Albuquerque Country

About this guidebook

The Twelth Field Conference focuses on the geology of the Albuquerque region. The first day field trip centers on the Sandia Mountains and vicinitiy. The trip enters the Sandia Mountains through Tijeras Canyon. It traverses the Tijeras graben and back-slope structures to the east of the range with a side trip to the crest of the range for a regional view of the surrounding area. It then descends the northern end of the uplift and goes into the adjoining Hagan Basin where the younger stratigraphy from Jurassic to Eocene will be seen. The second day field trip will lead west from Albuquerque across the faulted margin of the Rio grande trough and then into the southeastern part of the San Juan Basin. As the caravan traverses the Puerco fault zone, Mesozoic and some Cenozoic rocks will be seen in the various fault blocks. The third day’s trip is northward into the Jemez Mountains along the western margin of the Rio Grande depression. Fine exposures of the Jurassic Entrada and Todilto formations will be seen near San Ysidro, and the type localities of the Meseta Blanca and San Ysidro members of the Permian Yeso formation will be observed along the route up Jemez Canyon. Farther up canyon exposures of the Pleistocene Bandelier tuff rise in spectacular cliffs above Permian and Pennsylvanian rocks.