
The Eastern Venezuela Basin is major
sedimentary basin
Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock They form when long-term subsidence ...
in northeastern
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
that contains copious
petroleum reserves
Oil and gas reserves denote ''discovered'' quantities of crude oil and natural gas from known fields that can be profitably produced/recovered from an approved development. Oil and gas reserves tied to approved operational plans filed on the da ...
. The basin lies between several geological structures. To the south it bounds
Guiana Shield
The Guiana Shield (; ; ; ) is one of the three cratons of the South American Plate. It is a 1.7 billion-year-old Precambrian geological formation in northeast South America that forms a portion of the northern coast. The higher elevations on ...
, to the north
metamorphic rock
Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...
s of the easternmost
Andes
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...
, to the west the
Espino Graben, to the northeast the
Barbados
Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...
accretionary complex
An accretionary wedge or accretionary prism forms from sediments Accretion (geology), accreted onto the non-Subduction, subducting tectonic plate at a Convergent boundary, convergent plate boundary. Most of the material in the accretionary wedge ...
and to the east it bounds to the
oceanic crust
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramaf ...
of the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
.
References
Further reading
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{{Sedimentary basins of Venezuela
Geology of Trinidad and Tobago
Geology of Venezuela
Geography of Monagas
Geography of Delta Amacuro
Sedimentary basins of Venezuela