RECONNAISSANCE OF THE GEOLOGY AND OIL POSSIBILITIES OF BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

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Abstract
Baja California is about the same length (1300 km.) as California and has a little more than a third its area. Essentially it is a westward-tilted fault block, with its mountainous northern half consisting mainly of crystalline rocks, which rise to elevations of more than 10,000 feet. Most of its southern half is a great area of volcanic flows and detrital rocks, overlying crystalline rocks and unaltered Tertiary marine sediments of pre-Upper Miocene age. The formations exposed are the partly metamorphosed Lower and early (?) Upper Cretaceous San Fernando formation, unconformably overlain by the unaltered Upper Cretaceous Rosario formation; the Tepetate formation of Paleocene to Eocene age; unnamed beds of probable Oligocene age; the San Gregorio formation, Oligocene (?) to Lower (?) Miocene in age; the Ysidro formation, assigned to the late Lower or Middle Miocene, or both; the Comondú formation, a series of volcanic rocks of Upper Miocene (?) age; and the Salada formation of Pliocene age. Structurally, the peninsula is regarded as part of a single diastrophic unit extending southeastward from the latitude of Los Angeles, California, bounded on the east by a great structural depression which includes the Salton Basin in southeastern California and the Gulf of California, and on the west by the continental slope fault. Tests for oil so far drilled on and adjacent to the peninsula have been dry holes. Three basins of deposition on the west slope of the peninsula may be attractive for future prospecting; these are the region north and east of Bahia de Magdalena, Desierto de Santa Clara, and near the 30th parallel.

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