A STRUCTURAL INTERPRETATION OF THE GALEOTA RIDGE
by Victor Young On



STRUCTURE
The Galeota Ridge is located offshore the southeastern tip of Trinidad. it is a ENE-WSW trending anticline approximately 3 km wide and 25 km in length. The anticline is an offshore extension of the Southern Range Uplift.
Seismic evidence indicates that the structure was formed by compressive wrench movement along the offshore extension of the Marcel Fault. The uplift is generated by a Flower structure fault system associated with the Marcel Fault. The anticline is further dissected and displaced by an antithetic left lateral wrench and a synthetic right lateral wrench resulting from bends in the Marcel through-going fault. The structure is further complicated by depositional normal faulting trending NW-SE. The normal faults are being sustained by depositional loading to the southwest of the Galeota Ridge. The anticline is even further complicated by a basement detached thrust sheet which parallels the Marcel Fault and which produces further uplift on the northern flank of the anticline.
The result of all this faulting is a complex, very faulted and somewhat sinuous anticlinal structure.
CONCLUSIONS
(1) Lateral movement along the South Caribbean Plate appears to be occurring along faults like the Marcel Fault.
(2) The Marcel Fault system is continuous with the Los Bajos Fault system and suggests a genetic model for movement along the South Caribbean margin.

(3) Movement is taking place along several strike slip systems simultaneously.
(4) Bends in the wrench system account for formation of synthetic and antithetic faults, and is perhaps, the triggering mechanism for seismicity in the offshore East Coast of Trinidad.
(5) Uplift of the Galeota Anticline probably began in early Pliocene, since the wrench would have provided the feeder path for hydrocarbons in early Pliocene sands in the Galeota structure.


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