The Panther Seep Formation is a

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 ...

found in the mountain ranges of south-central

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 ...

. It preserves

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 ...

dating back to the

late Pennsylvanian The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, on the ICS geologic timescale, the younger of two subperiods of the Carboniferous Period (or the upper of two subsystems of the Carboniferous System). It laste ...

early Permian 01 or 01 may refer to: * The year 2001, or any year ending with 01 * The month of January * 1 (number) Music * '01 (Richard Müller album), ''01'' (Richard Müller album), 2001 * 01 (Urban Zakapa album), ''01'' (Urban Zakapa album), 2011 * ''01011 ...

Description

The formation is highly variable in lithology, consisting of interbedded black to reddish sandy, silty, or calcareous

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

; brown to olive calcareous

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

, brown to gray calcareous arkosic

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

;

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

; and gray argillaceous to silty

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

. It varies in thickness from . It overlies the Lead Camp Limestone or Bishop Cap Formation and is overlain by the Hueco Group. The unit likely correlates with

Bar B Formation The Bar B Formation is a geologic formation found the Caballo Mountains of New Mexico. It preserves fossils showing it was deposited in the middle to late Pennsylvanian. Description The Bar B formation is mostly cyclic beds of shale and limeston ...

in the

Caballo Mountains The Caballo Mountains, (Spanish: "horse") are a mountain range located in Sierra and Doña Ana Counties, New Mexico, United States. The range is located east of the Rio Grande and Caballo Lake, and west of the Jornada del Muerto; the south of ...

and the

Holder Formation The Holder Formation is a geologic formation in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the late Pennsylvanian. Description The Holder Formation consists of limestone, red and gray calcareous shale, sandstone, ...

in the Sacramento Mountains.

Fossils

The formation includes patch reefs and numerous

fusulinid The Fusulinida is an extinct order within the Foraminifera in which the tests are traditionally considered to have been composed of microgranular calcite. Like all forams, they were single-celled organisms. In advanced forms the test wall was d ...

s of Virgilian (

Gzhelian The Gzhelian ( ) is an age in the ICS geologic time scale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest stage of the Pennsylvanian, the youngest subsystem of the Carboniferous. The Gzhelian lasted from to Ma. It follows the Ka ...

) age. The formation also contains algae and some invertebrate fossils typical of the Virgilian. The lower beds may be Missourian (

Kasimovian The Kasimovian is a geochronologic age or chronostratigraphic stage in the ICS geologic timescale. It is the third stage in the Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous), lasting from to Ma.; 2004: ''A Geologic Time Scale 2004'', Cambridge Unive ...

) in age while the uppermost beds may be Wolfcampian (

Cisuralian 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 Mou ...

) in age.

History of investigation

The formation was first defined by F.E. Kottlowski and coinvestigators in 1956, who divided it into informal upper and lower members.

Footnotes

References

* * * {{cite encyclopedia , last1=Kues , first1=B.S. , last2=Giles , first2=K.A. , year=2004 , title=The late Paleozoic Ancestral Rocky Mountain system in New Mexico , editor1-last=Mack , editor1-first=G.H. , editor2-last=Giles , editor2-first=K.A. , encyclopedia=The geology of New Mexico. A geologic history: New Mexico Geological Society Special Volume 11 , pages=95–136 , isbn=9781585460106 Carboniferous formations of New Mexico Carboniferous southern paleotropical deposits Shale formations of the United States Sandstone formations of the United States Limestone formations of the United States

Description

Fossils

History of investigation

See also

Footnotes

References