The State-owned submerged lands of Texas encompass nearly 6,000 square miles (15,540 km²) and extend from Mexico to Louisiana. The area includes the bays, estuaries, and lagoons, as well as the inner continental shelf 10.3 miles (16.6 km) seaward of the Gulf shoreline (fig. 1). Many uncertainties exist regarding the future utilization of the State submerged lands, and one cannot anticipate all potential uses for these areas.

The Upper Triassic Dockum Group of Texas and New Mexico is composed of 200 to 2,000 feet of complexly interrelated terrigenous clastic facies ranging from mudstone to conglomerate. The lower 200 to 1,000 feet of the Dockum accumulated in a fluvial-lacustrine basin defined by the Amarillo Uplift - Bravo Dome on the north and the Glass Mountains on the south.