The East Mountains area, east of Albuquerque NM, is geologically complex. Nine STATEMAP quadrangles are being compiled together to create a geologic map of this important area.
The San Juan Basin, an important source of oil and gas located in northwestern New Mexico, has recently experienced renewed production from the Cretaceous Mancos Shale through the use of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing. The Bureau of Land Management commissioned this study of the possible impacts of new exploration and development of this resource on the land surface and on the groundwater supply.
The Hillsboro district, in central New Mexico, is an example of the typical geologic style of the development of Laramide porphyry copper deposits in southwestern United States. Porphyry copper deposits form from hydrothermal fluids that come from a magmatic source, generally a volcano. The copper is concentrated first by magmatic-hydrothermal processes, then copper can be further concentrated by later supergene fluids, typically meteoric waters. Porphyry copper deposits typically are large deposits and are mined mostly by open pit methods and can have by-product production of gold, silver, molybdenum, and other metals. Other types of deposits, such as skarns and polymetallic veins can occur near the porphyry copper deposits. Much of the world's copper is produced from porphyry copper deposits.
A team of scientists from the Bureau of Geology has spent many Antarctic summers sampling layers of volcanic ash trapped between layers of ice to learn about climate conditions that existed at the time of the ice deposition. While the volcanic ash can be dated to constrain the time of deposition, oxygen isotope signatures in the ice reveal clues about temperatures that existed as the layers were deposited.
Currently seeking a graduate student to work on minor mid-Cenozoic igneous occurrences in eastern New Mexico, which form a patchy discontinuous belt representing the most distal periphery of Cordilleran magmatism emplaced approximately 50-200 km east of the closest major alkaline magmatic centers. They have received little attention and present excellent opportunities for exciting fieldwork, novel research, and impactful student mentorship. Initial reconnaissance of these igneous rocks is building towards holistic studies addressing basic aspects of these occurrences through mapping, petrography, geochemistry, and geochronology. This work will lead to bigger questions on the relationship between these peripheral intrusions and more major alkaline magmatic centers, exhumation and heat flow histories recorded in these rocks, and significance for tectonics of paleo-plate dynamics of the SW US Cordilleran margin!
A variety of geological studies involving Upper Paleozoic strata, conducted during the mid-twentieth century, produced a preliminary stratigraphic nomenclature for Carboniferous and Permian sedimentary rocks in New Mexico, and a general understanding of the lithostratigraphy, age and distribution of these rock units. Ongoing investigations by geologists from the NMBGMR, universities, museums, and industry are aimed at refining this understanding. For example, strata pertaining to the Pennsylvanian System are often poorly delineated and/or subdivided on geologic maps, due in large part to their lithostratigraphic complexity and a loosely defined stratigraphic nomenclature. Progress has been made during the past 15 years toward improving the stratigraphic nomenclature for Upper Paleozoic strata in New Mexico, and documenting stratigraphic patterns, both of which should provide a better foundation for ongoing and future studies of these rocks.
The Jemez Mountains volcanic field, in northwestern New Mexico, has been active for at least the past 16.5 million years, and has produced a large number of explosive and effusive volcanic eruptions during that time. Volcanic ash from the Jemez Mountains volcanic field provides a temporal record of the young eruptions from the caldera and many such deposits have been recognized in a number locations in New Mexico. The ash is present as thick deposits near the eruptive source, and as thinner deposits interbedded in ancestral Rio Grande river sediments at greater distances from the vent.
The southern Española Basin, in the Santa Fe region, was the focus of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary hydrogeologic study by the Aquifer Mapping Program, in collaboration with the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer (NMOSE), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other agencies. The purpose of this study was to improve the understanding of the water resources within the basin, which serves as the primary source of drinking water for most of the area’s population.
We began working in Peña Blanca in March 2016 at the request of the NM Environment Department (NMED). The goal was to understand the local hydrogeology of Peña Blanca in order to make a recommendation for an area to place a new well. The need for a new well was highlighted by the discovery of solid waste, a hydraulic fluid tank and a diesel tank immediately adjacent to but on different property than the current municipal well.
Directly dating the timing of deformation remains a challenging task. An ongoing collaboration seeks to establish U-Pb dating of titanite grains involved in ductile deformation as a promising new deformation chronometer by applying this technique to Laramide-age shear zones in Joshua Tree National Park.
