Sais Quartzite

The Sais Quartzite is a geologic formation exposed in the Los Pinos Mountains of central New Mexico.

Description
The formation consists of up to 600 ft of massive gray quartzite beds, 3 to 5 ft thick, interbedded with thinner sericite-bearing quartzite beds. A few beds are greenish to white. The individual grain size in the beds is generally less than 1mm. The formation is underlain by the Estadio Schist and unconformably overlain by the Blue Springs Formation.

Detrital zircon geochronology a minimum age of 1670 million years (Ma), corresponding to the Statherian period of the Paleoproterozoic.

History of investigation
The formation was originally described as the Sais quartzite by J.T. Stark and E.C. Dapples in 1946 and named for the Sais station of the Santa Fe Railroad near Abo Pass. The formation was first assigned to the Manzano Group in 2006.