Bureau of Geology News

The Association of American State Geologists awarded the Bureau's publication, Memoir 50: Energy and Mineral Resources in New Mexico the 2018 Charles J. Mankin Memorial Award at the annual GSA conference in Indiana,Tuesday Nov. 6, 2018. The Award is given each year to a nominated geological map, compilation, or report on regional, energy, or mineral resource geology published in the current year or one of the three preceding calendar years by a state geological survey.

On May 18, 2018, the U.S. Department of Interior published the final list of 35 critical minerals after reviewing 453 public comments. Many of these critical minerals are found in New Mexico.

This study continues work done in the Animas Valley in Northwestern New Mexico over the past two years that aims to: (1) increase our understanding of geochemical processes related to existing inorganic contamination (i.e. metals) in the Animas River shallow aquifer with implications for potential contamination from specific sources, including the Gold King Mine (GKM) spill, and (2) monitor groundwater conditions to assess contamination due to the GKM spill and historical mining impacts.

A uranium research team from New Mexico Tech and the University of New Mexico has been given a great opportunity to showcase its work with an exhibit, which opened this month, at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque. The exhibit “What’s up with U?” includes substantial input from Bureau of Geology scientists Bonnie Frey and Virginia McLemore and was funded through Energize New Mexico, a National Science Foundation program (NM EPSCoR)

NASA has been using the Rio Grande Gorge area in Taos County for geology training since the Apollo missions in the 1960s. Since 1998, the New Mexico Bureau of Geology has assisted NASA with the training program. The 14-member astronaut class of 2017 will travel to the BLM Wild Rivers Recreation Area in June of 2018 for four days of intensive earth science education, including geologic mapping [read more]...

The NM Bureau of Geology was successful in getting an award from the STATEMAP component of the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program for the FY19 state budget year. The competitive program requires a 50/50 match with state funds and New Mexico remains one of the top ranked geological surveys in the nation for getting this award. With this funding, our mapping program will continue with geologic mapping efforts in 5 high priority areas within the state, including the Rio Chama basin near Abiquiu, Rio Puerco west of Albuquerque, San Marcial basin North of T or C, east of Las Cruces, and along the Rio Pecos south of Carlsbad.

This funding will help us to convert maps to GeMs format, scan historical mine records, and digitize images of petrographic slides.

This project entails making a structural contour map of various hydrostratigraphic units within the Santa Fe Group for the northern Española Basin. It is a continuation of the geologic model made for the central-southern Española Basin (Cole et al., 2010).

This well attended event honored Trudy and Ed Healy for their support of groundwater research in New Mexico, and was covered by local television news stations.

New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources scientists Bruce Allen and Dave Love are both co-authors on a "Science Advances" paper titled "Footprints preserve terminal Pleistocene hunt? Human-sloth interactions in North America". The work describes interactions between early humans and sloths, based on studies of 10,000 to 15,000 year old footprints at White Sands National Monument, and documents that humans hunted, or at least harassed, now-extinct giant ground sloth in the terminal Pleistocene. The New Yorker Magazine produced a nice summary of the scientific article, with an artist's impression of humans hunting a giant ground sloth.