Yeso Group

Not to be confused with Yezo Group.

Yeso Group
Stratigraphic range: Kungurian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Yeso Group at its type location northeast of Socorro, New Mexico, USA
Type	Group
Sub-units	See text
Underlies	Glorieta Sandstone
Overlies	Abo Formation
Thickness	Up to 309 m (1,014 ft)
Lithology
Primary	Sandstone
Other	Gypsum
Location
Coordinates	34°09′57″N106°44′47″W / 34.1659°N 106.7465°W / 34.1659; -106.7465
Approximate paleocoordinates	4°48′N34°24′W / 4.8°N 34.4°W / 4.8; -34.4
Region	New Mexico
Country	United States
Type section
Named for	Mesa del Yeso
Named by	W.T. Lee
Year defined	1909
Coordinates	34°12′06″N106°46′32″W / 34.2017512°N 106.7754422°W / 34.2017512; -106.7754422
Yeso Group (New Mexico)

The Yeso Group is a group of geologic formations in New Mexico. It contains fossils characteristic of the Kungurian Age of the early Permian Period. ^{[1] [2]}

Description

The Yeso Group is lithologically complex, ranging from marine shelf carbonate rock to the south through shoreline and sabkha beds to eolian dune and sheet sand deposits to the north. ^[2] It is exposed in the mountains and other uplifts bordering the Rio Grande Rift and in the Pecos River valley. ^{[3] [4] [5]} It is present in the subsurface in the Raton Basin. ^[6] The group records a major marine transgression from the south during the early Leonardian (Kungurian). ^[7]

Yeso Group outcrop at Red Rocks, New Mexico

In the Jemez Mountains, the group consists of massive cross-bedded lower beds ( De Chelly Sandstone ) and thinner upper beds ( San Ysidro Formation ) suggesting a more fluvial depositional environment. ^[8] The Yeso Group is exposed extensively in the Jemez Mountains, but pinches out in the northern Jemez, delineating the northern limit of the dune field from which it arose. ^[9]

Farther south, the group is divided into the Arroyo de Alamillo and Los Vallos Formations. ^[10] It transitions from continental to shallow marine in character from north to south, with the lithology changing from eolian and sand sheet deposits in the north to sabkha deposits of gypsum and carbonate rock to the south. ^[5] Thus the Arroyo de Alamillo Formation is siltstone, ripple-laminated sandstone, and lesser dolomitic limestone, in contrast with the eolian beds of the De Chelly Formation, and the Los Vallos Formation is 42% sandstone, 28% siltstone, and 24% gypsum, in contrast with the thinly bedded sandstone of the San Ysidro Formation. ^[10]

The Los Vallos Formation is divided into the Torres, Cañas and Joyita Members. At Abo Pass in central New Mexico, the Torres is 180 metres (590 ft) of gypsiferous siliclastic sedimentary rock and gypsum with minor dolomite; the Cañas is 16 to 52 metres (52 to 171 ft) of mostly gypsum; and the Joyita Member is 21 metres (69 ft) of redbed sandstone. ^[11]

The group is conformable with both the underlying Abo Formation and the overlying Glorieta Sandstone. ^[5]

Fossil content

The Yeso Group is largely devoid of fossils. However, continued field work has gradually built up a record of marine microfossils, mostly algae and foraminiferans, trace fossils (including tetrapod footprints), and terrestrial plant fossils. In 2018, a mold of an incomplete, articulated skeleton of a eupelycosaur was discovered in lower Yeso strata. ^[12] The microfossils date the Yeso Group to the Kungurian. ^[13]

Tetrapod trackways have been found in the De Chelly Sandstone in the Lucero uplift. These are too poorly preserved for precise classification. ^[14]

Economic geology

Carbon dioxide was produced from subsurface Yeso beds in the Bueyeros, New Mexico field. Production was limited from 1931 to 1980, but increased demand for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery led to construction of pipelines to the Permian Basin. Production totaled 3.3 trillion ft³ by 2018, with an estimated 5 to 10 trillion ft³ still recoverable. Isotope studies suggest the carbon dioxide originated in the Earth's mantle and the Yeso Group is merely a reservoir rock. Carbon dioxide accumulates in the Tubb Sandstone Member (sometimes also known as the Drinkard Sandstone ^[15] ) and is capped by the Cimarron Anhydrite Member. ^[6]

History of investigation

The unit was designated as the Yeso Formation of the (now-abandoned) Manzano Group by W.T. Lee in 1909 for Mesa del Yeso, a small mesa 12 miles northeast of Socorro, New Mexico. ^[16] Darton redesignated it as a member of the Chupadera Formation in 1922, ^[17] but Needham and Bates returned it to its original designation as a formation within the Manzano Group in 1943. Needham and Bates also removed the Glorieta Sandstone from the formation. ^[3]

Kelley and Wood divided the formation into members in 1946, including the lowermost Mesita Blanca Member. ^[18] Baars pointed out in 1962 that the Meseta Blanca Member is indistinguishable from the De Chelly Sandstone, ^[4] but this redesignation was not widely accepted until the stratigraphic revisions of Lucas et al. in 2005, which also raised the formation to group rank. ^[10] The promotion of the Yeso Formation to group rank and the abandonment of the Meseta Blanca Member remains controversial. ^[19]

References

1. Stanesco 1991, p. M1.
2. Kues & Giles 2004, pp. 119–123.
3. Needham & Bates 1943.
4. Baars 1962.
5. Stanesco 1991.
6. Broadhead 2019.
7. Kues & Giles 2004, p. 119.
8. Wood & Northrop 1946.
9. Kelley et al. 2006.
10. Lucas, Krainer & Colpitts 2005a.
11. Lucas et al. 2016.
12. Lucas et al. 2005b.
13. Vachard, Krainer & Lucas 2015.
14. Voigt & Lucas 2016.
15. Resnick, J.R. (1989). Clay mineral analysis of well chips and hand samples from the Permian Yeso and Abo Formations, Roswell Basin area, southeastern New Mexico (dissertation) (PDF). New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
16. Lee 1909.
17. Darton 1922.
18. Kelley & Wood 1946.
19. Cather et al. 2013.

Bibliography

• Baars, D.L. (1962). "Permian System of Colorado Plateau". American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin. 46 (2): 149–218. doi:10.1306/BC74376F-16BE-11D7-8645000102C1865D.
• Broadhead, Ronald F. (2019). "Carbon Dioxide in the Subsurface of Northeastern New Mexico" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series. 70: 101–108. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
• Cather, S.M.; Zeiger, Kate E.; Mack, Greg H.; Kelley, Shari A. (2013). "Toward standardization of Phanerozoic stratigraphic nomenclature in New Mexico". New Mexico Geological Society Spring Meeting: 12. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.667.3513 .
• Darton, N.H. (1922). "Geologic structure of parts of New Mexico [Sandia and Manzano Mountains]" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin (726–E): E173–E275. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Kelley, S.A.; Lawrence, J.R.; Zeiger, K.E.; Osburn, G.R.; Lucas, S.G. (2006). "Geologic Map of the Arroyo del Agua Quadrangle, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico" (PDF). New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources Open-File Geologic Map Series. 46 (124). Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Kelley, V.C.; Wood, G.H. Jr. (1946). "Geology of the Lucero uplift, Valencia, Socorro, and Bernalillo Counties, New Mexico". U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations Preliminary Map. OM-47. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
• Kues, B.S.; Giles, K.A. (2004). "The late Paleozoic Ancestral Rocky Mountain system in New Mexico". In Mack, G.H.; Giles, K.A. (eds.). The geology of New Mexico. A geologic history: New Mexico Geological Society Special Volume 11. pp. 95–136. ISBN   9781585460106.
• Lee, W.H. (1909). "Stratigraphy of the Manzano group of the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico". In Lee, W.H.; Girty, G.H. (eds.). The Manzano group of the Rio Grande valley, New Mexico. Vol. 389. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin. pp. 5–40. doi: 10.3133/b389 .
• Lucas, Spencer G.; Krainer, Karl; Colpitts, Robert M. Jr. (2005a), Lucas, S.G.; Zeiger, K.E.; Spielmann, J.A. (eds.), "Abo-Yeso (lower Permian) stratigraphy in central New Mexico", The Permian of Central New Mexico, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, vol. 31, pp. 101–117
• Lucas, Spencer G.; Krainer, Karl; Oviatt, Charles G.; Vachard, Daniel; Berman, David S.; Henrici, Amy C. (2016). "The Permian system at Abo Pass, Central New Mexico (USA)" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series. 67: 313–350. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
• Lucas, Spencer G.; Thorpe, Emily D.; Berman, David S.; Rinehart, Larry F.; Santucci, Vincent L.; Henrici, Amy C. (2005b), Lucas, S.G.; Zeiger, K.E.; Spielmann, J.A. (eds.), "Discovery of a tetrapod body fossil in the lower Permian Yeso Group, Central New Mexico", The Permian of Central New Mexico, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, vol. 31, pp. 493–498
• Needham, C.E.; Bates, R.L. (1943). "Permian type sections in central New Mexico". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 54 (11): 1653–1667. doi:10.1130/gsab-54-1653.
• Stanesco, John D. (1991). "Sedimentology and Depositional Environments of the Lower Permian Yeso Formation, Northwestern New Mexico" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin (1808).
• Vachard, D; Krainer, K; Lucas, SG (2015). "Late Early Permian (late Leonardian; Kungurian) algae, microproblematica, and smaller foraminifers from the Yeso Group and San Andres Formation (New Mexico; USA)". Palaeontologia Electronica. doi: 10.26879/433 .
• Voigt, Sebastian; Lucas, Spencer G. (2016). "Permian tetrapod footprints from the Lucero Uplift, central New Mexico" (PDF). New Mexico Geological Society Field Conference Series. 67: 387–395. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
• Wood, G.H.; Northrop, S.A. (1946). "Geology of Nacimiento Mountains, San Pedro Mountain, and adjacent plateaus in parts of Sandoval and Rio Arriba Counties, New Mexico". U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations. Preliminary Map OM-57.