The nature of the basement underneath the Monagas foothills and the Serrania del Interior of the Eastern Venezuela Basin is unknown. It could consist of crystalline Precambrian, Paleozoic sedimentary rocks and/or Jurassic rocks deposited in half grabens. Alternative structural interpretations across the Monagas foothills range from basement-involved to non-basement-involved decollement tectonics. These hypotheses imply varying amounts of shortening along the Serrania to Foreland transect ranging from 15 to 115 km oblique component of the El Pilar fault. The foreland-verging thrust system appears to be "in sequence". In the Monagas foothills earlier decollements at the base of the Miocene are responsible for the formation of a complex accretionary wedge. The deeper structures of the Monagas foothills involve the Mesozoic which was thrusted following the emplacement of the Carapita accretionary wedge. Apparent "out of sequence" are due to the interference of late deeper structures with the earlier structures of the accretionary wedge.