Paleoenvironment and depositional environment of Miocene Olcese Sand, Bakersfield, California
The Olcese Sand near Bakersfield, California, contains evidence of a range of paleoenvironments including nonmarine, estuarine, and outer shelf depositional settings. Foraminifera from surface and subsurface samples place the Olcese in the Saucesian and Relizian of the California benthic stages. A pumice bed in the Olcese has been dated by fission track methods at 15.5 Ma. The Olcese Sand interfingers with the underlying Freeman Silt and the overlying Round Mountain Silt. In the type area, in Round Mountain oil field, the Olcese is 300-360 m thick. The Olcese is subdivided into three environmental facies. In the Knob Hill Quadrangle, the lower Olcese consists of (1) thinly bedded to blocky white tuffaceous silt and sand, or (2) planar cross-bedded fine to coarse-grained sand with pumice pebbles lining the bedding surfaces. Fossil mollusks and skate teeth indicate a shallow marine environment for the lower Olcese. Although the Olcese is predominantly a marine unit, the middle Olcese is nonmarine, with lenses of marine deposition. The middle Olcese is well exposed in the Knob Hill, Oil Center, and Rio Bravo Ranch Quadrangles, and is characterized by fine to coarse sand with occasional gravel lenses, strong cross-bedding, and a blue-gray color. The upper Olcese is a very fine to medium-grained, marine sand that fines upward into a sandy siltstone southward toward the Kern River. Foraminifera and mollusks from outcrops in the Rio Bravo Ranch Quadrangle indicate outer shelf to estuarine environments for the upper Olcese. The varying environments in the Olcese Sand reflect slight but frequent fluctuations in water depth and can be used to interpret the basin-margin history.
- Research Organization:
- Stanford Univ., CA
- OSTI ID:
- 6931312
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8604187-
- Journal Information:
- Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States), Vol. 70:4; Conference: American Association of Petroleum Geologist Pacific Section convention, Bakersfield, CA, USA, 16 Apr 1986
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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