Laramide block uplifts and complementary basins in southern New Mexico
During the Laramide orogeny the foreland area of south-central and southwestern New Mexico was broken into several major, basement-cored, block uplifts and complementary basins. Geometry of the structures is similar in overall style to the Wind River and Owl Creek uplifts and Wind River basin of Wyoming. The southern New Mexico uplifts trend uniformly northwesterly and are asymmetric: they have narrow thrust- or reverse-faulted northeastern margins and much broader, gently dipping southwestern flanks. The sense of tectonic transport is toward the northeast with few exceptions. Complementary basins are filled with as much as 2100 m (6800 ft) of synorogenic and postorogenic clastic strata. The postorogenic strata, essentially of Eocene age, overlap and partly bury the uplifts, and the strata record erosional unroofing of the uplifts, locally down the Precambrian. In southwestern New Mexico, uplift-boundary thrust and reverse faults probably have an important component of right- and/or left-lateral slip. Complex structure along these faults, including low-angle thrust faulting, may be a product of convergent wrench faulting.
- Research Organization:
- New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6434261
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8802107-
- Journal Information:
- AAPG (Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.) Bull.; (United States), Vol. 72:1; Conference: AAPG Southwest Section meeting, El Paso, TX, USA, 21 Feb 1988
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Laramide thrust-generated alluvial-fan sedimentation, Sphinx conglomerate, southwestern Montana
Eocene sediment dispersal pattern records asymmetry of Laramide Green River basin, southwestern Wyoming