CORRELATION OF MIOCENE STRATA ON THE SUBMARINE ST-CROIX RIDGE AND ONLAND ST-CROIX, US VIRGIN-ISLANDS

The nannofossils of an hydraulic piston core from the steep scarp between the St. Croix Ridge and Virgin Islands Basin were restudied. Formerly thought to represent a Pliocene debris flow, we interpret it as an early Miocene (NN1/2) hemipelagic deposit. We correlate the seismic unit sampled by piston core with the Kingshill-Jealousy Formation present on St. Croix. These sediments likely belong to an extensive, thick, deep marine cover of the St. Croix Ridge, deposited on a metamorphic-igneous basement between early Eocene and early Miocene time. Faulting did not evidently affect this sediment cover until the late Neogene.