SIERRA DE PERIJA, Series

See PERIJA, Series

PERIJA, Series

PRE-CAMBRIAN ?

State of Zulia, Venezuela

Author of name: R. A. Liddle, 1943.

Original reference: R. A. Liddle et al., 1943, p. 278-280.

Original description: ibid.

Liddle et al. (1943, p. 278-280) used the name "Sierra de Perijá series" to designate grayish tan, very hard quartzites cut by dikes and veins of white igneous quartz, together with mica schists and gneissoid schists intruded by granite found in places in the headwaters of the Caño Grande branch of Río Cachirí, Districts of Mara and Maracaibo, State of Zulia. Liddle pointed out that the Sierra de Perijá series lies below and in faulted contact with beds of Devonian age on the Caño Grande branch. According to Liddle, the series embraces rocks of several ages, origins, and sources, and comprises the high mountain peaks of the Sierra de Perijá extending at least between Río Cachirí on the north and Río Apón on the south. He measured a thickness of only 1,000 feet but stated that there are at least several thousand feet in thickness of this heterogeneous series. Liddle pointed out that the age of the series is definitely pre-Devonian but cannot be ascribed more exactly.

Sutton (1946, p. 1627, 1629) shortened the name to "Perijá series". He gave a more detailed description of the intrusive granite mentioned by Liddle stating that "intrusions of light-colored biotite granite are common with grano-diorite and porphyritic quartz monzonite in subordinate amounts". Sutton mentioned that a large mass of igneous rock, questionably identified as trachyte, is associated with the biotite granite in the Totumo area in the northern part of the District of Perijá, Zulia. No fossils have been observed in the rocks of this series, and, aside from its pre-Devonian classification, no definite age assignment is possible. Sutton claimed that a pre-Cambrian age for some or all of its components is probable. According to Sutton, the series is believed to be correlative, within broad limits, with the Santo Domingo gneiss of the Mérida Andes, as described by Oppenheim, and the Iglesias series of Kündig.

Leo Weingeist