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 publ ished in the guidebook. The uncertaint ies at tendant upon this ini t ial ef fort have rami f icat ions of ten 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 f ield conference guidebook, unl ike almost any other book publ icat ion, must be ready for dist ribut ion o n 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.

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