GETTING TO THE SOURCE - AEOLIAN INFLUX TO THE PERMIAN DELAWARE BASIN REGION

Although an aeolian origin for the siliciclastics of the Permian (Guad alupian) Delaware and adjacent basins and shelf has been recognized, t heir source has remained elusive. An Ancestral Rockies source to the w est and northwest has been traditionally favored. We propose instead t hat these sediments were derived from aeolian systems to the northeast and represented by the Whitehorse Group in the Anadarko Basin. This h ypothesis is based upon (1) recognition of the aeolian nature of the W hitehorse, (2) regional correlation of the Whitehorse Group with porti ons of the Artesia Group, (3) paleoclimatic model-predicted and measur ed southwestward sediment transport for the Whitehorse, and (4) a prop osed transport corridor over emergent mudflats along the northern marg ins of basins in the Texas Panhandle and onto the New Mexico shelf. Po tentially, a Whitehorse-Artesia link could show the formation of this mixed carbonate/siliciclastic system as the result of the interactions of diverse and distant environmental systems under eustatic and clima tic forcing factors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.