New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

ExploraLion for hydrocarbons in southwestern New Mexico has been encouraged because of the stratigraphic similarities of the Paleozoic section with that of the Permian Basin and of the Lower Cretaceous section with that of the western Gulf Basin. Advocacy of large-scale thrusting into the Deming area during the past decade further increased exploration activity. Upper Paleozoic and Cretaceous rock sections are thin or missing on the northwest-trending Burro-Florida. Uplift through central Luna and southwestern Grant Counties. Recent studies indicate that the thicknesses of upper Paleozoic and Lower Cretaceous rocks increase rapidly off the southwest flank of the uplift. These rocks, and probably some Upper Cretaceous shales (lower Ringbone or Colorado Shale) underlie parts of southwest Luna, Grant, and Hidalgo Counties. Laramide deformation appears to have offset these potential source and reservoir rocks in a series of northwest-trending, en echelon(?) basins and basement-cored uplifts, with small-scale thrusting on the flanks and possibly some wrench-fault components. Basin and Range deformation produced a series of crosscutting, north-trending fault-block basins and uplifts. The combined Laramide and Basin and Range deformations thus dissected southwestern New Mexico into a "skewed checkerboard arrangement" of blocks. Successful hydrocarbon exploration needs to locate the thick Paleozoic-Cretaceous sections preserved by subsidence during both tectonic episodes, away from the numerous centers of igneous activity.