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Geology News
New Mexico Current Events

Students in a Mesalands Community College paleontology class field trip found a hip bone from an unidentified Triassic period creature that lived about 200 million years ago. Although the bone has some similarities with a coelophysis, it is thought to represent a previously undiscovered early dinosaur or proto-dinosaur.

University of New Mexico scientists say that the western portion of the Grand Canyon is much older than the currently favored age of about 6 million years. They base their revised age of 17 million years on uranium-lead isotope dating of mineral deposits found in caves from nine sites in the canyon’s walls.

The Grand Canyon Association in cooperation with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources have published “Geologic Map of the Butte Fault/East Kaibab Monocline Area”. This is a 1:24,000 scale geologic map in two sheets (38” x 69”) authored by J. Michael Timmons and Karl Karlstrom.

Lots of people are curious about meteorites or find an interesting rock that they suspect might be a meteorite. Here are links to some of the best-on-the web resources that you can use to get a preliminary answer. They can help you decide if your specimen might be a meteorite that is worth more detailed investigation.

Aerolite Meteorites
Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory
Meteorite Market
University of New Mexico

Kevin Lange © iStockphoto.com

A petroglyph is an image that has been carved into a rock. People have been making them for thousands of years. This photographic collection of petroglyphs includes rock art from Arizona, British Columbia, California, Hawaii, India, Namibia, New Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Utah, Virgin Islands and Washington.

The Bureau of Land Management will not renew a mining permit in New Mexico because the mine site contains Permian-age trackways.

USBM Image

James Fassett, geologist emeritus of the US Geological Survey has dates on a number of dinosaur fossils from New Mexico that date about one million years after the KT Extinction. Could they have survived the extinction only to die out a million years later?

©iStockphoto.com Cliff Parnell

The production of electric power from coal has both positive and negative outcomes. These include: electricity, emissions, jobs, business revenue, family income, taxes, royalties and more. This article provides perspective on the proposed Desert Rock project, a coal-fired electric power plant on Navajo land in New Mexico

Geotimes has a nice article about Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico. It is the remnant of a one-million-year-old eruption located in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. This caldera is over 20 kilometers wide. The article provides a great overview of the location - almost a detailed road guide - and gives recommendations on hiking, lodging and natural/historical sightseeing to help you enjoy a visit.

USGS Image

USGS has published: Reported Historic Asbestos Mines, Historic Asbestos Prospects, and Natural Asbestos Occurrences in the Rocky Mountain States of the United States (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming). USGS Open File Report 2007-1182 can be downloaded as a PDF document.

USGS Image

USGS has released a fact sheet that contains interesting maps and data documenting water level declines in the High Plains Aquifer. This important aquifer underlies over 100 million acres in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. Water levels in the aquifer have been in decline since it was first tapped for irrigating crops. Enormous declines - often over 150 feet (pre-development to 2005) - have been measured in many areas. This is a short report in .pdf format and worth a look just to see the maps. Reference: USGS Fact Sheet 2007-3029, Changes in Water Levels and Storage in the High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment to 2005.

NPS Image

Sediments rich in iridium, fullerenes and other compounds associated with extraterrestrial impacts are found in lakes from New Mexico to Canada. These document that a large impact probably occurred about 12,000 years ago - corresponding to the extinction of the mammoths, mastodons and sloths that were once common in North America. It is at odds with the idea that these large mammals were hunted to extinction by humans.