The San Andres Formation on the Northern and Northwestern Shelves of the Midland Basin is a progradational stratigraphic unit consisting predominantly of carbonate facies. Lithofacies include dolomite, laminated anhydrite and dolomite, massive bedded anhydrite, limestone, salt, and red beds. These lithofacies represent depositional environments that include deep-water outer shelf, shallow-water inner shelf, shallow-water to emergent shoals, and a sabkha complex that comprises intertidal to supratidal algal mud flats, hypersaline lagoons or brine pans, and terrigenous mud flats.

Regional studies of the lower Eocene Wilcox Group in Texas were conducted to assess the potential for producing heat energy and solution methane from geopressured fluids in the deep-subsurface growth-faulted zone. However, in addition to assembling the necessary data for the geopressured geothermal project, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, this study has provided regional information of significance to exploration for other resources such as lignite, uranium, oil, and gas.