Minor nontectonic anticlines known as “tepees,” which are abundant in near-reef Upper Permian shelf carbonate rocks of the eastern Guadalupe Mountains, have been interpreted variously as due to compression, desiccation-contraction, breakout and injection of confined formation fluids or liquified sediments, and vadose soil-forming processes. Detailed examination of tepees in upper Artesia sedimentary rocks cropping out west and southwest of Carlsbad indicates that tepees are probably large-scale pressure polygons caused by the expansion of newly formed carbonate sediments because of the growth of interstitial cement—probably aragonite—during contemporaneous lithification. An intertidal to supratidal coastal-flat environment with a semiarid climate is inferred.

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