White Mesa mapping project

Partie rédigée par Thomas bryant

On May 27^th and 28^th, we went to map in the White Mesa area. White Mesa is located on a federal land (BLM - Bureau of Land Mangement) and is open to the public (most pueblos and reservations are not open to the public). It has a very hot climate with almost no vegetation (even cactuses seem to find it tough to survive there) and apart for rattlesnakes the only animals we saw were one antelope and a few cows (how on earth do they survive there???). White Mesa is near a gypsum quarry situated to the West/ North West of San Ysidro and about to the south west of the Valles Caldera (Map figure 2). This geological site is West of Santa Fe (about one hour by car). It’s highest point is at about 6060 feet

Figure: View of the south canyon of White Mesa (looking south).

The objective of this project was to obtain the map of this area containing Mesozoic sedimentary rocks and to study about canyon structures.

This report has been removed because it contains descriptions that could bias the personal works of students who are studying this classic mapping area in the American Southwest with their teachers. Sorry for the inconvenience.