The Artesia Group is a

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

geologic formation A geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics ( lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exp ...

s found in southeastern

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

and west

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. These preserve

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

from the

Leonardian The Cisuralian, also known as the Early Permian, is the first series/epoch of the Permian. The Cisuralian was preceded by the Pennsylvanian and followed by the Guadalupian. The Cisuralian Epoch is named after the western slopes of the Ural Mount ...

Guadalupian The Guadalupian is the second and middle Series (stratigraphy), series/Epoch (geology), epoch of the Permian. The Guadalupian was preceded by the Cisuralian and followed by the Lopingian. It is named after the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico an ...

Epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

s of the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

Period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

Description

The Artesia Group is interpreted as a sequence of shelf rocks of the Capitan reef. It shows cyclicity and considerable lateral variation, from

carbonate rock Carbonate rocks are a class of sedimentary rocks composed primarily of carbonate minerals. The two major types are limestone, which is composed of calcite or aragonite (different crystal forms of CaCO3), and Dolomite (rock), dolomite rock (also kn ...

s near the Capitan reef, to mixed

dolomitic Dolomite () is an anhydrous carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate, ideally The term is also used for a sedimentary carbonate rock composed mostly of the mineral dolomite (see Dolomite (rock)). An alternative name sometimes ...

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from ''shale'' by its lack of fissility.Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.'' New York, New York, ...

evaporite An evaporite () is a water- soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution. There are two types of evaporite deposits: marine, which can also be described as oce ...

s, and

sandstones Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains, cemented together by another mineral. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed o ...

of a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

environment further from the reef, to a near-shore environment of evaporites, massive red

siltstones Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed ...

, and minor amounts of dolomite. Formations within the group are, in ascending stratigraphic order, the Grayburg Formation, Queen Formation, Seven Rivers Formation, Yates Formation, and Tansill Formation. The Grayburg and Queen are found furthest north, pinching out north of

Las Vegas, New Mexico Las Vegas, often known simply as Vegas, is a city in and the county seat of San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. Once two separate municipalities (one a city and the other a town), both were named Las Vegas: West Las Vegas ("Old Town" ...

, with the younger formations pinching out further south. This reflects the retreat of the sea from the area. The formation is prominent in the subsurface near

Artesia, New Mexico Artesia is a city in Eddy County, New Mexico, centered at the intersection of U.S. routes 82 and 285; the two highways serve as the city's Main Street and First Street, respectively. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 12,875. His ...

, where it attains a thickness of . The formation lies atop the San Andres Formation, from which it is separated by an erosional surface showing

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

features. It is overlain by various

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

rock units. In its northernmost exposures, in

Glorieta Pass Glorieta Pass (elevation 7500 ft.) is a mountain pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico. The pass is at a strategic location near the southern end of the Sangre de Cristos in east central Santa Fe County southeast of ...

, it is lowered to formation rank.

History of investigation

The group was first named by Tait and coinvestigators in 1962. It largely replaces the abandoned Whitehorse Group and Carlsbad Group. Red beds previously assigned to the Bernal Formation at Glorieta Pass were reassigned to the Artesia Formation by Lucas and Hayden in 1991.

Footnotes

References

* * * * {{cite journal , last1=Tait , first1=D.B. , last2=Motts , first2=W.S. , last3=Spitler , first3=M.E. , year=1962 , title=Artesia Group of New Mexico and West Texas , journal=American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin , volume=46 , number=4 , pages=504–517 , doi=10.1306/BC74383B-16BE-11D7-8645000102C1865D Permian formations of New Mexico Limestone groups of the United States Dolomite groups Sandstone groups of the United States Geologic groups of New Mexico

Description

History of investigation

See also

Footnotes

References