QUERALES, Shales

See QUERALES, Formation and CERRO PELADO, Formation.

QUERALES, Formation

TERTIARY (upper Oligocene)

State of Falcón, Venezuela

Author of name: F. Hodson, G. A. Weaver and G. D. Harris, 1925 (private report).

Original reference: F. Hodson, 1926, p. 174.

Original description: ibid.

Hodson (1926, p. 174) described the Querales shales as chiefly black clay-shales with some sandstone members. He stated that the type locality is Querales, southwest of the town of Sabaneta, District of Miranda, State of Falcón.

Senn (1935, p. 80, correlation chart) considered the Querales shales as the lower part of his Socorro formation and placed it in the lower Miocene. He attributed the rich molluscan fauna from Cantaura (misspelled Cantaure) in the Paraguaná Península, to the Querales shales.

Wiedenmayer (1937, p. 69) showed on his stratigraphic table the "Tramo Valle" or "Querales" with a thickness of 450 meters describing it as consisting of laminated, gray, uniform, foraminiferal clays.

González de Juana (1937, p. 196) stated that in central-western Falcón, the time equivalent of the sediments previously referred to as the Socorro formation, has been subdivided into the Socorro and the Querales formation. There the Querales formation still retains its bathyal character. González de Juana stressed the fact that in the Cumarebo area the differentiation between the Socorro and the Querales formation is practically impossible.

Liddle (1946, p. 459) followed Senn's (1935) usage considering the Querales shales as the lower unit of the Socorro formation. Liddle's "Socorro-Querales series" (p. 454) is a synonym of his Socorro formation with its Socorro and Querales members.

Information taken from private reports indicates that the Querales formation in the Cumarebo area and in the District of Democracia, State of Falcón, can be subdivided into the upper or Las Lomas sand member and into a lower shale member. The formation overlies the Cerro Pelado formation in the District of Democracia and the Solito sand in the Cumarebo area conformably. It is overlain by the Socorro formation in both the above-mentioned areas. Its age is considered to be upper Oligocene.

Leo Weingeist