Geologic map that depicts the surface geology of Rains, Wood, Upshur, Marion, Harrison, Smith, and Gregg Counties and parts of Camp, Cass, Panola, Rusk, Cherokee, Anderson, Henderson, Van Zandt, Hunt, Morris, Franklin, and Hopkins Counties, Texas.

Studies along the southern and southeastern borders of the High Plains have demonstrated the presence of outliers of fossiliferous Ogallala Formation in Borden and Scurry counties and have documented the occurrence of Pliocene deposition as far southeast as Sterling County. The limit of characteristic Ash Hollow seed floras is extended to the southeast. An abandoned Pliocene and Pleistocene valley is described across a prong of Edwards Plateau south of Big Spring, and the drainage of the late Pleistocene Lake Lomax is determined to have occurred in pre-Bradyian Wisconsinan time.

Sediments of the Fredericksburg Division in south-central Texas were deposited on the slowly subsiding west flank of the Tyler basin. In this region there are three stratigraphically distinct areas. The southern area has a thick Edwards Limestone unit overlying a thin Walnut Formation. The intermediate area has a thinner Edwards sequence and Comanche Peak Limestone intervening between the Edwards and an expanded Walnut Formation.

The red upper unit of the Hickory Sandstone is a hematitic and goethitic sandstone containing a large reserve of potential low-grade iron ore. It is estimated that about 7 million long tons of elemental iron is locked up in each square mile of the upper 30 feet of this deposit in sandstone averaging about 12.4 percent elemental iron.