Amanda
BakerSequence
stratigraphy has been
well documented as the best approach to placing depositional facies
into a
chronostratigraphic framework and to link these systems with global
climate and
sea level records. In addition,
sequence stratigraphy provides a tool for understanding the response of
the
changes in geometry and architecture of coastal plain and shoreline
depositional systems to relative changes in sea level.
The upper Miocene, Pliocene, and
Pleistocene deposits in the subsurface of the central coastal plain of
Texas
have been subdivided into several lithostratigraphic formations, each
of which
records a major depositional episode in the Tertiary Gulf Coast Basin. The Goliad Formation, which to date has been
studied very extensively as a hydrologic feature since it encompasses a
part of
the Evangeline Aquifer, supplies the only fresh water source to a
significantly
large population of the Texas coastal plain.
In addition, it records one of the most dominant depositional
events in
the upper Tertiary rock record. The
Goliad Formation has not been described in detail sedimentologically or
placed
in a sequence stratigraphic context.
This study will provide an extensive facies analysis, and a
sequence
stratigraphic interpretation (petrographic analysis) of the Goliad
Formation
and the overlying Willis and Lissie Formations and the underlying
Fleming and
Oakville Formations. This will facilitate
the development of a complete depositional and sequence stratigraphic
model for
the upper Tertiary of the lower Texas Gulf Coast.
This study will provide a
stratigraphic framework for shoreline facies analysis of the upper
Tertiary
depositional systems and create a sedimentological and sequence
stratigraphic
model that will greatly improve our understanding of the Tertiary
evolution of
the Texas Gulf Coast. In addition, this
upper Tertiary stratigraphic model will provide a depositional and
stratigraphic
framework for use in future investigations of the hydrologic properties
of this
major Gulf Coast aquifer.