Great Basin National Park is a national park of the United States located in White Pine County in east-central Nevada, near the Utah border, established in 1986. The park is most commonly entered by way of Nevada State Route 488, which is connected to U.S. Routes 6 and 50 by Nevada State Route 487 via the small town of Baker, the closest settlement.
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
The Spring Mountains are a mountain range of Southern Nevada in the United States, running generally northwest–southeast along the west side of Las Vegas and south to the border with California. Most land in the mountains is owned by the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and managed as the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
The San Francisco Peaks are a volcanic mountain range in the San Francisco volcanic field in north central Arizona, just north of Flagstaff and a remnant of the former San Francisco Mountain. The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona at 12,633 feet (3,851 m) in elevation. The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of an eroded stratovolcano. An aquifer within the caldera supplies much of Flagstaff's water while the mountain itself is in the Coconino National Forest, a popular recreation site. The Arizona Snowbowl ski area is on the western slopes of Humphreys Peak, and has been the subject of major controversy involving several tribes and environmental groups.
The Davis Mountains, originally known as Limpia Mountains, are a range of mountains in West Texas, located near Fort Davis, after which they are named. The fort was named for then United States Secretary of War and later Confederate President Jefferson Davis. They are a popular site for camping and hiking and the region includes Fort Davis National Historic Site and Davis Mountains State Park. The historical and architectural value of the fort, alongside the rugged natural environment of the park are a significant destination for tourism in Texas.
The San Andres Mountains are a mountain range in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico, in the counties of Socorro, Sierra, and Doña Ana. The range extends about 75 miles (121 km) north to south, but are only about 12 miles (19 km) wide at their widest. The highest peak in the San Andres Mountains is Salinas Peak, at 8,965 feet (2,733 m).
The Sacramento Mountains are a mountain range in the south-central part of the U.S. state of New Mexico, lying just east of Alamogordo in Otero County. From north to south, the Sacramento Mountains extend for 85 miles (137 km), and from east to west they encompass 42 miles (68 km).
The Hualapai Mountains are a mountain range located in Mohave County, east of Kingman, Arizona. Rising up to 8,417 feet at its highest peak, the higher elevations of the Hualapai Mountains support Madrean Sky Island habitats, and are host to a plethora of unique flora and fauna in a wide range of microclimates, high above the surrounding Mojave Desert.
The Kingston Range, sometimes called the Kingston Mountains, is located in Inyo and San Bernardino counties in the Mojave Desert in eastern California. The range reaches a height of 7,323 feet (2,232 m) above sea level at Kingston Peak.
The Tularosa Basin is a graben basin in the Basin and Range Province and within the Chihuahuan Desert, east of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico and West Texas, in the Southwestern United States.
The Carrizozo volcanic field is a monogenetic volcanic field located in New Mexico, US. The volcanic field consists of two lava flows, the Broken Back flow and the Carrizozo lava flow, the second youngest in New Mexico. Both lava flows originated from groups of cinder cones. The Broken Back flow is approximately 16 kilometres (10 mi) long and the Carrizozo, one of the largest in the world, is 68 kilometres (42 mi) long, covering 328 square kilometres (127 sq mi) with a volume of 4.2 cubic kilometres (1.0 cu mi).
North Oscura Peak, is a summit in the Oscura Mountains in Socorro County, New Mexico is the location of an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) site in the northern portion of the White Sands Missile Range. It rises to an elevation of 7,976 feet.
The San Andres National Wildlife Refuge is located in the southern San Andres Mountains of southcentral New Mexico, USA. The refuge, which lies within the northernmost extension of the Chihuahuan Desert, has elevations ranging from 4,200 feet (1,300 m) to 8,239 feet (2,511 m) feet. Refuge habitats vary from creosote and Chihuahuan desert grasslands in the bajadas to pinyon-juniper woodlands at higher elevations. A few springs, seeps, and seasonal streams provide water for wildlife and riparian habitats in the refuge.
Pinyon–juniper woodland, also spelled piñon–juniper woodland, is a biome found mid-elevations in arid regions of the Western United States, characterized by being an open forest dominated by low, bushy, evergreen junipers, pinyon pines, and their associates. At lower elevations, junipers often predominate and trees are spaced widely, bordering on and mingling with grassland or shrubland, but as elevation increases, pinyon pines become common and trees grow closer, forming denser canopies. Historically, pinyon-juniper woodland provided a vital source of fuel and food for indigenous peoples of the American Southwest. The nuts continue to be a traditional indigenous food, and because nut-collecting was also adopted by the Spanish in the 1500s, the nuts are also traditionally harvested by some Hispanic communities.
The ecology of the Rocky Mountains is diverse due to the effects of a variety of environmental factors. The Rocky Mountains are the major mountain range in western North America, running from the far north of British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the southwestern United States, climbing from the Great Plains at or below 1,800 feet (550 m) to peaks of over 14,000 feet (4,300 m). Temperature and rainfall varies greatly also and thus the Rockies are home to a mixture of habitats including the alpine, subalpine and boreal habitats of the Northern Rocky Mountains in British Columbia and Alberta, the coniferous forests of Montana and Idaho, the wetlands and prairie where the Rockies meet the plains, a different mix of conifers on the Yellowstone Plateau in Wyoming, the montane forests of Utah, and in the high Rockies of Colorado and New Mexico, and finally the alpine tundra of the highest elevations.
The San Augustin Mountains are a small mountain subrange located at the southern terminus of the San Andres Mountains east of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
The Great Basin montane forests is an ecoregion of the Temperate coniferous forests biome, as designated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The pinyon jay is a species of jay, and is the only member of the genus Gymnorhinus. Native to Western North America, the species ranges from central Oregon to northern Baja California, and eastward as far as western Oklahoma, though wanderers are often sighted beyond this range. It is typically found within foothills, especially where pinyon pines occur.
Sagebrush scrub is a vegetation type (biome) of mid-to-high elevation Western United States deserts characterized by low-growing drought-resistant shrubs including the sagebrush and its associates. It is the dominant vegetation type of the Great Basin Desert, occurs along the margins of the Mojave Desert, including in the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the Transverse Ranges, in California, and occurs in the Colorado Plateau and in the Canyonlands, where it may be referred to as cool desert shrub.
Oscura Peak is a mountain summit in the Oscura Mountains in Socorro County, New Mexico. Its elevation is 8,625 feet.
