Historical monitoring along Mustang and north Padre Islands records the nature and magnitude of changes in position of the shoreline and vegetation line and provides insight into the factors affecting those changes.

The Catahoula Formation of the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain consists of two depositional systems--the Gueydan bedload fluvial system of the Rio Grande embayment and the Chita-Corrigan mixed load fluvial system of the Houston embayment. Both systems contain distinctive fluvial channel-fill, crevasse splay, floodplain, and lacustrine facies, which tend to persist vertically through the section. The paleoclimate varied from subarid in the Gueydan system to humid in northeastern parts of the Chita-Corrigan system.

Three principal depositional systems were defined within the Sparta Formation of Texas using surface and subsurface data: high-constructive delta system in east Texas; strandplain-barrier bar system in central Texas; and high-destructive, wave-dominated delta system in south Texas.

Historical monitoring along central Padre Island records the nature and magnitude of changes in position of the shoreline and vegetation line and provides insight into the factors affecting those changes.

Texas is endowed with an enormous variety of natural land resources that vary from the humid forest lands of East Texas to the vast desert lands of Trans-Pecos, from the swamps and marshes of the Texas Coastal Zone to the arid plains of the Panhandle, and from the rich farmland of Central Texas to the sparsely vegetated sand plain of the south Texas coast. Almost 270,000 square miles of land, including plains, plateaus, mountains, hill country, beaches, river valleys, badlands, and many other types of terrain, comprise the natural land wealth of the State.