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 Plio-Pleistocene hydrocarbon fairway of offshore western Louisiana is restricted to the outer continental shelf and upper continental slope where a thick wedge of nearshore and deep-marine sediments was deposited.

Since 1979, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has funded cooperative programs with coal-bearing states in an effort to provide current U.S. coal resource estimates that are calculated by uniform, computerized methods.

Plio-Pleistocene strata of offshore Texas having hydrocarbon exploration potential are restricted to the southeastern continental shelf and upper continental slope. This thick wedge of nearshore and deep-marine sediments firms the west margin of a late Neogene and Quaternary depocenter.

The Sabine Arch is a large (1 2,000 mi2 [31,000 km2]), low-amplitude anticline centered on the Texas-Louisiana border.

In mature sedimentary basins, where mechanical compaction is negligible, the hydrodynamics is typically described by steady-state flow driven by potential energy represented by the water table, which generally follows the topography.

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.

This guidebook, Hydrogeology of Trans-Pecos Texas, grew out of our interest in the hydrogeology of desert environments.