Subsurface geology and related hydrologic conditions, Santa Fe embayment and contiguous areas, New Mexico
— Grant, Philip R., Jr.

The Santa Fe embayment, a structural element of the Rio Grande rift-related Española basin, is the site of substantial new development, population growth and burgeoning demand on ground-water resources. Within or bounding the Española basin are four major related geohydrologic components with unique structural and stratigraphic attributes. These components are uplifts, deep rift basins, and the northern and southern Santa Fe embayments. Sediments of the Tesuque and Ancha formations are the primary aquifer containing large volumes of fresh ground-water that supply or supplement water use for the region's inhabitants. These syn-rift deposits, part of the Santa Fe Group, are hydraulically connected and generally constitute a superior unconfined aquifer of regional extent, except where they were not deposited on the uplifts and over laccoliths of Oligocene age in the subsurface of the southern embayment. Recent geophysical investigations of the Jemez Mountains and assessments of ancestral Rio Grande deposits in the Española basin suggest that larger volumes of groundwater may be moving through these aquifers from those regions into the Albuquerque basin than previously surmised. In some parts of the southern Santa Fe embayment, substantial increases in demand for ground-water must inevitably be met by alternate sources of water imported from outside of the embayment.