Project encompasses a 400 square mile areas studied by a team of soil scientists and geologists from 1957 to 1972. The project was staffed by personnel of the Soil Survey Investigations, U.S. Soil Conservation Service, and work was done in cooperation with the Agricultural Experiment Station and Department of Agronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Field investigations included mapping the soils, geomorphic surfaces, and surficial deposits at a scale of 1:15,840. In addition, detailed studies at larger scales were conducted along selected transects. Joint laboratory and field investigations included studies of characteristics and genesis of a number of soils and soil horizons, radiocarbon dating of pedogenic carbonates and organic carbon, and studies of the effect of additions from dustfall to soil genesis and morphology. The frontispiece shows major physiographic features of the Desert Project and Table 1 shows the soil chronology. Table 2 lists soils of the area by soil classification; Table 3 presents soils series analogs and taxadjuncts in alphabetical order. Soil classsifiction is accoridng to the Soil Survey Staff (2006).