Date of Award

Spring 1993

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Ocean & Earth Sciences

Program/Concentration

Geology

Committee Director

Dennis A. Darby

Committee Member

G. Richard Whittecar

Committee Member

Stephen J. Culver

Abstract

Petrographic and sedimentologic analyses of eleven shallow subsurface cores (3 to 19 meters in length) from the Lucayan Limestone where it occurs along northeastern Great Abaco Island (little Bahama Bank) are used to delineate five carbonate lithofacies. The most prevalent lithofacies is a mottled, nonskeletal, peloidal packstone to grainstone. Other lithofacies include a rudstone, a laminated nonskeletal grainstone, a crossbedded grainstone and a mudstone-wackestone.

Cementation varies from poor to very well cemented core intervals. Cements observed included equant granular, equant blocky, drusy, meniscus, and needle fiber "whisker" cements. These cements reflect a variety of diagenetic environments such as the vadose, meteoric, and phreatic zones. It is not possible to use the cement types to define past sea level positions. However, the cement types indicate periods of subaerial exposure that may have been a result of sea level fluctuations.

The near surface carbonates of northeastern Great Abaco Island can be correlated with the upper Lucayan Limestone found on Little Bahama Bank, northwestern Great Bahama Bank and in the southeastern Bahamas

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DOI

10.25777/brsk-ve26

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