Economic potential of the Yucatan block of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize

Rosenfeld, J. H., Veritas Exploration Services, Houston, TX

Abstract

The Yucatan Platform, underlying parts of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, is a block of transitional to continental crust about 600 kilometers in diameter, covered by up to six kilometers of Late Jurassic through Paleogene carbonates and evaporites. This crustal block was almost completely isolated from terrigenous sediment influx by Jurassic seafloor spreading in the Gulf of Mexico and proto-Caribbean. The platform’s nearly unbroken expanse of undeformed surface carbonates has been investigated by relatively few wells and sparse, low quality seismic acquisition. This has allowed only a very general understanding of the structural and sedimentary history of the platform and its economic potential. Although major hydrocarbon production occurs along the platform’s western periphery in Mexico’s Reforma and Campeche trends, only a few small oil fields have been found on the platform itself.

Dismissal of the Yucatan Platform’s economic potential based on current knowledge is unwarranted since exploration to date has been sporadic and generally low-tech. There is a clear need for good quality regional seismic profiles. Among the geological factors that must be understood are the geometry of Early Mesozoic rifting, the extent of Late Jurassic marine transgression, the depositional system in which the vast evaporite/carbonate section accumulated, paleo-temperature gradients that affected organic categenesis, intra-platform response to tectonic events along the platform’s southern and eastern margins, and the role of the Chicxulub K/T impact event.