New Mexico Geological Society Downloaded from: http://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/9 Permian sedimentary rocks of the Black Mesa Basin area H. Wesley Peirce, 1958, pp. 82-87 in: Black Mesa Basin (Northeastern Arizona), Anderson, R. Y.; Harshbarger, J. W.; [eds.], New Mexico Geological Society 9th Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebook, 205 p. This is one of many related papers that were included in the 1958 NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebook. Annual NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebooks Every fall since 1950, the New Mexico Geological Society (NMGS) has held an annual Fall Field Conference that explores some region of New Mexico (or surrounding states). Always well attended, these conferences provide a guidebook to participants. Besides detailed road logs, the guidebooks contain many well written, edited, and peer-reviewed geoscience papers. 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WESLEY PEIRCE Arizona Bureau of Mines University of Arizona GENERAL STATEMENT Figure No. 2 is an attempt to show the thickness dis- Information regarding Permian sedimentary rocks of tribution of the Supai formation in northeastern Arizona. the Black Mesa structural basin must be gathered from a In the area just south of the San Juan River all of the few drill holes and disconnected outcrops on the fringes of Cutler formation below the DeChelly sandstone has been the basin. From the center of the Black Mesa physio- considered Supai for all practical purposes. The figure graphic feature it is approximately 80, 72, 60, and 40 demonstrates the basining around the Holbrook area which miles south, west, north, and east respectively to the Mo- contrasts with the formational thinning onto the Defiance gollon Plateau, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and the and Mogollon Rim areas to the east and south respectively. Defiance Plateau where Permian sedimentary rocks crop The configuration of the zone of significant evaporite ac- out. As drill hole data are limited over most of the basin cumulation is not known to the north along the flank of area, projected trends through the basin are highly specu- the Defiance. Recent mapping in the Mogollon Rim to lative. the south has disclosed only minor beds of gypsum occurring PERMIAN BOUNDARIES near the top of the formation. Previous workers have emphasized the difficulty of The control point just southeast of Kaibito in the north- drawing a precise boundary between Pennsylvanian and central part of the area (fig. 2) is based on a log of a Permian sedimentary rocks in northern Arizona. That the test hole drilled by the Sinclair Oil Company in 1952. The Supai, lowermost of the Permian formations, crosses the log suggests that the interval between the top of the Rico Pennsylvanian-Permian boundary seems well established formation and the bottom of the DeChelly is only 580 feet by studies that have been made in parts of the Grand thick. This is the thinnest Supai (Organ Rock tongue of Canyon and Mogollon Plateau regions—Noble (1922), the Cutler fm.) in the area and creates the need for rep- Hughes 11950), Jackson (1951), Huddle and Dobrovolny resenting a northwest-southeast zone of thinned Supai that (1945), and Winters (1950). In western Grand Canyon trends toward the Black Mesa basin. and along portions of the Mogollon Rim the red sedimen- Evidently the paleogeographic framework that con- tary rocks of the Supai formation are interbedded with trolled the Supai formation was initiated during the Penn- marine limestones near the base in a manner that would sylvanian and continued into the Permian period. The seem to be analogous to the Rico "transition interval" de- floor of the deepening Pennsylvanian-Permian Supai basin scribed by Bailey (1955) in the Four Corners region. must have been sinking more rapidly than the previously In eastern Grand Canyon and at Jerome the Supai existing Defiance positive area and the area along the formation rests on the Mississippian Redwall limestone. present Mogollon Rim. Details of the configuration and extent of the latter type Cutler formation of contact are not known but undoubtedly it trends towards As indicated in the legend of figures 1-4, the Cutler the western margins of the Black Mesa basin. On the formation of the Monument Valley area is composed of Defiance Plateau as well as near St. Johns, Permian sedi- five members. Although Baker and Reeside (1929) be- mentary rocks are in depositional contact with granite and lieve that the Permian section in Monument Valley con- quartzite of probable Precambrian age (fig. 1). Permian trasts markedly with the Grand Canyon section, the writer sedimentary rocks are overlain by Triassic formations in suggests that except for the absence of the Kaibab forma- the Black Mesa basin but are truncated by upper Creta- tion and the insertion by them of the Hoskininni tongue ceous sandstones along parts of the Mogollon Rim to the at the top of the section, the stratigraphic sequences of the south. two disconnected provices have much in common (fig. 1 ). SOME ASPECTS OF PERMIAN STRATIGRAPHY The Cedar Mesa sandstone member of the Cutler formation Supai-Hermit formations passes laterally into red beds to the southeast, south, and The term "Supai" is currently used over all of northern probably southwest as this sandstone was not recognized Arizona except in the Four Corners area. As used it refers in the Sinclair test hole previously mentioned. The Organ to a multiple lithologic sequence dominated by reddish Rock and Halgaito red bed tongues thus coalesce to form clastics with varying modifications, but in large part sandy. a sedimentary sequence that cannot be readily differentiat- Although the formation contains some limestone, only the ed from the Supai formation of the Black Mesa basin area. prominent Ft. Apache limestone unit of the Mogollon Rim Baker and Reeside (1929) as well as Baker (1936) and area has been given a formal name. Evaporitic material Baker and Williams (1940) all picture the Cedar Mesa as well as evaporites seem to be concentrated in the and DeChelly sandstones as merging westward to form Holbrook to St. Johns region where the Supai formation the Coconino sandstone. McKee (1933) is not in agree- attains its greatest known thickness of approximately 2600 ment with this concept and the present writer is in agree- feet (figs. 1 and 2). ment with McKees views. It seems highly unlikely that The Hermit formation disconformably overlies the Supai the 57 feet of Coconino sandstone near Lees Ferry rep- formation in the Grand Canyon region and areas to the resents the 1300 feet of section from the top of the De- north. Evidently the Hermit merges laterally with the Supai Chelly sandstone to the bottom of the Cedar Mesa sand- southward towards Oak Creek Canyon as at this locality stone as shown in the Texas Company Hoskininni Mesa oil the Coconino sandstone, which overlies the Hermit in the test in western Monument Valley (fig. 1). Grand Canyon, is in gradational contact with sedimentary Coconino-DeChelly sandstones rocks of Supai lithology. The Hermit formation, as in the The Coconino sandstone of the Grand Canyon-Mogol- Grand Canyon area, is not known to extend into the Ion Plateau regions and the DeChelly sandstone of the Black Mesa basin. Defiance Plateau and Monument Valley areas everywhere NEW MEXICO GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 0 NINTH FIELD CONFERENCE 83 EXPLANATION 7 PIO Mogollon Plateau Area Sections: 1-Argo Oil Co. St. No. 2 well 2-Franco-Ariz. Oil Co. Govt. No. 1 3-Gt. Basin Oil, Taylor-Fuller No. I Grand Canyon Area Sections: 4-Oak Creek Canyon •sdc 5-Bass Trail Pik 6-Little Colorado River 7-Badger Canyon Ps MESA Ps Monument Valley Section: 8-Texas Co. Hoskininni Mesa test BASIN Defiance Plateau Sections: 9-Canyon DeChelly area 10-Hunters Point 11-Pine Springs Pudc-Upper member DeChelly ss Pldc-Lower member DeChelly ss Pc Gr- Granite Qtz- Quartzite Stratigraphic symbols as shown in Ps previous figures. Evaporitic sandy sits ss Evaporite Vertical Scale 1"= 1,000 0 18 36 FIGURE 1. Typical Permian sections surrounding the Black Mesa basin with possible relationships. Scale - Miles overlie, so far as is known, red sedimentary rocks. The Unequivocal solutions to problems of this sort are Coconino has been studied over a wide area by McKee difficult to establish when stratigraphic relationships can- (1933).