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The West Mesa of the Mesilla Basin in south-central New Mexico encompasses an undeveloped area of approximately 750 square miles west of the Rio Grande. In order to provide for orderly development of the ground^water supplies in the northern West Mesa, information is needed about the geohydrologic characteristics of the aquifer in the Santa Fe Group. The Santa Fe Group consists of Quaternary and Tertiary piedmont-slope, fluvial, playa, and lacustrine deposits composed of clay, silt, sand, gravel, and caliche, and igneous rocks composed of volcanic ash and basalt. The saturated thickness of the aquifer in the Santa Fe Group ranges from about 3,440 feet at the Boles No. 1 Federal oil test well to zero at. the western and northern borders of the study area. Because of the heterogeneity of the Santa Fe Group, the hydrologic characteristics of the aquifer vary substantially from place to place. Hydraulic conductivities of 12 and 30 feet per day were estimated from aquifer tests for two wells in the eastern onehalf of the study area. Some of the well yields in the eastern one-half of the study area are greater than 1,000 gallons per minute. Well yields in the western one-half of the study area generally are less than 5 gallons per minute. Across the eastern one-half of the study area, ground water flows southeastward at a gradient of less than 5 feet per mile. Group water flows southeastward across the western one-half of the study area at a gradient of about 50 feet per mile. Dissolved-solids concentrations in ground water range from 378 to 556 milligrams per liter in the eastern one-half of the study area and from 906 to 1,470 milligrams per liter in the western one-half. INTRODUCTION The West Mesa of the Mesilla Basin in south-central New Mexico encompasses an undeveloped area of approximately 750 square miles west of the Rio Grande (fig« !) The Dona Ana County Fairgrounds and Las Cruces Crawford Airport, both located on the West Mesa near Las Cruces, currently (1982) receive water via a 4-inch-diameter pipeline from the Las Cruces municipal wells in the Mesilla Valley. Planned development of the West Mesa near Las Cruces includes construction of an industrial park and a prison facility for the State of New Mexico. The city of Las Cruces hopes to provide additional ground-water supplies for these facilities from the aquifer in the Santa Fe Group underlying the West Mesa. El Paso, Texas, through ongoing litigation, and the Strauss Land and Cattle Co., through permit applications, are also attempting to acquire water rights on the West Mesa south of Las Cruces and the study area. In order to provide for orderly development of these supplies, information is needed about the capacity of the aquifer to transmit and store water, the long-term effects of pumping in the West Mesa area on the aquifer to the east and on the flow of the Rio Grande, and horizontal and vertical water-quality changes within the aquifer. The purpose of this study was to obtain geohydrologic information about the aquifer in the Santa Fe Group on the northern West Mesa near Las Cruces, New Mexico (fig. 1). The scope of the study was limited to collecting and summarizing existing data from published and unpublished sources and collecting new data from two test wells drilled by the city of Las Cruces. This information will aid in the planning of future studies to evaluate the hydrology of the aquifer in the West Mesa area and the effects of its development on the aquifer to the east and on flow in the Rio Grande. The data obtained in this study will contribute to the ongoing Southwest Alluvial Basins study that is part of the U.S. Geological Survey's Regional Aquifer Systems-Analysis Program (Wilkins, Scott, and Kaehler, 1980). This study was done in cooperation with Jthe New Mexico State Engineer Office and the city of Las Cruces. Description of the Study Area The West Mesa is that part of the Mesilla Basin bordered on the north by the Rough and Ready Hills and Robledo Mountain, on the east by the Mesilla Valley, on the south by the Mexican border, and on the west by the Potrillo Mountains, Aden Hills, and Sleeping Lady Hills (fig. 1). The surface of the West Mesa ranges from 300 feet to 350 feet above the Rio Grande. The climate in the West Mesa area is semiarid. The study area is characterized by minimal relative humidity and large diurnal and annual temperature ranges. The mean annual temperature for the area is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (Houghton, 1972, p. 3). Temperatures during the summer months will occasionally exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. During approximately 2 days in the winter, the temperature will be less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The average annual precipitation from 1853 to 1976 was 8.39 inches (Wilson and others, 1981, p. 7). The average annual evaporation from a free water surface of a Class A pan is 94 inches (Houghton, 1972). ERspTtont Butte Reservoir c. O

Geohydrology of the aquifer in the Santa Fe Group, northern West Mesa of the Mesilla Basin near Las Cruces, New Mexico