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Meeting Location: 
Churrascos - River Oaks
2055 Westheimer Road
Houston, TX 77098

5:30 to 6:00 PM Happy Hour
6:00 to 7:00 PM Dinner
7:00 to 8:00 PM Presentation
8:00 until ...  Networking

Speaker:  Timothy Grow, Hess
Co Authors: Pablo Cervantes Laing, Roy Fitzsimmons, Bill Kilsdonk, and Mario Moreno-Vega

A newly refined and updated PaleoGIS spatial-tectonic model for opening the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was developed based on reevaluation of geophysical datasets and findings from previous studies.  The model incorporates counterclockwise rotation of the Mayan Block in the Jurassic (Pindell & Dewey, 1982; Pindell, 1985) and the hypothesis that the GOM is a backarc basin (Stern & Dickinson, 2010). Plates deform to permit spatial variations in crustal stretching. Key findings are: (1) extensive areas of the northern GOM are floored by magmatic and/or oceanic crust; (2) a series of ridge jumps (common to back arc settings, Magni et al., 2021) facilitates opening; (3) the Campeche salt basin is partially underlain by a large magma filled rift, conjugate to a magmatic rift in offshore Texas; (4) the Chiapas Massif restores back to the Rio Grande embayment; (5) the Florida transform gravity anomaly is a terrane boundary, with little to no shear offset required to fit updated tectonic models of Guyana-Suriname; and (6) the Middle Ground Arch rotated counterclockwise to open the Apalachicola Embayment.  The refined model implies that attenuated continental crust flooring the GOM is much more restricted than most other models and that oceanic crust began forming in the northern GOM as early as the Toarcian (175 Ma).  The landward limit of oceanic crust is interpreted to be within 50 kilometers of the Louisiana coastline at East Cote Blanche Bay.  The magmatic rift flooring the Campeche Basin and its offshore Texas conjugate are regions of highly attenuated continental crust with magmatic addition. The Houston Magnetic anomaly is also the signature of a magmatic rift (Mickus et al. 2009) but with no conjugate. The model also suggests that the Mayan Block and Chiapas Massif were two distinct crustal blocks until the Toarcian (180 Ma) when they coupled and slowly drifted south until GOM oceanic accretion ceased in the Tithonian (145 Ma).

References: 
Magni, V., Naliboff, J., Prada, M., & Gaina, C. 2021. Ridge jumps and mantle exhumation in back-arc basins. Geosciences, 11, 475, p. 1-21

Mickus, K., Stern, R.J., Keller, G.R., Anthony, E.Y., 2009. Potential field evidence for a volcanic rifted margin along the Texas Gulf Coast, Geology 37 (5) , p387-390

Pindell, J.L. & Dewey, J.F. 1982.  Permo-Triassic reconstruction of western Pangaea and the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean region. Tectonics, 1, p.179-211

Pindell, J.L. 1985. Alleghenian reconstruction and subsequent evolution of the Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and proto-Caribbean. Tectonics, 4, p.1-39

Stern, R.J. & Dickinson, W.R. 2010. The Gulf of Mexico is a Jurassic back arc basin. Geosphere, v6, no 6, p. 739-754 

Speaker Biography: Timothy Grow, Hess
Tim graduated from SUNY@ Potsdam in 1981 with a BA in geology and from the University of Houston in 1990 with an MS in geology. He has been a geophysicist for Hess since 2006 specializing in gravity, magnetics, and plate tectonics.  Former corporate affiliates include Earthfield Technology, ExxonMobil, Integrated Geophysics and Superior Oil.

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