Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Publication Date

6-1967

Abstract

The Cerro Pelon-Arroyo de la Jara area is a north-northwesterly plunging syncline at the southern end of the Española basin. Exposed rock units consist of more than 5,000 feet of Mesozoic and Cenozoic shale and sandstone intruded by Oligocene diorite sills and andesite and latite dikes related to the Ortiz intrusive center to the west.

The syncline is affected by several fault systems with both normal and strike-slip movement represented. Northerly trending faults of the east limb combine with a monoclinal flexure to produce an over-all lowering of the section to the west. These faults appear to be related to late Tertiary downfaulting of the Española basin. The Tijeras-San Pedro-Los Angeles fault system is represented in several N. 45 E.-trending faults, down to the northwest or with left-slip. This recurring fault system may have been active throughout much of the Tertiary.

Two unusual structural features are found at, or near, the core of the Galisteo syncline. The first is a right-slip fault of three-quarters of a mile displacement. No other Tertiary faults of this nature have been described in this general area and a through explanation for its origin is not evident.

The second unusual feature consists of several domal or anticlinal structures in the core of the Galisteo syncline which resulted from diapiric movement of Cretaceous shale into the overlying Galisteo Formation. Miocene-Pliocene folding of the Galisteo syncline produced compression in the sediments above an easterly trending igneous mass. The stress was relieved by mobilization and upward movement of the shale.

The limbs of the Galisteo syncline were not formed entirely contemporaneously. Oligocene intrusion in the San Pedro-Ortiz Porphyry belt elevated that area and formed part of the west limb. Uplift of the Glorieta Mesa blocking beginning in the Miocene time produced the east limb and both were accentuated by Late Pliocene (?) faulting along the Rio Grande depression.

Degree Name

Earth and Planetary Sciences

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

First Committee Member (Chair)

Vincent Cooper Kelley

Second Committee Member

J. Paul Fitzsimmons

Third Committee Member

Lee A. Woodward

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

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