations, they appear to belong in the basal part of La Vela formation and inaugurate an Upper Miocene invasion of the sea". On p. 536 (fig. 23) the "Capadare or Pueblo Cumarebo limestone" was shown at the top of middle Miocene and in the middle of the "Agua Salada formation" in a stratigraphic column captioned: "Geological section exposed at and south of Puerto Cumarebo, District of Zamora, State of Falcón, showing position of Puerto Cumarebo and Pueblo Cumarebo beds". In the column, clay occurs on top of the "Capadare or Pueblo Cumarebo limestone". In the associated text (p. 536-537), he said: "González de Juana (op. cit., p. 204) contends that the Cumarebo limestone represents the uppermost horizons of the Caujarao formation. His description of the character of his Cumarebo limestone applies equally well to the Capadare formation which is considered to be an exact equivalent of beds outcropping near, and southwest of, Pueblo Cumarebo. González de Juana's Cumarebo limestone, which is at the surface in isolated patches around Pueblo Cumarebo and in a narrow, continuous zone from La Soledad southwest through Guaibacoa, is equivalent to the Capadare limestone of Senn and others, but it is not the Cumarebo limestone which crops out at Puerto Cumarebo and in the coastal belt eastward to Punta Zamuro and westward to La Vela anticline. This marry, algal limestone of the coasta zone belongs in the Punta Gavilán formation".

From the above description it seems fair to conclude that (1) Liddle's "Capadare" limestone of the Cumarebo area, his Pueblo Cumarebo limestone, his Pueblo Cumarebo formation and his Pueblo Cumarebo beds are synonymous, (2) that they include not only the Cumarebo limestone member of the Canjarao formation but also the directly superjacent Corocorote limestone member, the overlying clay being the Turupia clay member, and (3) that the change from Cumarebo limestone (Liddle, 1928, p. 343) to Pueblo Cumarebo limestone in 1946 was induced by the desire to emphasize the distinction between the Cumarebo limestone member of the upper middle Miocene Caujarao formation and the Puerto Cumarebo limestone member (Suter, 1937, p. 271) of the Pliocene Tucupido formation. The writer believes that there is at least as much chance of confusion between the names Pueblo Cumarebo limestone member and Puerto Cumarebo limestone member as there is between the names Cumarebo limestone member and Puerto Cumarebo limestone member. Furthermore, the last two names are the ones in current use, for the name Pueblo Cumarebo limestone has not succeeded in winning general adoption. Finally, the Pueblo Cumarebo limestone of Liddle apparently includes both the Cumarebo limestone member and the Corocorote limestone member of general nomenclatural usage (González de Juana, 1937, p. 192-194; Payne, 1951, p. 1854, 1860). For the above reasons it is recommended that the names Pueblo Cumarebo limestone, Pueblo Cumarebo formation and Pueblo Cumarebo beds be discarded.

A. N. Dusenbury, Jr.