First-day road log from Carlsbad to White City, Orla, Loving, Potash Enclave and return to Carlsbad.
— George S. Austin, James M. Barker, Joseph E. Crawford, John W. Hawley, David W. Love, Spencer G. Lucas, and Jim W. Adams

The first segment of the Day 1 and 2 tours, via US-62/180 to the New Mexico-Texas state line, crosses the northwestern Delaware Basin along the southeastern base of the Guadalupe Mountains. The Day 1 tour emphasizes the Delaware Basin; Day 2 focuses on the Capitan Reef (Escarpment); Day 3 covers the shelf.

Day 1 Stops 1 and 2 and two optional stops (miles 22.9 and 25.7) introduce the main Upper Permian—Ochoan units (Castile, Salado and Rustler Formations). Emphasis is on dissolution and related phenomena that affected this evaporite-dominated sequence since its deposition. Two minipapers (Hawley) review the geomorphic history and late Cenozoic stratigraphy and introduce the mechanisms of formation of zones of soil-carbonate (caliche-calcrete) prominent in the local surficial deposits (late Miocene to Pleistocene). A minipaper (Crawford) on Stop 1 describes paleokarst features and related selenite of the Yeso Hills portion of the (Castile) Gypsum Plain. Sulfide/barite/fluorite deposits of the Delaware Basin are discussed in Hill's minipaper. Minipapers at Stop 2 by Anderson, Leslie et al. and Watkinson and Alexander relate to the origin and morphology of the State Line Gypsum Outcrop (middle to upper Castile Formation).

The second segment of Day 1 is from US-62/180 southeast to Orla, Texas, via Texas Farm-Road 652, across the Gypsum Plain and the Rustler Hills. Two stops examine features with similar origins but very different scales. Stop 3 is at the "Castiles," conical hills of secondary biogenic limestone/sulfur developed in the Castile Formation, as discussed in a condensation of Brown and Loucks (1988) on the Gypsum Plain. Stop 4 is at the Culberson Sulphur Mine, a world-class Frasch sulfur/limestone deposit of biogenic origin in the Salado and Castile Formations. Minipapers by Klemmick (Pokorny sulfur deposit), Guilinger (Phillips Ranch Sulphur Mine) and Davis (Phillips Ranch hydrology) cover aspects of smaller local deposits. A minipaper (Hawley) discusses the upper Neogene valley and depressions fills of the Orla area.

The third segment of Day 1 from Orla north to the Known Potash Leasing Area (KPLA) and Stop 7 is via US-285, NM31 and US-62/180 with excursions. Three stops examine the Rustler Breaks (or Bluffs) along the Pecos River (Stop 5 excursion), the geology at Pierce Canyon (Stop 6 excursion) and the Permian-Triassic Boundary at the "Hill B" breccia pipe (Stop 7). Two related minipapers cover post-tectonic reheating history via vitrinite data (Barker and Pawlawicz) at Stop 5 and red bed age and nomenclature at Pierce Canyon (Hawley, Love and Lu- cas) at Stop 6. Olsen's minipaper discusses the role of the BLM in managing the Potash area. Wallace discusses the ground-water quality in the Carlsbad reef aquifer.

The final segment from Stop 7 traverses the KPLA and oil fields via US-62/180 to Carlsbad, then south to the Civic Center.