COMPETING MODELS FOR THE FRUITLAND FORMATION COAL AND COAL-BED METHANE SYSTEM OF THE SAN JUAN BASIN, NEW MEXICO AND COLORADO
In the 1980s, as the San Juan Basin Fruitland coal-bed methane play was rapidly expanding, Fruitland coals were revisited and a radically new model was proposed to explain the area of thick Fruitland coals in the north-central part of the basin (NMBMMR Bulletin 146). This model suggested that thick Fruitland coals did not accumulat according to the San Juan Basin model, but rather had formed as the result of differential tectonism within what is now the central San Juan Basin. This model further suggested that Fruitland coal beds, rather than becoming progressively younger across the basin (per the San Juan Basin model) were deposited in a series of wide-spread, more or less synchronous, peat swamps extending nearly basin-wide.
A recent study of the Fruitland coal system, part of the USGS National Coal Assessment and published in 2000 (USGS Professional Paper 1625-B, Chapter Q) has confirmed the validity of the 1971 San Juan Basin coal-deposition model and precisely dates the Pictured Cliffs Sandstone regression as lasting 2.5 m.y. and shows that the overlying Fruitland coal beds are discontinuous and become progressively younger northeastward across the basin area.