The Ogallala aquifer, which underlies the Southern High Plains, consists of the saturated sediments of the Neogene Ogallala Formation. The aquifer is the main source of water for the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico and is being severely depleted by extensive pumpage for irrigation.
Barbers Hill salt dome, located in the Texas Coastal Plain near Houston, has a long history of resource exploitation, including oil and brine production, storage of hydrocarbons in solution-mined caverns within the salt stock, and disposal of brine into the cap rock.
In the Rio Grande Embayment of South Texas, the Carrizo Formation (lower Eocene) consists of two sand-rich fluvial depositional systems that grade basinward into several deltaic complexes within the upper part of the Wilcox Group.
Middle-upper Miocene depositional sequences of offshore Texas represent the last regionally significant influx of terrigenous elastic sediments into the western Gulf Coast Basin.
The manner in which sedimentary overburden accumulates significantly influences the growth of syndepositional salt structures.