ZUATA, Formation

TERTIARY (middle Miocene)

State of Anzoátegui, Venezuela

Autor of name: K. F. Dallmus, 1936 (private report).

Original reference: H. D. Hedberg, 1950, p. 1204.

Original description: ibid.

Hedberg (1950, p. 1204) stated that the Zuata (misspelled as Suata) formation has been named from the town of this name in the District of Monagas, State of Anzoátegui. He pointed out that "in the type area, the upper part of the formation as seen in outcrop, consists of some 250 feet of finely interlaminated sandstone and clay-shale, variously colored claystones and sandy claystones, and thin lignites and lignitic shales. The lower part consists of about 400 feet of gray-green to yellowish-green claystones; siltstones; and fine sandstones with some thin lignites. Concretions are common". Hedberg mentioned that the formation occupies a broad, gently dipping northeast-southwest trending belt in western Anzoátegui and southeastern Guárico. He claimed that the Zuata formation grades northward into the upper middle part of the Quiamare formation and that the formation is laterally variable, including several mild disconformities. The sediments are dominantly of brackish-water origin, and brackish-water mollusks and plant fossils are fairly common. On his correlation chart of formations in eastern Venezuela (p. 1183) Hedberg showed the Zuata formation to be unconformably overlain by the Mesa formation and to underly the Santa Lucía formation unconformably. A middle Miocene age is indicated for the Zuata formation.

Leo Weingeist