The Department of Energy has awarded New Mexico Tech a contract to examine rare earth elements (REE) and other critical minerals (CM) in coal and associated strata in the San Juan and Raton basins in northern New Mexico. Critical minerals are mineral resources that are essential to our economy and whose supply may be disrupted (/publications/periodicals/earthmatters/23/n1/em_v23_n1.pdf). Most CM are 100% imported into the U.S. Many CM are found in the San Juan and Raton basins of New Mexico.
The San Juan Basin is a large structural basin in northwestern New Mexico that formed during the late Cretaceous-Paleogene Laramide orogeny about 75 million years ago. The basin comprises all or parts of San Juan, McKinley, Rio Arriba, and Sandoval Counties, with a northern portion that extends into southwestern Colorado. The basin is bordered by basement-cored Laramide highlands, including the Nacimiento Uplift to the east, the Zuni Mountains to the south, the Defiance uplift to the west, and the San Juan Mountains in Colorado to the north. Laramide-age monoclines form the remaining boundaries of the basin (Kelley et al., 2014). The San Juan Basin region is a major producer of hydrocarbons, primarily natural gas, and extensive studies of the petroleum geology of the region have been conducted over the past several decades. Basin-wide hydrogeological assessments of the San Juan Basin were conducted by Stone et al. (1983), Craigg et al. (1989; 1990), Kaiser et al. (1994), Kernodle (1996), and Levings et al. (1996). Kelley et al. (2014) conducted a thorough hydrologic assessment of oil and gas resource development of the Mancos Shale in the San Juan Basin, which includes detailed discussions of groundwater salinity in the basin by depth and individual aquifers.
The Jornada del Muerto is a north-south trending basin lying to the east of the main Rio Grande Rift system in Socorro, Sierra, and Doña Ana Counties, New Mexico. The basin is ~160 miles long, averages 20 miles in width, and deepens to the south. The basin is bounded to the east by Chupadera Mesa and the Oscura and San Andres Mountains, and to the west by the Caballo and Fra Cristobal Mountains and the San Pasqual Platform. The south end of the Jornada del Muerto Basin merges imperceptibly with the northeast end of the Mesilla Basin. Unlike the Rio Grande Rift basins to the west, the Jornada del Muerto is a broad syncline that plunges to the south-southeast, formed between east-dipping Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata along the Caballo-Fra Cristobal Uplift and west-dipping Paleozoic strata in the San Andres Mountains. The basin is thus not part of the late Tertiary Rio Grande Rift extensional system, and Santa Fe Group basin-fill sediments are generally less than 350 feet thick (Chapin, 1971; Lozinsky, 1987; Roybal, 1991). The Jornada Draw fault zone runs from north to south and roughly parallels the hinge of the syncline. This fault zone significantly affects the groundwater system in the central part of the basin (Newton et al., 2015).
Our agency collaborated with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) on a hydrogeology study along the Animas River in New Mexico in response to the Gold King Mine spill, which occurred in August 2015. The water released from the spill was loaded with dissolved metals and contaminated sediments, which posed a possible risk to groundwater quality in the Animas Valley. This study, wihch included two phases, primarily focused on identifying potential adverse impacts on groundwater quality related to the Gold King Mine spill.
Two Bureau of Geology scientists, in collaboration with scientists at the United State Geological Survey, have discovered similarities between ground water systems that formed ore deposits 10 million years ago and modern ground water in the Rio Grande Rift. They reported their work in an invited presentation at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America.
Dr. Virgil Lueth, mineralogist/ economic geologist, and Lisa Peters, senior lab associate at the New Mexico Geochronological Research Lab, have been studying the mineral jarosite in ore deposits from Chihuahua, Mexico, to Albuquerque.
The Albuquerque Basin, also known as the Middle Rio Grande Basin (MRGB; Plummer et al., 2004), is defined by Thorn et al. (1993) to include the Santo Domingo Basin to the north, the Calabacillas and Belen Sub-Basins to the south, and the Hagan Embayment to the northeast. The Albuquerque Basin as thus defined is the second largest basin in the Rio Grande Rift, extending over more than 3000 square miles and containing over 14,000 feet of basin-fill deposits. The basin is bounded to the north by the Jemez Mountains, and to the east by the Sandia, Manzanita, Manzano and Los Piños Mountains. The western margin of the basin is defined by the Ladron Mountains, the Lucero and Nacimiento uplifts, and the Rio Puerco fault zone, a northeast-trending fault belt that separates the Albuquerque Basin from the Colorado Plateau (Plummer et al., 2004).
The San Agustin Basin is a closed intermontane basin on the northern edge of the Mogollon Plateau, and within the Datil-Mogollon volcanic field of southwestern New Mexico, extending across ~2,400 square miles in Catron and westernmost Socorro Counties. Myers et al. (1994) conducted an investigation of the hydrogeology of the basin, which is summarized here. The San Agustin Basin is bounded to the west and south by the Continental Divide, to the north by the Datil and Gallinas Mountains, and to the east by the San Mateo Mountains. The most recent structural activity in the region was late Tertiary Basin and Range faulting, which formed the San Agustin and Cuchillo Negro grabens. The Plains of San Agustin, which occupy the northeast-trending San Agustin graben, were covered by several large lakes during late Pleistocene time. Playas now occupy these former lake beds. There is no perennial streamflow in the basin.
The main objective of this study is to examine hydrogeologic processes in Snowy River Passage by analysis of individual flood events. For a specific flood event, we will measure:
The volume of water that infiltrates downward through the Snowy River streambed
The volume of water that evaporates from the Snowy River stream
The volume of water that discharges at Government Spring
At the forefront of cutting-edge research at New Mexico Tech, we have been utilizing Raman spectroscopy to unravel the mysteries locked within minerals. By harnessing the power of visible and ultraviolet lasers, we can unlock a plethora of information. So, you may be asking, what is Raman spectroscopy? In simple terms, it's a technique that uses laser light to interact with the atomic vibrations of a material, producing a unique "fingerprint" of its molecular composition. By analyzing the scattered light, we are able to identify and characterize minerals such as apatite, fluorite, and calcite.
Northeastern New Mexico is a geologically diverse area that includes the upper Pecos and Canadian river valleys, the eastern margin of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and the Raton and Las Vegas Basins, two north-trending assymetric structural basins formed during the late Cretaceous-Paleogene Laramide orogeny. The Raton and Las Vegas Basins are separated by igneous intrusive rocks of the Cimarron Arch, near Cimarron, NM. The gently-dipping eastern margins of these basins are defined by the Sierra Grande Arch and the Raton-Clayton volcanic field (Kelley, 2015; Broadhead, 2015).
