Three-dimensional, geographic information system (GIS)-based, subsurface geologic models are becoming increasingly common tools for visualizing, evaluating, and managing subsurface resources. The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources Aquifer Mapping Program is developing 3D hydrogeologic-framework models of groundwater basins in New Mexico, including the Delaware Basin in southeastern NM. These models include a suite of geologic raster surfaces, geologic control points, aquifer boundaries, groundwater-level, water-depth, and water-quality data compiled in a readily available GIS map package. The result is a repository of pertinent shallow subsurface data for a given groundwater basin.
The Laramide orogeny was a mountain building event that affected the US western interior during the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene (approximately 90–45 million years ago). Many of the iconic mountains and major oil and gas producing intermontane basins of the Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau, such as the Wind River range in Wyoming and the San Juan Basin here in New Mexico, formed during this time as Earth’s crust was compressed. The Laramide orogeny remains a major point of controversy, as it is difficult to explain how tectonism proceeded so far into the North American plate.
