New Mexico Geological Society
Special Publication - 4
Subsurface Geology of East-Central New Mexico

Roy W. Foster, Richard M. Frentress and Walter C. Riese, 1972, 22 pages.

This paper was prepared at the request of Editors V. C. Kelley and F. D. Trauger to appear in the Guidebook of the New Mexico Geological Society's Twenty-Third Field Conference. Instead, it appears as the Society's "Special Publication Number Four" to accompany the Guidebook. An explanation is in order as this is a precedent-setting procedure.

The first step when a guidebook for a particular area is planned is to contact those people who know the region, its geology, and the associated problems, and to obtain from them a pledge to contribute their time, energy and special knowledge in the form of papers to be published in the guidebook. The uncertainties attendant upon this initial effort have ramifications often never considered by the contributor, or those who casually leaf through a guidebook, wondering, perhaps, why in heaven's name the editors did this, or that.

A field conference guidebook, unlike almost any other book publication, must be ready for distribution on a given day. A hard-cover guidebook poses special problems, and therein lies the reason for "Special Publication Number Four."

A hard cover must be ordered 10 weeks in advance of printing and binding deadlines. That means the size of the guidebook -- the number of pages to be bound in -- must be determined at the time the covers are ordered. On the basis of the response from potential contributors, and the page estimate as specified, a cover to accommodate 200 pages was ordered.

The papers began coming in, and coming, and coming. Authors from whom the editors had no initial response sent papers, and at least 50 percent of the papers exceeded the lengths specified. The deluge resulted in estimates by the printer, based on galley proof, of 257 pages a number impossible to accommodate. A thinner paper was selected and it was found that 238 pages could be bound. The editors then had a choice eliminate three to five short papers or one long one.

One contribution, a paper of 21 pages, prepared to treat one phase of the geology of the conference area, was determined to be capable of standing alone, and by removing it from the guidebook, all other papers could be accommodated. But this paper was considered essential to complete the theme and purpose of the conference guidebook. The Publications Committee, with the approval of the Executive Committee of the Society, agreed the paper should be published as a supplement to the Guidebook, and at the same time be made available as a separate publication for those with a special need for its particular contribution. The paper, Subsurface Geology of East-Central New Mexico, by Roy W. Foster, Richard M. Frentress, and Walter C. Riese is here presented exactly as prepared for the Guidebook.

Table of Contents available for download (142 kB PDF requires Acrobat 7.0 or later)