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The Capitan is the best known of the larger Permian barrier reefs of the Southwest. This paper describes the sedimentation and depositional environment of this well-known reef.

The Dockum series, of Upper Triassic age, overlies much of the oil-producing area in the southern part of the Permian basin, in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. In the area south of the 33d parallel the Dockum consists of red and non-red conglomerate, sandstone, and shale beds of terrestrial origin. An examination of the series in well samples shows that it is composed of two formations. The names Santa Rosa and Chinle, as used for the Triassic of central New Mexico, are extended to include the equivalent formations in the Texas section. A critical study of the means used for separating the Red-beds of the Triassic and Permian shows that the gravel and non-lithified shales of the Triassic and the thick beds of very fine sandstone and hard shale of the Permian are t e most prominent features.

Paleogeography in a broad way controls the deposition and distribution of source beds and reservoirs. The search for new deposits of petroleum is aided by the use of special paleogeographic maps. The term eulithogeography is introduced to cover distribution of favorable lithologic areas. Other types of maps that may be used show salinity, thickness of sands, paleogeology and paleotopography. All of these maps can be combined with structural contour maps to show depositional and post-depositional dips.

By comparing the Upper Permian stratigraphy of West Texas and Oklahoma it is found that the Whitehorse of Oklahoma is equivalent to the lower evaporites of the southern basin and that the Permian of the Oklahoma Quartermaster is equivalent to the Yates sand. Formations above the Yates in the southern basin are younger than any of the Oklahoma or Kansas Permian.

The Delaware basin is a strongly negative structural depression in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The early history of the basin was part of that of the western mid-Paleozoic Tobosa basin (Fig. 1). Its history as a separate basin began with the rise of an Early Pennsylvanian median ridge in the Tobosa basin. During the Pennsylvanian and Permian 20,000 feet of sediments accumulated in the deep Delaware basin trough. These basinal sediments consist largely of clastics in contrast to the thinner equivalent carbonate sections deposited on the surrounding shallow shelves. Water depth was a controlling factor in this facies distribution pattern. Clastic supplies were limited and throughout its history waters in the Delaware basin were deep. Only near the end of the ermian, when the basin filled with evaporites, did the surface of sedimentation reach sea-level. Formation of a late Paleozoic geosyncline, which includes the Delaware basin, was associated with high-angle faulting rather than crustal folding. Exploration has not proceeded far enough to justify discussion of local structures within the Delaware basin.

The Pennsylvanian foreland province of Texas and eastern New Mexico covers approximately 150,000 square miles. Over this whole area close relationships exist between structural and sedimentary developments. Originally a marginal segment of the mid-Paleozoic craton, it was isolated from the ocean by borderland mountain ranges. Uplift of these Llanorian ranges altered the early continental shelf block into an incipient mediterranean, notching deeply into the cratonic core. The eastern margin of this intra-continental seaway was almost continuously loaded with clastic sediments. Extensive limestone banks spread across the unloaded marginal shallows farther west. Uplifted positive blocks and topographic highs within the negative interior supported isolated limestone buildups. Intervening clastic and carbonate-starved deeps accumulated thin sections of dark shales. Facies changes associated with environmental boundaries limit embayment stratigraphic correlations.

The thick series of redbeds along the eastern edge of the southern Permian basin is divided into groups and formations that can be recognized both on the outcrops and in the subsurface. Gradations between nearshore, marine, and retricted sea deposits are recognized and described, and unconformities in the section are traced out into the basin. The Triassic-Permian boundary line is re-defined as occurring between the top of the newly defined Dewey Lake redbeds and the base of the overlying Tecovas silts.

The Ochoa series includes the uppermost Permian deposits of the southwestern United States. Most of the rocks included in the series are poorly exposed unfossiliferous evaporites. The well known subsurface section in and around the Delaware basin is described and illustrated by cross sections. A short chapter discusses theories on the origin and distribution of the characteristic evaporites.

The writers advocate the classification of the American Permian as a system composed of four series, named, from oldest to youngest, the Wolfcamp series, the Leonard series, the Guadalupe series, and the Ochoa series.