Lucas, S.G., DiMichele, W.A. and Krainer, K., eds., 2017, Carboniferous-Permian transition in Socorro County, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 77. 1 CARBONIFEROUS-PERMIAN TRANSITION IN SOCORRO COUNTY, NEW MEXICO, USA: AN OVERVIEW SPENCER G. LUCAS1, KARL KRAINER2, BRUCE D. ALLEN3 and WILLIAM A. DIMICHELE4 1New Mexico Museum of Natural History, 1801 Mountain Road NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico M 87104; email:
[email protected]; 2Institute of Geology, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria ; 3New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, New Mexico 87801; 4Department of Paleobiology, NMNH Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Abstract— This volume documents the results of 20+ years of field, laboratory and museum research on the Pennsylvanian-Permian rocks and fossils of Socorro County, New Mexico. The articles in this volume report studies of the Pennsylvanian-Permian strata east of Socorro (Joyita Hills-Cerros de Amado-Carthage area), in the Los Pinos Mountains (Sepultura Canyon area), in the Little San Pascual Mountains and at Bell Hill in the Southern San Mateo Mountains. Lithostratigraphy, sedimentary petrography, microfacies analysis and sedimentological interpretation as well as diverse paleontological studies (fossil plants, calcareous microfossils, conodonts, fossil insects, tetrapod footprints, coprolites and fossil fishes) are presented. The entire Pennsylvanian-Permian stratigraphic section in Socorro County is about 2 km thick. The Pennsylvanian strata are a complex succession of sedimentary rocks of marine and nonmarine origin deposited during the Middle-Late Pennsylvanian. These are synorogenic deposits of the ancestral Rocky Mountain (ARM) orogeny and associated marine carbonates of shallow seaways along the western periphery of equatorial Pangea.