Puye Formation

Puye Formation
Puye Formation
Stratigraphic range: Miocene to Pliocene, 7–4 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
	Puye Formation at its type area, the Puye Escarpment, near San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico
Type	Formation
Unit of	Santa Fe Group
Sub-units	Totavi Lentil
Underlies	Tewa Group
Overlies	Chamita Formation
Area	518 km2
Thickness	221 metres (725 feet)
Lithology
Primary	Volcaniclastic
Other	Ignimbrite
Location
Coordinates	35°53′29″N106°10′23″W / 35.8914°N 106.1730°W Coordinates: 35°53′29″N106°10′23″W / 35.8914°N 106.1730°W
Region	New Mexico
Country	United States
Type section
Named for	Puye Escarpment
Named by	H.T.U. Smith
Year defined	1938
	Puye Formation (the United States) Puye Formation (New Mexico)

Last updated July 17, 2022

The Puye Formation is a geologic formation exposed east of the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Radiometric dating constrains its age to between 5 and 2 million years, corresponding to the Pliocene epoch.

Description

The Puye Formation is a fanglomerate containing 25 pyroclastic flows, including pumicious ignimbrites and block and ash flows, erupted by vents of the Tschicoma Formation. It is exposed from the mouth of Ancho Canyon in White Rock Canyon north to Santa Clara Peak, and generally underlies the Bandelier Tuff north and east of the city of Los Alamos, covering an area of 518 square kilometers (200 sq mi).^[1] It is best exposed in Guaje Canyon and on the southern end of the Puye Escarpment where it is a cliff-forming formation. It is 71 meters (233 ft) thick at the type section but thickens westward towards the Sierra de los Valles, west of Los Alamos. Drilling has found that the formation is up to 221 meters (725 ft) thick.¹⁹⁶⁴^[2] The formation was deposited between 7 and 4 million years ago, based on radiometric dating of an ash bed in the upper part of the formation and the absence of Bearhead Rhyolite ash (~7 million years old) in the formation.^[3]^[4]

The Totavi Lentil is the lowest part of the formation, some 24 meters (79 ft) thick, which consists of pebbles, cobbles, and small boulders of quartzite and granite with only limited volcanic debris, contrasting with the remainder of the formation.^[2] This is separated by a significant unconformity from the underlying Chamita Formation.^[4] The Totavi Lentil is raised to formation rank by some investigators.^[1]

The main body of the Puye Formation consists of fanglomerates in which most of the detritus is volcanic rock of dacitic composition. There are also dacitic tephra beds and some basalt.¹⁹⁶⁴ The formation shows cyclicity on the scale of 5 to 30 meters representing individual eruptive pulses in the northeastern Jemez highlands. Each sequence shows marked facies changes with increased distance from the eruptive center. Deposition ceased with reduction in Tschicoma volcanism and basinwide pedimentation due to downcutting of the Rio Grande. The formation is remarkably well preserved for a volcanic fanglomerate, due to its deposition in an active graben associated with Rio Grande Rift.^[5]

A notable feature of exposures of the formation is the presence of pedestal rocks.^[6]

Puye Formation exposures in Rendija Canyon
Pedestal rocks in the Puye Formation
Cliffs of the Puye Formation along the Puye Escarpment
Road cut in Puye Formation, showing gravel beds of the Totavi Lentil near its type section.

Economic geology

The formation is a high-yield aquifer exploited in the Los Alamos area.^[7] Use of potassium dichromate in a power plant created an unusually well-characterized source of chromium contamination in this aquifer, which has been studied to understand natural attenuation of such pollutants.^[8]

History of investigation

The formation was first named the Puye Gravel by Harold T.U. Smith in his mapping of the Abiquiu quadrangle in 1938.^[9] The name was changed to Puye Conglomerate by Roy Griggs in 1964, since the exposures he studied were consolidated enough to stand as cliffs. Griggs also designated a type section and divided the unit into an upper unnamed fanglomerate and a lower Totavi Lentil, named for a nearby settlement. Griggs assigned the formation to the Santa Fe Group.^[10]

Because of its diverse lithology, the formation was renamed the Puye Formation by Bailey, Smith, and Ross in 1969 as part of their work establishing the stratigraphy of the Jemez Mountains.^[2]

Footnotes

Related Research Articles

Dacite is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. It is composed predominantly of plagioclase feldspar and quartz.

Valles Caldera is a 13.7-mile (22.0 km) wide volcanic caldera in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Hot springs, streams, fumaroles, natural gas seeps and volcanic domes dot the caldera floor landscape. The highest point in the caldera is Redondo Peak, an 11,253-foot (3,430 m) resurgent lava dome located entirely within the caldera. Also within the caldera are several grass valleys, or valles, the largest of which is Valle Grande, the only one accessible by a paved road. Much of the caldera is within the Valles Caldera National Preserve, a unit of the National Park System. In 1975, Valles Caldera was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.

The Jemez Mountains are a group of mountains in Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico, United States.

Chicoma Mountain is the highest point in the Jemez Mountains, a prominent mountain range in the U.S. State of New Mexico. The tree line in this area is exceptionally high, and the mountain is forested almost all the way to its summit which is conspicuous from the towns of Los Alamos, Santa Fe, and Española and other areas in the valley of the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico. Like the rest of the Jemez, it is of volcanic origin; it lies on the northeast rim of the Valles Caldera, one of the best examples of a caldera in the United States.

Redondo Peak is a conspicuous summit in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. It is located entirely within the Valles Caldera National Preserve. It is the second highest summit in the Jemez after Chicoma Mountain. It is the most visually prominent peak in the range when viewed from the south, for example, from Albuquerque. From many other directions it is less prominent or not visible, due to its location in the center of the Valles Caldera, well away from the caldera's rim.

The Pajarito Plateau is a volcanic plateau in north central New Mexico, United States. The plateau, part of the Jemez Mountains, is bounded on the west by the Sierra de los Valles, the range forming the east rim of the Valles Caldera, and on the east by the Puye escarpment, which rises about 300 to 400 feet above the Rio Grande valley about a mile west of the river. The Rio Grande passes through White Rock Canyon to the southeast, and the Caja del Rio across the river is sometimes regarded as part of the plateau. The plateau is occupied by several notable entities, including Bandelier National Monument, the town of Los Alamos and its remote suburb White Rock, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Elevations range from about 5600 feet at the river to about 7800 feet where the plateau merges into the mountain range.

Zuni-Bandera volcanic field is a volcanic field located in the state of New Mexico, United States.

Caja del Rio is a dissected plateau, of volcanic origin, which covers approximately 84,000 acres of land in northern Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. The region is also known as the Caja, Caja del Rio Plateau, and Cerros del Rio. The center of the area is approximately 15 miles (23 km) west of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most of the Caja is owned by the United States Forest Service and managed by the Santa Fe National Forest. Access is through New Mexico Highway 599, Santa Fe County Road 62, and Forest Service Road 24.

The Abiquiu Formation is a geologic formation found in northern New Mexico. Radiometric dating constrains its age to between 18 million and 27 million years, corresponding to the late Oligocene to Miocene epochs.

The geology of New Mexico includes bedrock exposures of four physiographic provinces, with ages ranging from almost 1800 million years (Ma) to nearly the present day. Here the Great Plains, southern Rocky Mountains, Colorado Plateau, and Basin and Range Provinces meet, giving the state great geologic diversity.

The Santa Fe Group is a group of geologic formations in New Mexico and Colorado. It contains fossils characteristic of the Oligocene through Pleistocene epochs. The group consists of basin-filling sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Rio Grande rift, and contains important regional aquifers.

The Bandelier Tuff is a geologic formation exposed in and around the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. It has a radiometric age of 1.85 to 1.25 million years, corresponding to the Pleistocene epoch. The tuff was erupted in a series of at least three caldera eruptions in the central Jemez Mountains.

The Ritito Conglomerate is a geologic formation in northern New Mexico dating to the Oligocene epoch.

The Polvadera Group is a group of geologic formations exposed in and around the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Radiometric dating gives it an age of 13 to 2.2 million years, corresponding to the Miocene through early Quaternary.

The Keres Group is a group of geologic formations exposed in and around the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Radiometric dating gives it an age of 13 to 6 million years, corresponding to the Miocene epoch.

The Cochiti Formation is a geologic formation exposed near the southwest Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Its age is estimated as 10 to 2.6 million years, corresponding to the middle Miocene to Pliocene.

The Tewa Group is a group of geologic formations exposed in and around the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Radiometric dating gives it an age of 1.85 million to 72 thousand years, corresponding to the Pleistocene epoch.

The Gilman Conglomerate is a geologic formation in northern New Mexico dating to the Oligocene epoch.

Espanola basin Structural basin in northern New Mexico, US

The Espanola basin is a structural basin in northern New Mexico. It is located in the Rio Grande watershed and is part of the Rio Grande rift. The definition of its boundaries is not fully settled, but the basin is usually defined such that it includes the cities of Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Espanola.

References

Bailey, R.A.; Smith, R.L.; Ross, C.S. (1969). "Stratigraphic Nomenclature of ' Volcanic Rocks in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico" (PDF). Geological Survey Bulletin (1274-P). Retrieved 4 May 2020.
Brown, D.B.; Ding, M.; WoldeGabriel, G.W.; Cheshire, M.; Rearick, M.; Conradson, S.; Kluk, E.; Katzman, D. (2014). "Natural Attenuation of Anthropogenic Chromium in Selected Puye Formation in Regional Aquifer System of Los Alamos, New Mexico". American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting Abstracts. H23J-1014. Bibcode:2014AGUFM.H23J1014B . Retrieved 1 July 2021.
Griggs, R. L.; Hem, J.D. (1964). "Geology and ground-water resources of the Los Alamos area, New Mexico". U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper. 1753. doi:10.3133/wsp1753.
Heiken, G; Goff, F; Gardner, J N; Baldridge, W S; Hulen, J B; Nielson, D L; Vaniman, D (May 1990). "The Valles/Toledo Caldera Complex, Jemez Volcanic Field, New Mexico". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 18 (1): 27–53. Bibcode:1990AREPS..18...27H. doi:10.1146/annurev.ea.18.050190.000331.
Kelley, Shari A.; McIntosh, William C.; Goff, Fraser; Kempter, Kirt A.; Wolff, John A.; Esser, Richard; Braschayko, Suzanne; Love, David; Gardner, Jamie N. (June 2013). "Spatial and temporal trends in pre-caldera Jemez Mountains volcanic and fault activity". Geosphere. 9 (3): 614–646. Bibcode:2013Geosp...9..614K. doi: 10.1130/GES00897.1 .
Nocita, Bruce W. (October 1986). "Pedestal rocks in the Pliocene Puye Formation, New Mexico". Sedimentary Geology. 49 (3–4): 193–200. Bibcode:1986SedG...49..193N. doi:10.1016/0037-0738(86)90038-2.
Purtymun, William D.; Johansen, Steven (1974). "General geohydrology of the Pajarito Plateau" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series. 25: 347–349. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
Smith, H.T.U. (1938). "Tertiary geology of the Abiquiu quadrangle, New Mexico". Journal of Geology. 46 (7): 933–965. Bibcode:1938JG.....46..933S. doi:10.1086/624710. S2CID 140678910.
Turbeville, B.N; Waresback, Damon B; Self, Stephen (February 1989). "Lava-dome growth and explosive volcanism in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico: Evidence from the plio-pleistocene puye alluvial fan". Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. 36 (4): 267–291. Bibcode:1989JVGR...36..267T. doi:10.1016/0377-0273(89)90074-7.
Waresback, Damon B.; Turbeville, B. N. (March 1990). "Evolution of a Plio-Pleistocene volcanogenic-alluvial fan: The Puye Formation, Jemez Mountains, New Mexico". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 102 (3): 298–314. Bibcode:1990GSAB..102..298W. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1990)102<0298:EOAPPV>2.3.CO;2.

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[FOOTNOTETurbevilleWaresbackSelf1989-1] 1 2 Turbeville, Waresback & Self 1989.

[FOOTNOTEBaileySmithRoss196912-2] 1 2 3 Bailey, Smith & Ross 1969, p. 12.

[FOOTNOTEHeikenGoffGardnerBaldridge199032-3] Heiken et al. 1990, p. 32.

[FOOTNOTEKelleyMcIntoshGoffKempter2013-4] 1 2 Kelley et al. 2013.

[FOOTNOTEWaresbackTurbeville1990-5] Waresback & Turbeville 1990.

[FOOTNOTENocita1986-6] Nocita 1986.

[FOOTNOTEPurtymunJohansen1974349-7] Purtymun & Johansen 1974, p. 349.

[FOOTNOTEBrownDingWoldeGabrielCheshire2014-8] Brown et al. 2014.

[FOOTNOTESmith1938-9] Smith 1938.

[FOOTNOTEGriggsHem196428–37-10] Griggs & Hem 1964, pp. 28–37.

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