The Washita Group in North-Central Texas and southeastern Oklahoma consists of up to 114 m of intercalated shale, limestone, and sandstone that accumulated in the shallow, epicontinental sea of the East Texas Basin.

Barrier islands along the Texas Coastal Zone are part of a complex and dynamic system represented by many distinct yet interrelated environments affected by a variety of resources, natural processes, climatic conditions, and human activities.

Tertiary strata of the Texas Gulf Coast comprise a number of terrigenous depositional wedges, some of which thicken abruptly at their downdip ends as a result of contemporaneous movement of growth faults and underlying salt.

Papers in this volume were presented at the Gulf Coast Lignite Conference held in Austin, Texas, June 1976.
Papers were edited, in some cases extensively, and subjectively grouped by discipline, paralleling that of their presentation at the Conference.