Raton Basin

The basin forms the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, immediately east of the Sangre de Cristo Range.

The sedimentary rocks of the basin are extensively intruded by igneous plugs, dikes and sills of Eocene to Oligocene age.

The site of the Raton Basin was a coastal plain at the end of Cretaceous and beginning of Paleogene time, and has a well-preserved sequence of rocks spanning the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary.

The boundary is represented in the basin by a 1-cm thick tonstein clay layer in the Raton Formation which has been found to contain anomalously high concentrations of iridium.

The boundary clay layer is accessible to the public at Trinidad Lake State Park, among other places in the basin.

[7] A number of wells have been drilled over the years seeking conventional oil and natural gas, but none has been produced in economic quantities in the basin.

The productive coalbed methane area now covers the central part of the basin, and straddles the Colorado-New Mexico state line.