Elephant Butte Canyon

Last updated March 29, 2019

Elephant Butte Canyon or Lawhorn Canyon is a canyon in the Animas Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico. Its stream is a tributary of Walnut Creek.^[1] Its mouth is located at elevation 5,535 feet / 1,687 feet at its confluence with Walnut Creek, just below Lawhorn Tank. Its source is located at 3.5 miles north northeast of its mouth 31°36′25″N108°39′20″W / 31.60694°N 108.65556°W / 31.60694; -108.65556 at an elevation of 6,050 feet / 1,844 meters on the southwest slope of Elephant Butte.^[2]

A canyon or gorge is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces, eventually wearing away rock layers as sediments are removed downstream. A river bed will gradually reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water into which the river drains. The processes of weathering and erosion will form canyons when the river's headwaters and estuary are at significantly different elevations, particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering.

The Animas Mountains are a small mountain range in Hidalgo County, within the "Boot-Heel" region of far southwestern New Mexico, in the United States. They extend north-south for about 30 miles (50 km) along the Continental Divide, from near the town of Animas to a few miles north of the border with Mexico. The range is about 12 miles (20 km) wide at its widest. The highest point of the range is the southern summit of the mile-long Animas Peak massif, 8,565 feet (2,611 m). The Animas Mountains lie between the Animas Valley on the west and the Playas Valley on the east. Nearby ranges include the Peloncillo Mountains, across the Animas Valley, and the Big Hatchet and Little Hatchet Mountains, across the Playas Valley. Physiographically, the range divides into two parts. The compact southern part, which includes Animas Peak, is higher and wider, rising up to 4,000 ft above the nearby valleys. It has a sky island character, with dense coniferous forests at the higher elevations. The longer, narrow northern portion is lower, reaching only 7,310 ft at Gillespie Peak, and is characterized by grassland and piñon-juniper woods and shrubs. The Animas Mountains lie near the Chihuahuan Desert, the Sonoran Desert, the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico, and the mountains surrounding the headwaters of the Gila River. Biotic influences from these regions, as well as the more distant Rocky Mountains, give the southern portion of the range a great diversity of species, including "approximately 130 species of birds, 60 species of mammals, and 40 species of reptiles."

Hidalgo County is the southernmost county of the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 4,894. The county seat and largest city is Lordsburg. A bill creating Hidalgo from the southern part of Grant County was passed on February 25, 1919, taking effect at the beginning of 1920. The county was named for the town north of Mexico City where the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, which in turn was named for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the priest who is known as the "Father of Mexican Independence". This county abuts the Mexican border.

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Cowboy Rim is a cliff that runs along the Continental Divide in the Animas Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico. It runs west from a point at 31°36′34″N108°41′37″W to its highpoint is at an elevation of 6,591 feet / 2,009 meters at 31°36′36″N108°39′31″W just east of Elephant Butte. Here Cowboy Rim overlooks the Gillespie Creek valley below it to the north, and the Continental Divide runs along this section of the rim, then turns of to the south-southwest from the highpoint, along a ridge west of Elephant Butte Canyon. Cowboy Rim continues eastward to Elephant Butte then turns south-southeastward to 31°32′52″N108°37′22″W. This section of the Rim overlooks the Playas Valley below it to the east.

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Walnut Creek is a tributary stream of Animas Creek within Hidalgo County, New Mexico.

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References

Coordinates: 31°34′00″N108°40′12″W / 31.56667°N 108.67000°W / 31.56667; -108.67000

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[1] U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Walnut Creek

[2] U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Elephant Butte Canyon