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Geologic Map of the Luis Lopez 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Socorro

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Geologic Map of the Luis Lopez 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, Socorro GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE LUIS LOPEZ 7.5 MINUTE QUADRANGLE, SOCORRO COUNTY,NEW MEXICO New Mexico Bureauof Mines and Mineral Resources Open-file Report421 Richard M. Chamberlin andTed L. Eggleston 1996 Revised August, 1999 OF421 CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 6 CENOZOIC TECTONIC SETTING .............................................................................................. 9 STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION ..................................................................................................... 13 SOCORRO SAWMILL CANYONCALDERAS .................................................. 20 LATE OLIGOCENE ONSET OF RIFTING .................................................................... 25 MIOCENE BASINS AND RIFTING ............................................................................... 28 PLIOCENE TO PLEISTOCENE BASINS AND RIFTING ............................................ 34 SOCORRO ACCOMODATION ZONE.......................................................................... 39 ALTERATION AND MINERALIZATION................................................................................. 42 DEUTERIC MICROPERTHITE ZONE .......................................................................... 46 RED SERICITIC ZONE ................................................................................................... 48 POTASSIUM METASOMATISM ZONE ....................................................................... 51 UPPER JASPERODAL SUBZONE ................................................................... 54 LOWER NON-SEICPIEiD SUBZONE .............................................................. 59 CALCRIZATION AND MANGANESE OXIDEZONE ............................................... 61 OTHER ALTERATION ZONES ..................................................................................... 64 ECONOMIC GEOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 64 2 OF421 Page HYDROGEOLOGIC FRAMEWORK ......................................................................................... 66 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... 68 REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................. 69 TABLES ........................................................................................................................................ 81 TABLE 1: Explanation of Map Symbols .......................................................................... 81 TABLE 2: Description of Map Units ................................................................................ 84 TABLE 3: Summary of4"Ad3'Arages of volcanic rocks ................................................ 128 TABLE 4: Site mean paleomagnetic data for volcanic rocks ......................................... 130 TABLE 5: Representative geochronologic data for lateMiocene silicic lavas and dikes in the Pound-Red Canyon4ocorro Peak area .............................................. 131 APPENDIX I PETROGRAPHIC DATA .................................................................................. 132 CAPTIONS FOR FIGURES AND SHEETS ............................................................................. 149 FIGURE 1. Index map of the Luis Lopez quadrangle ................................................................ 150 FIGURE 2 . Tectonic sketch map Socorro-Magdalena region .................................................... 151 FIGURE 3 . Correlation diagram for map units in Luis Lopez quadrangle ................................. 152 3 ABSTRACT The Luis Lopez quadrangle lies within the southern section of the Rio Grande rift, where two pulses of WSW directed lithospheric extension have broken a subduction-related Oligocene caldera complex into a north-trending array of tilted fault-block ranges and alluvial basins. Topographic elements of the quadrangle include the narrow north-trending Chupadera Mountains, and adjacent piedmont slopes of the Broken Tank and Socorro basins. The latter is represented by a dissected and faulted bajada-slope that descends to the floodplain of the Rio Grande at the east margin of the quadrangle. The strongly east-tilted Chupadera block, mostly of Miocene age, locally provides a cross-section like view of the southeastern sector of the 31.9 Ma Socorro caldera. As much as 2 km of lithic-rich caldera facies Hells Mesa Tuff exposed atRed Canyon locally defines the collapsed core of the Socorro caldera. Bedded autoclastic ignimbrite breccias and intercalated fall deposits at the top of the intracaldera Hells Mesa probably reflect a brief resurgent phase. Autoclasts in the upper ignimbrite are texturally and compositionally identical to a coarsely porphyritic, spherulitic lava flow of Hells Mesa age, whichis partially exposed in the southern moat-like area, near Nogal Canyon. Sedimentary and volcanic units that back filled the Socorro caldera, prior to the next major ignimbrite eruption (28.7 Ma LaJencia Tuff), are collectively assigned to the Luis Lopez Formation. Distribution patterns of rhyolitic to andesitic conglomeratic sandstones in thelower Luis Lopez are consistent with derivationfrom a resurgent dome and the southern caldera wall. 4 OF421 Clasts of pre-caldera rhyolite (33.7 Ma) occur inthe upper wall-derived facies of this moat-fill unit, which was deposited during a lull in volcanism (31.9-30.2 Ma).Volcanic strata of the Luis Lopez formation consist of early trachybasalt lavas, medial lithic-richrhyolitic ignimbrites and andesitic porphyry lavas, and late-stage flow-banded rhyolite lava domes and tuffs. Ages of Luis Lopez volcanic units, from about 30.2 to 28.7 Ma, imply that they are premonitory events related to a developing magma system that culminated in eruptionof the 28.7 Ma La Jencia Tuff from the adjacent Sawmill Canyon caldera. The eastern topographic wallof the Sawmill Canyon caldera is partially exposed near Black Canyon; here breccias andconglomerates derived from the Luis Lopez formation are overlapped by 28.0 Ma Lemitar Tuff at the caldera wall. Moderately tilted volcanic-rich conglomerates and playaclaystones of the Miocene Popotosa Formation are preserved in tilt-block depressions within and adjacentto the Chupadera range. Intercalated dacite and trachybasalt flowsof late Miocene age help define local unconformities associated with fault-block highlands inthe early rift basins. The 8.42 Ma basalt of Broken Tank flowed westward acrossthe Chupadera blockon inset piedmont gravels of the Popotosa Formation near Walnut Creek and BrokenTank; it then flowed northwardonto playa muds near Bear Canyon. Episodes of hydrothermal alteration and mineralization were locallyassociated with shallow silicic magmatism and volcanism of Oligocene and late Miocene age. Potassium- metasomatism and slightly younger manganese-oxide vein deposits inthe northern Chupadera Mountains appear to be temporally and spatially linkedto late Miocene rhyolitic magmatism in 5 OM21 the Socorro Peak area, about6 km north of the quadrangle. Pliocene and Pleistocene sedimentary deposits of the Sierra Ladrones Formation record the transition from early-rift closed basins tolate-rift, valley-fill deposits of the ancestral Rio Grande and its tributary drainages. Important aquifers withinthe quadrangle include a newly recognized fluvial-fan deposit of early Pliocene age (ca.5 Ma) apparently emanating from the eastern Magdalena Mountains, and well known sands and gravelsof the ancestral Rio Grande (axial facies of Sierra Ladrones Formation). Aquifer units, possiblyas much as 300 m thick, are locally preserved on subsiding, high-angle fault blocks near the eastern margin of the quadrangle. INTRODUCTION The Luis Lopez 7.5 minute quadrangle, here after referred to as“the quadrangle,” is located in central New Mexico, along the western border of the Rio Grande valley about6 miles southwest of the town of Socorro (Fig. 1). The village of Luis Lopez lies inthe northeast corner of the quadrangle adjacent to the floodplain of the Rio Grande. Dominant topographic elements of the quadrangle include the narrow north-trending Chupadera Mountain block, along its westernflank, and a complexly eroded andfaulted bajada, which generally slopes eastward from the range front into the Rio Grande Valley (SocorroBasin, Fig. 2). Large canyons descending from near the alpine crest of the Magdalena Mountains, such as Red Canyon (Fig. l), cut across the east-tilted Chupadera Mountain block. These superimposed (let down) drainages apparently reflecta time in the early Pliocene when alluvial 6 OF421 fans emanating from the Magdalena Mountains sloped uniformly eastward to the ancestral Rio Grande (ie.Chupadera block was largely buried).The highest point in the quadrangle is an unnamed peak on the western edge of the Chupadera block (elev. 6410 feet, near Broken Tank Mesa) and the lowest point is on the Rio Grande floodplain in the southeast corner (elev. 4540 feet). Access to the quadrangle is provided by graded county roads and old mining roads that connect with frontage roads and exits along Interstate 25, or US Highway 60. At the east margin of the quadrangle, low roadcuts along1-25 locally expose
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