Mass Transport Complexes in Offshore Trinidad and Worldwide Analogs

Mass transport complexes form a significant component of the stratigraphic fill in ancient and modern deep-water basins worldwide. One such basin, the deep marine margin of eastern offshore Trinidad, situated along the obliquely converging boundary of the Caribbean and South American plates and proximal to the mouth of the Orinoco River, is characterized by catastrophic shelf margin processes, intrusive and extrusive mobile shales, active tectonics and prolific migration and sequestration of hydrocarbons. Major structural elements that characterize the deep-water slope regions of this area include • large transpression fault zones (i.e., Darien Ridge, Central Range, Los Bajos) along which mobile shale walls are extruded, • fault-cored anticlinal structures overlain by extrusive seafloor mud volcanoes, • shallow-rooted sediment bypass grabens near the shelf break, and