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Armendaris Ranch

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Figure 1: Recent playa sediments in Red Lake looking southwest at the southern portion of the Fra Cristobal Range.
(click for a larger version)
2025 Photo by Jon Krupnick
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Figure 2: A breakfast of smoked salmon, oatmeal, and tea on a frosty morning in the Jornada del Muerto.
2025 Photo by Jon Krupnick
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Figure 3: A small outcrop of the late-Pleistocene basaltic Jornada del Muerto lava flow partially buried by tan windblown sands.
Photo by Jon Krupnick
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Figure 4: A profile view of a soil profile exposed in an arroyo cut of an alluvial fan. ‘petrocalcic’ soils such as these are useful for determining the relative age of young geologic deposits.
2025 Photo by Jon Krupnick

By Jon Krupnick, Field Geologist

Armendaris Ranch
January 24, 2025

The Quaternary geology of the Jornada del Muerto basin on the east side of the Fra Cristobal Range is characterized by lava flows, sand dunes, alluvial fans, and low-gradient drainages feeding into a succession of playa lake deposits. Generous permission from the Armendaris Ranch has allowed the mapping program to assess the geologic history of this area. The field geologist mapping this quadrangle is especially interested in how these deposits relate to differences in erosion on the east and west side of the mountain range and how that erosion is controlled by tectonic faults and tributaries of the Rio Grande.