A submarine fan in the Mesa Central, Mexico

The contact between the Guerrero and Sierra Madre tectonostratigraphic terranes has been proposed to lie in the Mesa Central, east of the city of Zacatecas. Marine Triassic units have been assigned to the Guerrero Terrane. It is here proposed that this contact occurs to the west of the city of Zacatecas and the Triassic marine sequence assigned to the Sierra Madre Terrane. lyzed the stratigraphic record and structural features of pre-Late Jurassic sequences at four localities in the Mesa Central. They contain a marine turbiditic Triassic unit, which includes La Bellena, Taray, and Zacatecas Formations, and a continental unit of probable Middle Jurassic age. Triassic sandstones were derived from a cratonic area, without the influence of arc volcanism. The sequences were affected by two phases of deformation. The Triassic formations are unconformably overlain by a continental volcano-sedimentary sequence that contains fragments of sandstones derived from the underlying unit. Sedimentologic characteristics of the Triassic unit fit a submarine fan model. The submarine fan developed at the continental margin of Pangaea during Triassic times. Turbidite associations in the San Rafael Area indicate a middle fan depositional environment, while in the Real de Catorce Area, they correspond to the distal part (basin plain facies). At La Ballena and Zacatecas the turbidite associations occur in the middle part and perhaps the external part of the fan.