The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly 100 miles (160 km) N-S and 90 miles (140 km) E-W.
The Dakota is a sedimentary geologic unit name of formation and group rank in Midwestern North America. The Dakota units are generally composed of sandstones, mudstones, clays, and shales deposited in the Mid-Cretaceous opening of the Western Interior Seaway. The usage of the name Dakota for this particular Albian-Cenomanian strata is exceptionally widespread; from British Columbia and Alberta to Montana and Wisconsin to Colorado and Kansas to Utah and Arizona. It is famous for producing massive colorful rock formations in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains of the United States, and for preserving both dinosaur footprints and early deciduous tree leaves.
The Moreno Hill Formation is a geological formation in western New Mexico whose strata were deposited in the Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.
Colorado is a geologic name applied to certain rocks of Cretaceous age in the North America, particularly in the western Great Plains. This name was originally applied to classify a group of specific marine formations of shale and chalk known for their importance in Eastern Colorado. The surface outcrop of this group produces distinctive landforms bordering the Great Plains and it is a significant feature of the subsurface of the Denver Basin and the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. These formations record important sequences of the Western Interior Seaway. As the geology of this seaway was studied, this name came to be used in states beyond Colorado but later was replaced in several of these states with more localized names.
The Crevasse Canyon Formation is a coal-bearing Cretaceous geologic formation in New Mexico and Arizona.
The Point Lookout Sandstone is a Cretaceous bedrock formation occurring in New Mexico and Colorado.
The Tres Hermanos Formation is a geologic formation in central and west-central New Mexico. It contains fossils characteristic of the Turonian Age of the late Cretaceous.
The Menefee Formation is a lower Campanian geologic formation found in Colorado and New Mexico, United States.
The Carlile Shale is a Turonian age Upper/Late Cretaceous series shale geologic formation in the central-western United States, including in the Great Plains region of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
The Mancos Shale or Mancos Group is a Late Cretaceous geologic formation of the Western United States.
The Cliff House Sandstone is a late Campanian stratigraphic unit comprising sandstones in the western United States.
The Tallahatta Formation is a geologic formation found on the surface in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. It is also located in the subsurface of Kentucky. The Tallahatta formation is part of the Claiborne Group and contains four members: the Basic City Shale in Mississippi, the Holy Springs Sand Member in Mississippi, the Meridian Sand Member in Alabama and Mississippi, and the Neshoba Sand Member in Mississippi. It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period, specifically the Eocene.
The Graneros Shale is a geologic formation in the United States identified in the Great Plains as well as New Mexico that dates to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period. It is defined as the finely sandy argillaceous or clayey near-shore/marginal-marine shale that lies above the older, non-marine Dakota sand and mud, but below the younger, chalky open-marine shale of the Greenhorn. This definition was made in Colorado by G. K. Gilbert and has been adopted in other states that use Gilbert's division of the Benton's shales into Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros. These states include Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as corners of Minnesota and Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have somewhat different usages — in particular, north and west of the Black Hills, the same rock and fossil layer is named Belle Fourche Shale.
The Benton Shale is a geologic formation name historically used in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. In the "mile high" plains in the center of the continent, the named layers preserve marine fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period. The term Benton Limestone has also been used to refer to the chalky portions of the strata, especially the beds of the strata presently classified as Greenhorn Limestone, particularly the Fencepost limestone.
The Lewis Shale is a geologic formation in the Western United States. It preserves fossils dating back to the Campanian to Maastrichtian stages of the late Cretaceous period.
The Atarque Sandstone is a geologic formation in New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the late Cretaceous period.
The Ferron Sandstone Member of the Mancos Shale is a geologic unit in Utah. It preserves fossils dating back to the Cretaceous period; and more specifically the middle Turonian.
Juana Lopez refers to both the uppermost member of the Carlile Shale formation and to the environment that caused it to form. The Juana Lopez Member is calcareous sandstone dated to the Turonian age of the Upper Cretaceous and is exposed in the southern and western Colorado, northern and central New Mexico, and northeastern Utah. The unit has been described as "the most enigmatic" member of the Carlile Shale.
The Chama Basin is a geologic structural basin located in northern New Mexico. The basin closely corresponds to the drainage basin of the Rio Chama and is located between the eastern margin of the San Juan Basin and the western margin of the Rio Grande Rift. Exposed in the basin is a thick and nearly level section of sedimentary rock of Permian to Cretaceous age, with some younger overlying volcanic rock. The basin has an area of about 3,144 square miles (8,140 km2).
