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.
The main objective of this study is to examine hydrogeologic processes in Snowy River Passage by analysis of individual flood events. For a specific flood event, we will measure:
The volume of water that infiltrates downward through the Snowy River streambed
The volume of water that evaporates from the Snowy River stream
The volume of water that discharges at Government Spring
Geologists and hydrologists have been interested in basin-fill sediments of the Engle and Palomas Basins in Sierra County since the early 1900s. These Rio Grande rift basins contain packages of sediment shed from the surrounding uplifts over the last ~27,000,000 years. Well logs indicate that these basin-fill deposits, named the Santa Fe Group, are as much as 2 kilometers thick in places.
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 characterization of the Placitas area hydrology in the late-1990s was an important step for water resource planning and development. Local water levels were declining due to increased population and demand on groundwater supplies, with drought conditions in the mid-1990s. The Bureau of Geology initiated a study in 1997 to characterize the availability and quality of groundwater and surface water resources in the Placitas area. Findings were interpreted with detailed geologic maps and cross sections that supported a hydrogeologic conceptual model of groundwater flow and occurrence. The study was completed in 2002 and has been incorporated into the Placitas Area Development Plan by Sandoval County.
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 objective of the study was to characterize and interpret the shallow (to a depth of approximately 5,000 ft) three-dimensional geology and preliminary hydrogeology of the Questa area. The focus of this report is to compile existing geologic and geophysical data, integrate new geophysical data, and interpret these data to construct three, detailed geologic cross sections across the Questa area. These cross sections can be used by the Village of Questa to make decisions about municipal water-well development, and can be used in the future to help in the development of a conceptual model of groundwater flow for the Questa area. Attached to this report are a location map, a preliminary geologic map and unit descriptions, tables of water wells and springs used in the study, and three detailed hydrogeologic cross sections shown at two different vertical scales. The locations of the cross sections are shown on the index map of the cross section sheet.
The depositional age of the Gatuña Formation in the Pecos Valley of southeastern New Mexico is poorly constrained, with estimates that vary from as old ca. 13 Ma at its base to as young as ca. 100 ka at its highest levels. As part of geologic mapping program efforts, we are applying detrital sanidine Ar-Ar geochronology and detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology to more tighlty bound the depositional age and duration of these alluvial deposits and their context within the late Cenozoic paleo-landscape of the ancestral Pecos River.
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!
The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources has a long history of conducting and supporting hydrogeologic investigations in the Estancia Basin of central New Mexico (selected references below). A compilation by R.E. Smith of the U.S. Geological Survey was published by the Bureau of Geology (then the NM Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources) as part of its Groundwater Report series in the 1950s, and remains an important reference. The report by F.B. Titus, which encompasses the greater East Mountain area (including the northwestern side of Estancia Basin), was published as a Bureau of Geology Hydrologic Report and is another important source of information concerning groundwater availability and quality. During the 1980s, Bureau of Geology geologists conducted a variety of field studies that led to New Mexico’s proposal to have the federally funded superconducting super collider (SSC) constructed in this state. Although the SSC project was focused primarily on engineering geology, it resulted in the acquisition of data from shallow borings, trench studies, and geophysical investigations, and pulled together information from a variety of sources.
