The trace fossil Zoophycos from middle Pennsylvanian strata at Guadalupe Box, Jemez Mountains, New Mexico
— Spencer G. Lucas, Karl Krainer, Patrick J. Carey, Deborah Petrak Green, and Paul T. May, [eds.]

Abstract—Zoophycos is a distinctive trace fossil, interpreted as the deposit-feeding trace of a marine worm that is found in marine deposits throughout the Phanerozoic, but it has rarely been reported from New Mexico. We describe an extensive assemblage of Zoophycos traces from the Middle Pennsylvanian (Atokan) Sandia Formation at Guadalupe Box in the Jemez Mountains. These are simple helicoidal and circular forms with subhorizontal spreiten that have diameters up to 190 mm. Based on lithology and associated fossils, the Zoophycos-bearing bed was deposited in shallow water but below wave base. Zoophycos gives its name to an archetypal ichnofacies originally characterized as being deposited in deep or at least dysaerobic/anaerobic bottom water. However, the Guadalupe Box record conforms well to many other Paleozoic occurrences of Zoophycos in shallow marine deposits that support the idea that the Zoophycos ichnofacies should be used in the Mesozoic-Cenozoic but not the Paleozoic.