“Sedimentary and Stratigraphy Trip to New Mexico and West Texas”

Class taught by Dr. Lynn Soreghan

Dr. Lynn Soreghan typically leads her senior-level Sedimentary/Stratigraphy class on a trip to the Sacramento and Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and West Texas. The Guadalupe Mountains offer world-class exposures of a 260 Million year old reef system—a must-see destination for geologists everywhere. In addition to unbeatable exposures of various types of carbonate rocks, we also view sandstones that accumulated in the basin depths below the reef system. We commonly spend at least one night camping in the Guadalupe Mountains, consorting with the rattlesnacks, skunks, centipedes, and other wildlife that roam the Pine Springs Campground. The photos here depict our last trip, which turned uncharacteristically cold and rainy.

Photo of group in front of El Capitan

Here, we’re huddling for warmth at the photo-op site below the famous El Capitan massive reef, which is shrouded in clouds. The bedded rocks in the foreground are deepwater strata that were deposited off the reef front.

[Photo of Dustin]

In the deepwater deposits, we study how sand is transported off the shelf to form the thick basinal clastics that serve as analogs for so many deepwater hydrocarbon systems. In this photo, it’s difficult to judge what is goofier, the TA, or the folded rock.

[Photo of Jennifer]

The last gasp of the basin fill in the Capitan reef system is a unit of deepwater evaporites called the Castile Formation. It’s an amazing pile of rock, because it’s roughly 600 meters thick, and laminated at the millimeter scale, with each laminae couplet recording seasonal climate shifts. Just think, all you have to do is count all these layers and you’ve got a chance at an ‘A’!!

[Photo of mountainside with massive limestone]

A highlight ‘survivor’ aspect of this trip is the Permian Reef Trail hike—a nearly 8 mile roundtrip march that takes us up through the reef, beginning in the deepwater deposits and progressing all the way up to the backreef strata at the top of the trail. After laudatory celebrations at the trail top, younguns’ with knees to spare always like to race to the bottom in attempts to beat the record time.

[Closeup of sponges]

Along the reef trail, we stop to view the ‘upside-down sponges’ of the Capitan reef system.

[Student reaching on toes]

Little do these students know that the innocuous-looking recess at their feet is a cow-pie infested maximum flooding surface that will give them nightmares on a future exam…

[“Algerita”]

The repetitive bedding that is so obvious on this hillside reflects the presence of many, many "cycles" recording small, repeated changes in sea level that occurred during deposition of these strata. The hike down is easier than the hike up.

[“Sitting bull”]

and

[Whitesands]

In the end, there IS water in the desert, and we usually try to stop at the watering hole tucked away in Sitting Bull Falls—an oasis in the desert—as well as making a stop at the world-renowned White Sands National Monument, a rare example of gypsum dunes that has served as a backdrop for music videos etcetera by the likes of U2 and many others.

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