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Shaded relief map of the Llano Estacado. Texas contains a wide variety of geologic settings. The state's stratigraphy has been largely influenced by marine transgressive-regressive cycles during the Phanerozoic, with a lesser but still significant contribution from late Cenozoic tectonic activity, as well as the remnants of a Paleozoic mountain range.
The Edwards Plateau is a geographic region forming the crossroads of Central, South and West Texas, United States.It is named in honor of Haden Edwards. [2] It is bounded by the Balcones Fault to the south and east; the Llano Uplift and the Llano Estacado to the north; and the Pecos River and Chihuahuan Desert to the west. [3]
The escarpment's features formed by erosion from rivers and streams, creating arroyos and highly diverse terrain, including the large Palo Duro Canyon southeast of Amarillo, Texas. [1] One will notice the change in elevation of several hundred feet while crossing the Caprock Escarpment on Interstate 40 between Adrian, Texas and San Jon, New Mexico.
In the Permian geologic period, North-Central Texas was a part of the western coastal zone of equatorial Pangea, a super-continental land mass. [1] Nearby uplifts and mountainous regions, such as the Muenster Arch and Red River Uplift, the Wichita, Arbuckle, and Ouachita mountains developed by the end of the Pennsylvanian, [2] providing elevated topography to the north and east during the Permian.
At the point where the North Fork crosses Lubbock County Road 3600, the canyon is nearly 2 mi (3,000 m) wide and 200 ft (60 m) deep. Further downstream, the walls of the canyon begin to curve sharply outward as the North Fork flows out of Yellow House Canyon and onto the rolling plains of West Texas.
West Texas is often subdivided according to distinct physiographic features. The portion of West Texas that lies west of the Pecos River is often called "Far West Texas" or the "Trans-Pecos", a term introduced in 1887 by geologist Robert T. Hill. [4] The Trans-Pecos lies within the Chihuahuan Desert and is the aridest part of the state.
The term is considered synonymous with Far West Texas, a subdivision of West Texas. [2] The Trans-Pecos is part of the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America. It is the most mountainous and arid portion of the state, and most of its vast area (outside the city of El Paso) is sparsely populated. Among the nine counties in the ...
The Basin and Range Province is in West Texas, west of the Pecos River, beginning with the Davis Mountains on the east and the Rio Grande to its west and south. The Trans-Pecos region is the only part of Texas regarded as mountainous and includes seven named peaks in elevation greater than 8,000 feet (2,400 m).