31 Stratigraphic Studies in the Colorado Plateau
This session features stratigraphic studies that resolve the geological history of modern and ancient sediment routing systems, and their processes, within the Colorado Plateau using data from field, analytical, experimental and/or numerical modeling investigations.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
1:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Alvarado C
Stratigraphic and Depositional Environmental Analysis of the conglomeratic sandstone of Knight Canyon (Paleocene?), Grant County, New Mexico
Paper number: 31-1
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:32 PM – 1:52 PM
Authors
Abstract
At the mouth of Knights Canyon are excellent exposures of a lithic conglomerate to feldspathic wacke (sandstone). Hedlund (1980) used the term conglomeratic sandstone of Knight Canyon for these outcrops. Stratigraphic analysis of these conglomerates and feldspathic sandstones indicates that three distinct stratigraphic units are present in the Knight Canyon area. The lowest unit in the southern part of the area consists of lenses of cobble and pebble conglomerate to coarse-grained cross-laminated sandstone with beds 30 to 80 centimeters thick. The second and largest unit contains 20 to 50 centimeter thick cross-laminated, lens-shaped beds of conglomerate and feldspathic wacke. This unit extends the length of the study area. The third unit consists of 30 to 90 centimeters of cross-laminated lens-shaped beds of coarse grain sandstone to cobble conglomerate. Channels in the conglomeratic sandstone of the Knights Canyon area range between 1 and 4 meters in length and are between 10 and 50 centimeters in thickness. At the base of these channels are cobble and pebble-size clasts that fine upward and represent channel lag. The conglomeratic sandstone of Knights Canyon is exposed in a 2-kilometer belt south of Knights Peak. They come to a depositional edge north and south of Knights Peak and are not seen in other parts of the Knight Canyon area. The local extent, the lens-shaped geometry, the upward-fining sequences in the channels, and the presence of channel lag deposits in the conglomerate and sandstone bodies suggest deposition in braided fluvial channels.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4
doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410536
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