This study will integrate regional tectonic, stratigraphic and provenance analyses with quantitative estimates of long-term sediment flux in the Galisteo-El Rito and Raton basins of the southern Rocky Mountains. We seek to provide further constraints on the scale of Laramide fluvial systems, and their relative importance for Gulf of Mexico marine depositional systems.

Siliciclastic sedimentation in the Gulf of Mexico increased significantly with the initiation of Laramide deformation. Available provenance and paleogeographic studies of the Paleogene Wilcox Formation suggest a connection between the Gulf of Mexico and contemporaneous Laramide basins. The preservation of Paleogene deposits in Laramide basins is limited to the southern Rocky Mountains; this study will focus on the Raton and Poison Canyon formations of the Raton basin and the Diamond Tail, Galisteo and El Rito formations of the Galisteo-El Rito basins. The proposed work will generate new paleohydraulic calculations and provenance analyses in order to reconstruct the history of Laramide basin filling and sediment bypass for the Galisteo-El Rito and Raton basins, as an intermediate component in a Rocky Mountain to Gulf of Mexico source-to-sink system.

Through comparison of our new sediment flux calculations with estimates of terrestrial sediment flux to the Gulf of Mexico, this study will serve as an important link between source-to-sink sedimentary models and regional tectonic models.