INCORPORATING DENUDATION RATES INTO UPLIFT ALONG THE CENTRAL RANGE FAULT SYSTEM, TRINIDAD

Trinidad, an island located off the northern coast of Venezuela, is a center for oil and gas companies, especially in the Central Range fault system. Recent research into this area has found that there is a young, actively converging boundary between the Caribbean and South American plates. The boundary undergoes transpression, which is a strike-slip deformation that deviates from purely transcurrent plate motion because the relative plate motion vectors are not parallel to the plate boundary itself. The transpressional system was simplified into a two dimensional numerical model of the convergent component of deformation and the subsequent isostatic response. This model predicts both the depth of crustal root development and the amount of uplift along the boundary. The model did not account for erosion and therefore produced unreasonably high elevations when applied to the Central Range fault system in Trinidad. Landscape analysis using ArcGIS and digital elevation models allows for the calculation of erosion rates for this area. Application of these erosion rates to the previously developed transpressional model allows for exhumation rates along the Central Range fault system to be estimated. The value of this model is that it converts uplift rates into exhumation rates, a value that can be tested using methods such as apatite fission track dating. Furthermore, a better understanding of the exhumation history of the Central Range may provide insights into the timing and style of trap development in the petroleum bearing units in central Trinidad.