Abo Formation Alluvial Facies and Associated Basin Fill, Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Outcrops of the Abo Formation (Wolfcampian to early Leonardian age) in the Sacramento Mountains of south-central New Mexico record the evolution of a dry alluvial fan system as it was deposited off the pedernal uplift into the Orogrande basin. The location and orientation of present-day outcrops allow us to observe an inferred east-to-west transverse facies tract consisting of: (1) proximal alluvial fans (lower Abo), which are contiguous in places with underlying Laborcita Formation fan-deltaic sediments; (2) medial anastomosed streams (middle Abo); and (3) distal low-gradient mud-dominated flood basins characterized by either distributary streams (upper Abo) or clastic tidal flats (Lee Ranch Tongue of the Abo) with associated marine carbonates (Pendejo Tongue of the Hueco Formation). Tectonism in the Pedernal highlands, which climaxed during the Late Pennsylvanian, apparently continued well into the Wolfcampian in this region, as evidenced by a major basal Abo unconformity and distinct stacked megasequences of lower Abo alluvial fan lithofacies. However, by the middle Abo, tectonic activity had quiesced and the uplift began eroding and retreating to the north and east. By the late Abo, a pediment surface had formed that was subsequently onlapped by upper Abo and eventually Yeso Formation sediments.