A Petrographic Investigation of the Windsor Formation, St. Ann's Basin: Implications Concerning the Cretaceous Tectonic History of Northern Jamaica

Abstract

The Windsor Formation, in north-central Jamaica, crops out as a 1000ft (380m) sequence of terrigenous sandstones, shales and micritic limestones extending into the subsurface for over 290m. The Windsor Formation represents deposition of a deep sea fan into the St. Ann's Basin during the late Cretaceious formation of the island of Jamaica. Deposition occurred in cycles. Each cycle is composed of a basal conglomerate layer containing cobble-sized clasts. which fines upward into sandstone, then shales and micritic limestones. These cycles may represent the avulsion of submarine fan channels. Paleocurrent analysis reveals the direction of sediment transport to be to the northeast.