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This bulletin synthesizes 177 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and 54 radiocarbon dates, as well as detailed sediment size and chemical signature data, to document the history of eolian sand deposition during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in southeastern New Mexico. The authors use this history, which is based on 20 years of field observations, to assess the preservation potential of archeological sites in this area. The bulletin is richly illustrated with photographs and figures that clearly tell the story of unearthing discoveries that were previously hidden beneath the shifting sands of southeastern New Mexico.

The interior of this mug has a reproduction of our Resource Map-23: Satellite Image of New Mexico. The front of the mug says "New Mexic Bureau of Geology" with a graphic depicting City of Rocks State Park near Deming, New Mexico.

This calendar highlights photographs from the fine amateur photographers on staff at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology. We hold an annual internal contest, and the winning images are used for our calendar. These images were taken throughout the state, and most are geologically themed.

This set of 8 postcards highlight flourites found throughout New Mexico. Each variety was photographed by Jeff Scovil. Send these back to your mineral collecting friends when you are on your next rock hounding adventure.

Are you looking for the perfect New Mexico-themed gift to give your favorite geologist (even if that geologist is you)? If so, check out these sizzling socks, featuring a map of the Valles Caldera! The caldera formed during two volcanic super-eruptions that took place 1.6 and 1.2 million years ago and were so powerful that erupted ash is found in Kansas, Utah and Wyoming!

This boxed set of six volumes provides the most comprehensive and extensive review of New Mexico’s energy and mineral resources to-date. Each volume focuses on the geologic nature of the resource, the history of the resource development in New Mexico, and their importance to the world and New Mexico’s economy. Written by New Mexico’s own experts in the fields, this set covers energy resources of petroleum, natural gas, coal, uranium, and geothermal, along with the resources of metals and industrial minerals and rocks.

This memoir is published jointly by the New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources and the New Mexico Geological Society.

Energy and Mineral Resources of New Mexico, NMBGMR, Memoir 50 and NMGS Special Publication 13 (six-volume boxed set)

A: Petroleum Geology — Ronald F. Broadhead

B: Coal Resources — Gretchen K. Hoffman

C: Uranium Resources — Virginia T. McLemore and William L. Chenoweth

D: Metallic Mineral Deposits — Virginia T. McLemore and Virgil W. Lueth

E: Industrial Minerals and Rocks — Virginia T. McLemore and George S. Austin

F: Overview of the Valles Caldera (Baca) Geothermal System — Fraser Goff and Cathy J. Goff

Mirror Lake, one of seven sinkhole lakes, or cenotes, in Bottomless Lakes State Park, is located at the downgradient end of the regional hydrologic system in the Roswell Artesian Basin. Recharge to the artesian aquifer occurs on the Pecos Slope west of Roswell by direct infiltration from precipitation and by runoff from intermittent losing streams flowing eastward across the San Andres limestone outcrop. Groundwater flows east and south, then upward through leaky overlying gypsum confining beds of the Seven Rivers Formation in the Pecos River Valley, where the potentiometric surface in the artesian aquifer is above ground level. Dissolution of gypsum beds caused by this upward artesian flow created and continues to enlarge the cenotes along the Seven Rivers Escarpment. Overflow from Lea Lake, the southernmost and largest of the Bottomless Lakes sinkholes, amounts to roughly 15,000 acre-ft/yr and has caused an expansion of wetlands to the west, which are now hydraulically connected to the Pecos River, resulting in a net gain in streamflow and an increase in salinity in the river downstream from the park.

The gentle eastward regional dip of the area is locally reversed along the escarpment, where strata of the Seven Rivers Formation dip abruptly southwest by as much as 40°. This local dip reversal, clearly visible in the walls of Mirror Lake, is probably not tectonic but the result of subsurface dissolution of gypsum by ascending artesian groundwater and consequent slumping of overlying beds.

There are two versions of this guidebook available, the complete guidebook (152 pages), and a version with just the road logs that is spiral bound (76 pages).

The Valles caldera, located in the heart of the Jemez Mountains in north-central New Mexico, is the world’s premier example of a resurgent caldera, a giant circular volcano with an uplifted central floor and a near-perfect ring of roughly 15 postcaldera lava dome and flow eruptions.

This new Valles caldera map and cross sections represent the cumulative research efforts of countless geologists over the past 40 years, and several state and federal agencies. GM–79 compiles detailed geologic mapping completed in the past eight years from parts of the nine 7.5–min USGS topographic quadrangles that encompass the caldera. More than 150 map units are described in detail. Also incorporated are new geochronologic data and recent refinements to nomenclature.

Available folded or rolled (additional charge of $5.00 for rolled).
$18.95 plus $6.50 for shipping and handling and 5% gross receipts tax for NM residents.

There is also a bandana and puzzle version of this geologic map available.

Earth is warming in response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Global climate models project an average temperature increase across New Mexico of 5° to 7° F over the next 50 years. Other primary impacts are decreased water supply (partly driven by thinner snowpacks and earlier spring melting), lower soil moisture levels, increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, and increased competition and demand for scarce water resources. Snowpack and associated runoff are projected to decline substantially over the next 50 years, generating diminished headwater streamflow. Flow in the state's major rivers is projected to decline by 16% to 28%, and the frequency of extreme precipitation events, coupled with fire-driven disruption of vegetation in watersheds, is projected to at least double river sediment. The impacts of climate change on New Mexico's water resources are overwhelmingly negative.

The bulletin, which is the scientific foundation upon which New Mexico's 50-Year Water Plan is based, represents a compilation, assessment and integration of existing peer-reviewed published research, technical reports and datasets relevant to the broad topic of changes to New Mexico climate over the next 50 years, and resultant impact on water resources. This project, also known as the "Leap Ahead" analysis, also identifies significant data and modeling gaps and uncertainties, and suggests research directions to strengthen our understanding of climate and water resource changes

This report describes the geology of six 7.5—minute quadrangles—Mesa del Yeso (Cather et al., 2004), Sierra de la Cruz (Cather et al., 2012), Loma de las Cañas (Cather and Colpitts, 2005), Bustos Well (Cather et al., 2014), San Antonio (Cather, 2002), and Cañon Agua Buena (Cather et al., 2007). These geologic quadrangles encompass about 950 km2 in what is known as the Quebradas region—the eastern part of the Socorro Basin and its uplifted eastern rift flank. The name Quebradas is short for las tierras quebradas—Spanish for "the broken lands." An apt physiographic description, the name is also appropriate in a geologic sense; the area is one of the most stratigraphically diverse and structurally complex in New Mexico.

Exposed rocks are of Proterozoic, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Middle and Late Triassic, Late Jurassic, Late Cretaceous, Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary age. Tectonic episodes recorded in the study area include Proterozoic plutonism and deformation, Pennsylvanian (Ancestral Rocky Mountain) and Late Cretaceous-middle Eocene (Laramide) dextral-oblique contraction, middle Eocene—middle Miocene top-east detachment faulting, and Neogene-Quaternary rift-related extension. The structural geology of the Quebradas region is complex. Structures include (1) Laramide west-up reverse faults and associated fault-propagation folds, fault-bend folds, and monoclines; (2) northeast-striking zones of dextral Laramide strike-slip faults with linking contractile and extensional step-overs; (3) a regional middle Eocene to middle Miocene, top-east decollement developed mostly within the gypsiferous upper Yeso Group that is associated with splay faults and rollover anticlines in its hanging wall; and (4) Neogene and Quaternary normal faults related to rifting. The report also contains chapters on two mining districts (Socorro and Chupadero) and two coal fields (Carthage and Jornada del Muerto) that are present in the Quebradas region.