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Stratigraphy and tectonic implications of Paleogene strata in the Laramide Galisteo Basin, north-central New Mexico

1997; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.58799/nmg-v19n4.89

2837-6420

Spencer G. Lucas, Steven M. Cather, John C. Abbott, Thomas E. Williamson,

Archaeology and Natural History

We exclude the lower 0- 442 m from the Galisteo Formation and identify it as a new, unconformity-bounded stratigraphic unit, the Diamond Tail Formation. The Diamond Tail Formation is dominantly coarse-grained subarkosic to arkosic sandstone and conglomeratic sandstone with lesser amounts of drab, green, gray, and maroon mudstone. It crops out in north-central New Mexico in the Hagan Basin and the Madrid-CerrillosGalisteo area where it unconformably overlies Upper Cretaceous strata of the Mesaverde Group and is unconformably overlain by l ower Eoce ne re d- be d strata of the Galisteo Formation. The index fossil Hyracotherium sp. establishes the Wasatchian (late Paleocene-early Eocene) age of the upper part of the Diamond Tail Formation. The Diamond Tail Formation is tentatively correlated with the Cuba Mesa and Regina Members of the San Jose Formation and appears to record an early phase of Laramide trans-tensional subsidence in the Galisteo Basin.