JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH,VOL. 75, NO. 3, MAY, 2005, P. 440–453 Copyright 2005, SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) 1527-1404/05/075-440/$03.00 DOI 10.2110/jsr.2005.034 SEDIMENTOLOGY, STRATIGRAPHIC ARCHITECTURE, AND ICHNOLOGY OF GRAVITY-FLOW DEPOSITS PARTIALLY PONDED IN A GROWTH-FAULT-CONTROLLED SLOPE MINIBASIN, TRES PASOS FORMATION (CRETACEOUS), SOUTHERN CHILE MICHAEL R. SHULTZ* AND STEPHEN M. HUBBARD Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, U.S.A. e-mail: stevehub@pangea.stanford.edu FIG. 1.—A) Satellite image of the Ultima Esperanza District study area, southern Chile, including the location of the Tres Pasos Formation outcrop belt. Star in inset map shows the location of the study area in southern South America. 1 = Torres del Paine National Park; 2 = El Chingue Bluff; 3 = Cerro Solitario; 4 = Village of Cerro Castillo. B) Upper Cretaceous stratigraphy in the study area (compiled in part from Katz 1963; Natland et al. 1974; Wilson 1991; Fildani et al. 2003). ABSTRACT: A recent resurgence in the study of slope deposits is strongly related to the complexity inherent with the depositional set- ting, and the continued prospectivity for hydrocarbons in associated units. Intraslope basins are particularly intriguing to explorationists, because they provide accommodation space for coarse-grained facies * Present address: ChevronTexaco Energy Technology Company, 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd., San Ramon, California 94583, U.S.A. in areas often characterized by otherwise muddy deposits. An out- standing outcrop of a growth-fault-controlled slope minibasin and its sandy fill are exposed in Cretaceous strata of southern Chile. A turbiditic sandstone package (TSP) 60 m thick sharply overlies fine-grained deposits of the Cerro Toro Formation, and defines the base of the Tres Pasos Formation in the study area, 65 km north of Puerto Natales, Chile. Individual sedimentation units are rarely amal- gamated, and are tabular for at least hundreds of meters, suggesting