This is the first comprehensive source of information about Mexican fossils to be published in English. The book offers updated information in the fields of stratigraphy, sedimentology, tectonics, paleobiogeography, paleoclimatology and evolution. Included is an extensive bibliography of almost 1000 references related to the central topic, a tribute to two centuries of research.

This comprehensive survey of the fossil record of New Mexico catalogs the plants and animals of the area for the past 500 million years from Precambrian time through the Pleistocene Era.

The Ixtapa area is situated in central Chiapas, the southermost state of Mexico ... The study area comprises about 360 square kilometers and is approximately 18 km. north-south by 20 km. east-west ... It is bounded on the north by the southwest flank f the Soyalo Anticline, on the northwest by the Soyalo-Chicoasen Anticline ... , on the south by the Pan American Highway and to the east by the high mountain east of Finca Javier Mina ... This report comprise s a detailed description of Late Eocene through Miocene marine sedimentary rocks in the Ixtapa area , a systematic and stratigraphic study of the Oligocene and Early Miocene scleractiniai and a systematic and stratigraphic description of the more abundant larger foraminifera. Older and younger rocks in the area are briefly considered and other fossils are cited but detailed discussion of these is reserved for other reports on the over-all project.

Because almost every part of New Mexico is rich in fossils, collectors from all over the Land of Enchantment will want to own this useful book, the first authoritative and well-illustrated guide to the state's fossils. It provides a nontechnical introduction to the basic principles of studying and collecting fossils along with a guide to the kinds of fossils one is likely to find within the state. The author's advice on collecting fossils ranges from the minutely practical--how to carry your specimens home and prepare them--to the ethics of collecting. He defines and explains the nature of fossils and fossilization, the study of paleontology, and the kinds of rocks in which fossils are found. He explains the geologic time scale and the significance of fossils to understanding the history of life, and describes the main groups of vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant fossils and their classification. The longest section of the book is a guide to New Mexico fossils of each geologic period. For every period represented in the state's rocks, Kues provides a summary of important paleontologic events, a map showing the distribution of outcrops, and a general description of the types of fossils one is likely to find in strata of the period. More than 500 common and characteristic fossil genera are illustrated to facilitate identification of fossils observed or collected in rocks of each age.