Sierra Nacimiento
The Sierra Nacimiento (official name[1]), or Nacimiento Mountains, are a mountain range in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of New Mexico. They are just west of the more prominent Jemez Mountains near the town of Cuba, and are separated from them by the Río Guadalupe and the Río de Las Vacas. This article will consider them as a unit together with the San Pedro Mountains, which are a smaller range contiguous with the Sierra Nacimiento on the north, and which are also part of the Nacimiento Uplift[2] and lie at the edge of the greater San Juan Basin, which sits atop the Colorado Plateau.[3] The combined range runs almost due north-south with a length of about 40 mi (65 km). The highest point in the combined range is the high point of the San Pedro Peaks, known unofficially as San Pedro Peak, 10,605 ft (3,232 m).[4]
The Nacimientos are of some
The San Pedro Mountains are a high plateau that geologists interpret as an old erosional surface. This is overlain by remnants of the
Much of the range is within the
The name "Nacimiento" means literally "birth" or "the Nativity" but also "source of a river." The latter meaning applies here since the
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Sierra Nacimiento
- ^ Confusingly, Nacimiento Peak is more properly part of the San Pedro Mountains. See Nacimiento Peak on TopoQuest.
- ^ Fagan 2005, p. 46.
- ISBN 978-0-937206-88-1.
- doi:10.1086/624816.
- ISBN 0-8263-1689-1.