Salt Flat is a ghost town in northeastern Hudspeth County, Texas, United States. It lies along the concurrent U.S. Routes 62 and 180, north of the Census-designated place (CDP) of Sierra Blanca, the county seat of Hudspeth County. [1] Its elevation is 3,730 feet (1,137 m). [2] Although Salt Flat is unincorporated, it has a ZIP Code of 79847. [3] The headquarters of the nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park uses this ZIP Code, although it is located closer to Pine Springs, which has no post office.
Just outside the community, there is a dry salt pan called Salt Flat Playa or Salt Basin. It straddles the New Mexico-Texas border and is approximately 150 miles long, and five to 15 miles wide, making it one of the largest gypsum playas in the United States. The playa occupies the north-south oriented Salt Basin Grabben, which lies between the Guadalupe and Delaware Mountains on the east and the Sierra Diablo and Diablo Plateau on the west. The playa was originally a lake during the late Pleistocene epoch, but drying of the climate since then has left a salt pan. [4] Today, a briny water table is about three feet below the surface. Capillary evaporation in the dry, hot weather pulls brine upwards and evaporite (gypsum, halite) and carbonate (calcite, dolomite) minerals precipitate. [4] Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) grow on the surface and immediately below the surface when the playa is wet. Alternating light and dark bands are either gypsum-rich (light) or dolomite-rich (dark) [5] When the playa is dry during the summer, winds blow the gypsum into sand dunes.
The San Elizario Salt War was a dispute over ownership and access to these salt deposits. [6]
Hudspeth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,432. Its county seat is Sierra Blanca, and the largest community is Fort Hancock. The county is named for Claude Benton Hudspeth, a state senator and United States Representative from El Paso. It is northeast of the Mexico–U.S. border.
The Permian Basin is a large sedimentary basin in the southwestern part of the United States. It is the highest producing oil field in the United States, producing an average of 4.2 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2019. This sedimentary basin is located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
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.
A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceed recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline compounds, it is known as an alkali flat. If covered with salt, it is known as a salt flat.
The Llano Estacado, sometimes translated into English as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North American continent, the elevation rises from 3,000 feet (900 m) in the southeast to over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in the northwest, sloping almost uniformly at about 10 feet per mile (2 m/km).
El Capitan is a peak in Culberson County, Texas, located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The 10th-highest peak in Texas at 8,085 ft, El Capitan is part of the Guadalupe Mountains, an exposed portion of a Permian period reef uplifted and exposed by tectonic activity during the late Cretaceous period. The southern terminus of the Guadalupe Mountains, El Capitan looms over U.S. 62/180, where its imposing height and stark outline have made it one of the iconic images of the Trans-Pecos to generations of travelers.
Places of interest in the Death Valley area are mostly located within Death Valley National Park in eastern California.
The Delaware Basin is a geologic depositional and structural basin in West Texas and southern New Mexico, famous for holding large oil fields and for a fossilized reef exposed at the surface. Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park protect part of the basin. It is part of the larger Permian Basin, itself contained within the Mid-Continent oil province.
Bristol Lake is a dry lake in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, 42 km (26 mi) northeast of Twentynine Palms.
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.
Area code 915 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for the area around El Paso, Texas, U.S. It is one of the original North American area codes established in October 1947, when it was assigned to the north-western part of the state, north of Austin and west of Fort Worth, and stretched from the Oklahoma border to the Mexican border.
A sabkha is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal plains just above normal high-tide level. Within a sabkha, evaporite-saline minerals sediments typically accumulate below the surface of mudflats or sandflats. Evaporite-saline minerals, tidal-flood, and aeolian deposits characterize many sabkhas found along modern coastlines. The accepted type locality for a sabkha is at the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, in the United Arab Emirates. Evidence of clastic sabkhas are found in the geological record of many areas, including the UK and Ireland. Sabkha is a phonetic transliteration of the Arabic word used to describe any form of salt flat. A sabkha is also known as a sabkhah,sebkha, or coastal sabkha.
Fort McKavett is a ghost town in Menard County, Texas, United States. It lies at the intersections of Farm to Market Road 864 and Farm to Market Road 1674, 20 miles southwest of the county seat, Menard. Its elevation is 2,169 feet (661 m). It has a post office with the ZIP code 76841.
Vancourt is an unincorporated community in eastern Tom Green County, Texas, United States. It lies along U.S. Route 87 east of the city of San Angelo, the county seat of Tom Green County. Its elevation is 1,867 feet (569 m). Although Vancourt is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 76955; the ZCTA for ZIP Code 76955 had a population of 108 at the 2000 census.
Mereta is an unincorporated community in eastern Tom Green County, Texas, United States. It lies along local roads east of the city of San Angelo, the county seat of Tom Green County. Its elevation is 1,755 feet (535 m). Although Mereta is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 76940; the ZCTA for ZIP Code 76940 had a population of 138 at the 2000 census.
Waring is an unincorporated community in northwestern Kendall County, Texas, United States. It lies along local roads and the Guadalupe River, northwest of the city of Boerne, the county seat of Kendall County. Its elevation is 1,345 feet (410 m). Although Waring is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 78074; the ZCTA for ZIP Code 78074 had a population of 59 at the 2000 census. The community is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Bergheim is an unincorporated community in eastern Kendall County, Texas, United States known for its German-Texan culture and heritage. It lies along State Highway 46 east of the city of Boerne, the county seat of Kendall County. Its elevation is 1,437 feet (438 m). Although Bergheim is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 78004; the ZCTA for ZIP Code 78004, consisting mostly of rural land, had a population of 1,183 at the 2010 census. The community is part of the San Antonio metropolitan statistical area. Bergheim is still a predominantly a ranching and agricultural community.
Oakville is an unincorporated community in northeastern Live Oak County, Texas, United States. It lies along Interstate 37 northeast of the city of George West, the county seat of Live Oak County. Its elevation is 171 feet (52 m). Although Oakville is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 78060.
Animas is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in west-central Hidalgo County, New Mexico, United States, in the southwestern corner of the state. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 237.
The Sierra Diablo is a small mountain range in the US state of Texas, extending north and south along the border between Hudspeth and Culberson counties. It is in the Chihuahuan Desert, and is near Van Horn, Texas.