ABSTRACTThe Holder Formation (Pennsylvanian, Virgilian) of southern New Mexico, USA, consists of limestones interbedded with siliciclastics. It was deposited during times of glacio‐eustatic sea‐level change and was exposed subaerially during multiple sea‐level lowstands. Microcomponents and whole‐rock samples of limestones were analysed for δ13C and δ18O values to examine the method of whole‐rock isotopic analysis for detecting subaerial exposure events and to determine the diagenetic processes acting during subaerial exposure. Whole‐rock isotopic shifts are not consistently present across petrographically identified subaerial exposure surfaces. Apparently, whole‐rock isotopic shifts do not result from wholesale replacement of the host sediment during soil formation. However, the isotopic shifts are present in calcareous, soil‐precipitated microcomponents, such as rhizoliths, laminated crusts, and soil‐precipitated cements. The components are heterogeneous in isotopic composition, but converge on a meteoric calcite line at about δ18O=−5.5‰. These microcomponents are heterogeneous in distribution and may either dominate or be a minor constituent of the whole rock at a single stratigraphic horizon. Without petrographic selection of palaeosol components, the detection of whole‐rock isotopic shifts may depend on the selection or chance sampling of a rock containing abundant microcomponents precipitated in a soil environment. Only minor whole‐rock isotopic shifts come from those rocks bearing no evidence of exposure and bearing lithological characteristics suggesting sub