Review of Roadside Geology of Texas

TL;DRAbstract

The 74,000 miles of paved roads in Texas cross landscapes and geologic structure of tremendous variety. With its abundant photographs and interpretive sketches, this book gives the traveler an excellent opportunity to understand and appreciate both the grand and the more subtle features visible along the Texas highways. Texas is considerably more geologically diverse than the other plains states, and this is not just a simple function of its greater size. Many of North American's greatest geologic sites are there: Llano (granite), Terlingua (volcanics), Marathon (fold and thrust belt), Glass Mountains {invertebrate fossils}, and Paluxy River (dinosaur tracks). Why so much oil in Texas? Spearing points out that a buried Paleozoic mountain range (and its attendant down-warped sedimentary basins) accounts for much of the production. A late period of hydrocarbon generation ensued when tectonic forces opened the Gulf of Mexico and allowed deposition of a thick sequence of organic-rich sedim

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