This study used a numerical model to examine the playa-focused recharge theory by comparing it with the spatially uniform approach and with a zonal approach.

Analysis of spatial variability in unsaturated flow is critical to evaluating contaminant transport in areas of focused or preferential flow. This study examined spatial variability at a variety of scales from focused flow through playas to preferential flow in macropores.

The origin of thousands of playa basins on the Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico has been attributed to eolian deflation, evaporite or carbonate dissolution and subsidence, piping, or animal activity.

This report documents the stratigraphy beneath playa lakes and associated lake-margin, playa-basin, and upland settings.

Remotely sensed features such as linear drainages, escarpments, ridges, and aligned playas have been identified on Landsat imagery (scale 1:250,000) of the Texas Panhandle and adjacent regions to allow comparison of these features with detailed regional and site-specific geologic data.

Four clastic depositional sequences compose the lower part of the Triassic Dockum Formation in the Palo Duro Basin.

The Palo Duro Basin is a broad structural low in the southern Texas Panhandle that formed as a result of nearly continuous Pennsylvanian and Permian subsidence. True complexity of this basin is unknown because of the sparsity of structural information.

In the Palo Duro Basin, the Wolfcampian Series (lower Permian) overlies Pennsylvanian (primarily Virgilian) strata and underlies the Wichita Group (Leonardian).

The Ogallala aquifer, which underlies the Southern High Plains, consists of the saturated sediments of the Neogene Ogallala Formation. The aquifer is the main source of water for the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico and is being severely depleted by extensive pumpage for irrigation.

The interaction of geomorphic and ground-water processes has produced the Caprock Escarpmentthat bounds the eastern margin of the Southern High Plains in the Texas Panhandle.