The publication comprises 24 structural dip cross sections, spaced 15 to 20 mi apart along the Texas coast, and 4 structural strike cross sections. Dip sections extend from near the Wilcox outcrop to the coastline.

This field guide summarizes recent interpretations of the upper Cenozoic stratigraphy of parts of the Southern High Plains and Rolling Plains in northwestern Texas and eastern New Mexico.

The Bureau of Economic Geology has been conducting regional studies of the Frio Formation along the Texas Gulf Coast to evaluate potential geothermal energy from deep, geopressured sandstone reservoirs (Bebout, Dorfman, and Agagu, 1975; Bebout, Agagu, and Dorfman, 1975).

Reservoir quality of lower Teritary sandstone reservoirs along the Texas Gulf Coast is controlled by sandstone depositional environment, mineralogical composition, and consolidation history (compaction, cementation, and leaching).

The Hueco Basin of Trans-Pecos Texas, which formed in response to Cenozoic extensional tectonism, lies within the southern Rio Grande rift near the poorly defined boundary between the rift and the southern Basin and Range province.

The rim rock of the Vieja Rim, the quartz pantellerite of Lord, is named the Bracks Rhyolite.

Tertiary rocks, including sandstone, conglomerate, shale, pyroclastics, tuff, and lava, are preserved in Big Bend National Park and in a much larger area to the west and northwest. Some of the rocks have distinctive characteristics that enable recognition by their lithology.

Upper Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene deposits in the subsurface of the central Coastal Plain of Texas were subdivided into six operational units comprising the surface-defined Fleming, Goliad, Willis, Lissie, and Beaumont Formations.

Variable intensity of diagenesis is the factor primarily responsible for contrasting regional reservoir quality of Tertiary sandstones from the upper and lower Texas coast.

Post-Aptian strata (younger than 112 ma) in the East Texas Basin were strongly influenced by halokinesis and recorded the evolution associated sate structures.