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Mineral resource potential of the Bisti (NM-010-057), De-na-zin (NM-010-004), and Ah-shi-sle-pah (NM-010-009) Wilderness Study Areas, San Juan County, New Mexico

1983; United States Department of the Interior; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3133/ofr83889

2332-4899

A.M. Bielski, J.L. Brown, J.R. Hassemer,

Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping

The noncontiguous Bisti, De-na-zin, and Ah-shi-sle-pah Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) are in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico.Each of the three areas has a high resource potential for coal, a high resource potential for oil and gas, and an unknown potential for uranium.Identified resources (includes demonstrated and inferred reserves) of low-sulfur subbituminous coal that can be mined by surface or underground methods occur in the Upper Cretaceous Fruitland Formation in all three study areas; the identified resources of coal in the Bisti area are 186 million tons, in the De-na-zin area 440.7 million tons, and in the Ah-shi-sle-pah area 399.4 million tons.Royalties due the Federal Government, if coal is produced, are expected to be $396 million, $213 million, and $510 million, respectively.Coal also occurs in the deeper Upper Cretaceous Menefee Formation in the three areas, but reserve estimates for this coal cannot be made because of inadequate information.Cretaceous and older sedimentary rocks that produce large quantities of oil and gas in nearby parts of the San Juan Basin also underlie each of the Wilderness Study Areas.Drilling has not adequately tested these rocks in all the study areas, but production and shows of oil and gas from some wells and the projected stratigraphic distribution of producing sandstone lenses indicate that all the areas have a high resource potential for oil and gas.The Morrison Formation of Jurassic age, which has the rich sandstone-type uranium deposits in the Grants, New Mexico, area to the south, occurs at a depth of about 5,000 ft in the study areas.Because of the lack of exploratory drilling information on the possible uranium-bearing rocks, the Wilderness Study Areas are classified as having an unknown mineral resource potential for uranium.