Structural and stratigraphic evidence for the Laramide (early Tertiary) Burro uplift in southwestern New Mexico

Mack, Greg H.; Clemons, Russell E.

doi:10.56577/ffc-39.59

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Lasky (1940) published a generalized geologic map of the Little Florida Mountains in his report on the manganese deposits. Corbitt (1971) mapped the big Florida Mountains, and publications concerning ages of plutonic rocks and structural interpretations based at least in part on this work have been done by Corbitt (1974), Woodward (1970, 1973a, b), Brookins and Corbitt (1974), Brookins (1974aBrookins ( , b, 1980a, Brookins et al (1978), Woodward (1980), Woodward and DuChene (1981), Clemons (1987, 1988), and Mack and Clemons (1988). Publications resulting from the current project are Brown (1982), Brown and Clemons (1983a, b), Clemons (1982aClemons ( , b, d, 1984Clemons ( , 1985Clemons ( , 1986b, and Clemons and Brown (1983).…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Characteristics of Laramide structures in the Florida Mountains best fit a basement-cored uplift model with probably some associated wrench faulting (Brown and Clemons, 1983b;Seager, 1983;Mack and Clemons, 1988). The south Florida Mountains fault zone trends west-northwest parallel to the major high-angle fault zones that existed before Basin and Range deformation in southeastern Arizona (Davis, 1979).…”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The following lines of evidence indicate that the basement-cored uplift model is more applicable to the Laramide tectonics of the Florida Mountains than the regional overthrust model: 1) low-angle thrust displacements are predominantly of the younger-overolder type; 2) these thrust faults are mostly convex up; 3) documented vertical displacement along the south Florida Mountains fault is double that of the horizontal displacement and clearly involves Precambrian plutonic rocks; 4) total thickness of pre-Laramide Phanerozoic rocks in the area is less than 5,000 ft; 5) there is no evidence of telescoped facies; 6) the Florida Mountains have had a long history of positive structural style; and 7) the thicknesses and lithology of the syntectonic Lobo Formation (Mack et al, 1983;Mack and Clemons, 1988) represent stripping of the uplifted block and deposition in adjacent basins. Drewes and Thorman (1980a, b) and Thorman and Drewes (1979 indicated lateral movements on several northwest-trending faults in southwestern New Mexico.…”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clemons (1982c) mapped a sequence of conglomerates, sandstones, and siltstones east and north of Fluorite Ridge as a basal member (Starvation Draw) of the Rubio Peak Formation. Subsequently these rocks have been recognized as equivalent to the Lobo Formation (Clemons, 1984;Clemons and Brown, 1984;Mack and Clemons, 1988). Lemley (1982) concluded that the Victorio Mountains section is not correlative with the Lobo Formation in the Florida Mountains, and, therefore, the Lobo is restricted in known occurrence to the Florida Mountains and Starvation Draw.…”

Section: Lobo Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…46). Opponents of this idea include Brown and Clemons (1983a, b), Davis (1979Davis ( , 1981, Dickinson (1984), Jones (1963Jones ( , 1966, Mack and Clemons (1988), Mayo (1966), andSeager (1983). Northwest-trending tectonic features in this region have received much attention and varying interpretations.…”

Section: Structural Geologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geology of the Florida Mountains, southwestern New Mexico

Clemons¹

1998

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The Florida Mountains are an eastward-tilted Basin and Range fault block approximately 24 km (15 mi) southeast of Deming. The mountains are surrounded by a broad bajada that slopes gently into the Mimbres Basin. Sediments conceal the range-bounding faults except at the northwest end. Ephemeral streams are continuing the erosive processes that have reduced the exposed bedrock area to less than one-half of its initial size.The oldest rocks exposed in the Florida Mountains are Precambrian hornblende and granitic gneisses exposed only north of Capitol Dome. An Upper Cambrian pluton intruded an andesitic to basaltic volcanic sequence producing the hornblende and pyroxene hornfels common in the western and southern parts of the mountains. The alkali-feldspar plutonic rocks are granite at the northern and southern ends of the range and syenite and quartz syenite in the central part. These shallow plutonic rocks and hornfels were unroofed before deposition of a diamictite that, in turn, was mostly eroded preceding deposition of the Bliss Sandstone in Early Ordovician time. Approximately 4,100 ft of Paleozoic rocks that crop out in the southeastern Florida Mountains include, in ascending order: Bliss Sandstone, El Paso Formation, Montoya Formation, Fusselman Dolomite, Percha Shale, Rancheria Formation, and Hueco Formation. No Mesozoic rocks are present except possibly the basal beds of the Lobo Formation, the bulk of which was deposited penecontemporaneously with Laramide deformation during Paleocene and early to middle Eocene times. Extensive andesitic to rhyolitic volcanism from middle Eocene to early Miocene times accounted for the thick Rubio Peak volcaniclastic section forming Florida Peak, as well as the ash-flow tuff, air-fall tuffs, flow-banded rhyolite, basaltic andesite, and dacite in the Little Florida Mountains. Thick rhyolite fanglomerates in the Little Florida Mountains and alluvial conglomerates forming an apron around the mountains have been deposited as the mountain block was uplifted approximately 213 m (7,000 ft) since early Miocene.The south Florida Mountains fault is a northwest-trending, high-angle reverse fault that places Upper Cambrian granite against rocks as young as basal Lobo Formation. Multiple, small thrust faults exhibit younger-over-older rocks relations and produce tectonic elimination of strata. A few show older-over-younger relations. Current studies demonstrate that Laramide deformation in the Florida Mountains is not a continuation of the Cordilleran overthrust belt. Evidence suggests that the deformation resembles the basement-cored uplifts of the Rocky Mountain foreland, with possibly some strike-slip components.Hydrothermal alteration and low-grade mineralization are widespread in the Florida and Little Florida Mountains. Relatively limited activity has produced manganese, zinc, lead, silver, copper, barite, and fluorite ores. Most production of copper, zinc, lead, and silver ores was from shallow oxidized veins, but small amounts of chalcopyrite accompany fluorite and barite in deeper veins. The age of mineralization is believed to be late Tertiary. Although the mountains had been mapped before (by Darton in 1916 and by Corbitt in 1971), questions about interpretations of several aspects of the geology of the Florida Mountains had not been settled: Are the plutonic rocks of Precambrian, Ordovician, Mesozoic, or some other age? Are the plutonic rocks related, or were they formed by multiple episodes of plutonism? Are the gabbros and diorites (hornfelses) older or younger than the granites and syenites? What is the origin of the south Florida Mountains fault and associated thrust faults? Are they part of the Cordilleran overthrust belt? Clemons spent nearly two decades mapping in the Florida Mountains trying to answer these (and other) questions.Rather than hold all the data until completion of mapping and laboratory studies, several progress reports and four geologic maps (GM-52, Geology of Florida Gap quadrangle, 1982; GM-58, Geology of Gym Peak quadrangle, 1983; GM-56, Geology of Capitol Dome quadrangle, 1984; and GM-59, Geology of South Peak quadrangle, 1985) were published previously. Terminology, interpretation, and ideas in this report represent revisions from Clemons' earlier publications.

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Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lobo Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Structural Geologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Geology of the Florida Mountains, southwestern New Mexico

Clemons¹

1998

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Mesozoic–Paleogene structural evolution of the southern U.S. Cordillera as revealed in the Little and Big Hatchet Mountains, southwest New Mexico, USA

Clinkscales

Lawton

2017

Geosphere

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A Mesozoic to Paleogene polyphase tectonic model presented here for the southern United States (U.S.) Cordillera provides new insight into style and timing of Mesozoic-Paleogene deformation and basin formation in the region south of the Colorado Plateau and Mogollon-Datil volcanic field. The model proposes reverse reactivation of Jurassic normal faults during Late Cretaceous Laramide shortening. It also recognizes late Paleogene east-westand northwest-southeast-trending normal faults formed during a north-south extensional event that postdated Laramide shortening and preceded Neogene Basin and Range extension. Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous extension generated northwest-southeast normal faults that formed part of the Border rift system that extended from southern California to the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. The normal faults cut Mesoproterozoic basement rocks, and localized subsequent uplift of basement rocks during Late Cretaceous fault reactivation that formed northwest-southeast-trending Laramide uplifts of southwest New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The Hidalgo uplift, reconstructed here from structural relations in the Little Hatchet and Big Hatchet Mountains of southwestern New Mexico, is bound by bivergent reverse faults that resulted from tectonic inversion of a Jurassic-Early Cretaceous graben. The Hidalgo uplift is flanked to the north by the Campanian to earliest Maastrichtian Ringbone basin, which accumulated synorogenic continental strata and basaltic andesite flows from ca. 75 to 70 Ma. The Ringbone basin was converted from a subsiding basin in the Little Hatchet Mountains to a volcanic center by ca. 69 Ma, the emplacement age of an assemblage of shallow, subvolcanic intrusions termed the Sylvanite plutonic complex. The basement-involved structural style and yoked intermontane basin resemble other Laramide uplifts and basins in the Rocky Mountain Cordillera and refute alternative Laramide models of strikeslip faulting or regionally extensive horizontal thrust faults in southwestern New Mexico, the latter of which fail to account for basement-cored uplifts. A significant difference with the Rocky Mountain Laramide province is the size of the uplifts and basins and the close association of southern U.S. Cordilleran structures to nearby Late Cretaceous magmatic centers, which contributed to interstratified volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks in the basin fill. Upper Eocene-Oligocene ignimbrites and volcaniclastic rocks of the Boot Heel volcanic field of southwestern New Mexico unconformably overlie Laramide syntectonic strata and bury eroded Laramide structures. The distribution of the Paleogene volcanic rocks in the Little Hatchet and Big Hatchet Mountains is in part controlled by synmagmatic east-west and northwest-southeast normal faults active from ca. 34 to 27 Ma, the age range of rhyolite dikes intruded along the faults. Two generations of intrusive rocks occupy these normal faults in the Little Hatchet Mountains: (1) older (ca. 34 Ma) phaneritic stocks and dikes in the central and southern...

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Energy and Mineral Resources of New Mexico: Coal Resources

Hoffman¹

2017

Memoir 50 - Energy and Mineral Resources of New Mexico

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Structural and stratigraphic evidence for the Laramide (early Tertiary) Burro uplift in southwestern New Mexico

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Geology of the Florida Mountains, southwestern New Mexico

Geology of the Florida Mountains, southwestern New Mexico

Mesozoic–Paleogene structural evolution of the southern U.S. Cordillera as revealed in the Little and Big Hatchet Mountains, southwest New Mexico, USA

Energy and Mineral Resources of New Mexico: Coal Resources

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