Basinal mudrocks and associated facies assigned to the Wolfcamp and lower Leonard lithostratigraphic units in the Midland Basin are prolific producers of oil and gas.

The Wolfberry play in West Texas combines favorable geology with innovative completion practices to form one of the largest unconventional oil plays in the United States. Wolfberry wells produced almost 55 million barrels of oil in 2011, and that figure could double in a few years.

Surface fissures have been observed in many desert basins in the western United States. These surface-collapse features are usually discovered after a normally dry surface has been covered with water, either by runoff from intense rainfall, by flooding, or by irrigation.

The Lower Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation contains an estimated 6.4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in place in East Texas and North Louisiana. Advanced technology will be needed to maximize recovery from this low-permeability ("tight") gas sandstone.

Data from five drainage basins in the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico characterize the recent history of regional drainage basin formation and landscape development around the margins of the Southern High Plains.