Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Ceja Del Rio Puerco: A Border Feature of the Basin and Range Province in New Mexico: I. Stratigraphy and Structure

1937; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 45; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/624608

1537-5269

Kirk Bryan, Franklin T. McCann,

Rangeland and Wildlife Management

The triangular highland known as the Llano de Albuquerque lies in Bernalillo and Valencia counties, New Mexico, between the Rio Grande and the Rio Puerco. Westward it breaks off in a low escarpment called the Ceja del Rio Puerco, which in part forms the western boundary of the Basin and Range Province. The northern 30 miles of the Ceja is a fault-line scarp which marks a series of nearly north-south en echelon faults between the late Tertiary Santa Fe formation and the older rocks of the Plateau Province. Part I.-The Santa Fe consists of fine-grained, alluvial fan deposits. Part of the material was derived from areas of volcanic rocks, but the major portion of it came from the sedimentary rocks of the Plateau Province to the northwest. The boundary of the basin of deposition lay some 10 miles or more northwestward. Ten miles east of this area the Santa Fe consists of river gravel, indicating that the fan deposits were laid down in the western portion of a basin containing a through-flowing river comparable to the present Rio Grande. Four main faults or fault zones, successively offset to the west, separate the Santa Fe from the older rocks. In addition, there are three fault zones within the Santa Fe. Because the Santa Fe is here divisible into three lithologic units, Lower Gray, Middle Red, and Upper Buff members, it has been possible to estimate the minimum throw of these faults and to speculate on the amount of depression of the basin as a result of this faulting.