scholarly journals The Wind-Swept Nautilus, Enigmatic Clastic Pipes, and Toadstool Landforms: Geologic Features of the Paria Plateau

Geosites ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
David Wheatley ◽  
Winston Seiler ◽  
Marjorie Chan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Colorado Plateau ◽  
Ocean Wave ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Geologic History ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Wheel Drive ◽  
Wilderness Area ◽  
Four Wheel Drive

The Colorado Plateau occupies much of the southwestern United States including portions of Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. This region presents unobstructed views from mesa tops, beautifully colored soils, lone standing buttes, and canyons cut thousands of feet deep. The Colorado Plateau represents a well-preserved window into the Earth’s history. Today, the rocks of the Colorado Plateau lie roughly horizontally, as they were deposited hundreds of millions of years ago. The Plateau’s rise has motivated rivers, in their downhill progress, to carve innumerable canyons. These river canyons allow any nature-lover the opportunity to gaze at 100s of millions of years of geologic history. Within the larger Colorado Plateau, the Paria Plateau straddles the Utah and Arizona borders, and includes the Vermilion Cliff s National Monument, the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area, and the southern extent of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM; pre-2018 boundaries). The Paria Plateau is best known for spectacularly colored, wind-sculpted features such as Coyote Buttes and “The Wave,” where vivid colors accent cross-strata resembling a cresting ocean wave. The Plateau is also recognized for the geologically notable Vermilion Cliff s, Buckskin Gulch slot canyon, White Pocket area, and the Paria River Canyon. Although only two, dual-lane highways circumvent the plateau, several wash-boarded gravel and deeply mud-rutted roads allow access to its interior. From these dirt roads, a few sandy, four-wheel drive paths diminish as they extend and branch into the plateau’s interior. Overall, the Paria Plateau is a relatively quiet and little-visited wilderness.

Traditional Aesthetics

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-75
Author(s):  
Julianne Newmark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Community History ◽  
As If

D. H. Lawrence’s essays ‘The Spinner and the Monks’ of 1913 and ‘The Hopi Snake Dance’ of 1924 offer evocative textual considerations of aesthetic mediation through acts of the body. In these essays, readers can understand ‘traditional’ aesthetic acts to be those that are not contrivances of modernity; through such acts, history is invoked in the now, as if unchanged. This chapter identifies Lawrence’s engagements with traditional aesthetics as unique experiences of the human sensorium. The examples this chapter examines – the first from Lawrence’s earliest trip outside England (Italy), and the second from New Mexico (in the Southwestern United States) – show how Lawrence progressively experienced and then wrote about ‘traditional’ aesthetic acts as having a unique capacity to engage with community, history and truth. They thus have broad implications concerning Lawrence’s movement toward a refined articulation of aesthetic difference and viscerally mediated relationships. Lawrence’s accounts of Hopi dance and Italian handiwork reveal an openness to the viscerally-mediating capacity of aesthetic experience. As a result of his multi-sensorial engagements, Lawrence experiences and textually records ‘traditional’ aesthetic performances or outputs as both meditating and transformational.

A colorful new species of the digger wasp genus Pseudoplisus Ashmead from the Southwestern United States (Hymenoptera: Apoidea, Crabronidae)

Zootaxa ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
MICHAEL OHL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Species ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Color Pattern ◽  
Single Specimen ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Digger Wasp ◽  
A New Species

A new species of apoid wasps, Pseudoplisus willcoxi sp. nov., is described from Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. It is compared with all other species currently assigned to the genus. It has a remarkable overall color pattern, unique in Pseudoplisus, and a restricted collecting record: only a single specimen was collected outside of the Willcox area in Arizona (defined here as including the Animas area, New Mexico). Additionally, of the 34 remaining specimens, one was collected in 1974 and all other after 2001. In the present paper, the new species is diagnosed, described, and the relevant characters are illustrated. The geographic distribution and its heterogeneous collecting record are briefly discussed.

scholarly journals A new Stamnodes from the southwestern United States (Lepidoptera, Geometridae, Larentiinae)

ZooKeys ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 923 ◽  
pp. 79-90
Author(s):  
Tanner A. Matson ◽  
David L. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Life History ◽  
New Species ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Dna Barcode ◽  
Female Genitalia ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Larval Stages

Stamnodes fergusonisp. nov. occurs from extreme southeastern Arizona through southern New Mexico east into western Texas, USA. Identity of the new species can be reliably determined by external features, genitalic characters, and COI haplotypes. Larvae are believed to be specialists on Salvia pinguifolia and S. ballotiflora. The adult and larval stages and male and female genitalia are illustrated, available DNA barcode data that support the recognition of the new Stamnodes are reviewed, and its life history briefly characterized.

Permian Gastropoda of the southwestern United States: Subulitacea

1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (01) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas H. Erwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Species ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
New Family ◽  
West Texas ◽  
Permian System ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Status

The composition of Permian members of the superfamily Subulitacea is considered, and 12 new species of Subulitacea are described from the silicified fauna of the Permian System of West Texas and New Mexico. Other elements of the gastropod fauna were previously described by Yochelson (1956a, 1960) and Batten (1958).The new genusIschnoptygmais established for subulitaceans possessing a plate-like columellar fold, and includes the new speciesIschnoptygma archibaldiandI. valentinei.The genus is placed within the new family Ischnoptygmidae. New species of Subulitidae areCeraunocochlis deformis, C. elongata, C. kidderi, C. trekensis, Strobeus girtyi, Soleniscus diminutus, S. variabilis, Cylindritopsis hamiltonae, andC. spheroides.The status of the genusLabridensis questioned, but provisionally retained. The assignment of the family Meekospiridae to the Subulitacea is questioned, and a single new species,Meekospira mimiae, is described.

scholarly journals Evolution of Navajo eclogites and hydration of the mantle wedge below the Colorado Plateau, southwestern United States

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Smith ◽  
James N. Connelly ◽  
Kathryn Manser ◽  
Desmond E. Moser ◽  
Todd B. Housh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mantle Wedge ◽  
Colorado Plateau ◽  
Southwestern United States

scholarly journals Genetic Analysis of a Novel Xylella fastidiosa Subspecies Found in the Southwestern United States

2009 ◽  
Vol 75 (17) ◽  
pp. 5631-5638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Randall ◽  
Natalie P. Goldberg ◽  
John D. Kemp ◽  
Maxim Radionenko ◽  
Jason M. French ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
Xylella Fastidiosa ◽  
Intergenic Spacer ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Regional Survey ◽  
Intergenic Spacer Region ◽  
Leaf Scorch ◽  
Landscape Plant ◽  
Multiple Loci

ABSTRACT Xylella fastidiosa, the causal agent of several scorch diseases, is associated with leaf scorch symptoms in Chitalpa tashkentensis, a common ornamental landscape plant used throughout the southwestern United States. For a number of years, many chitalpa trees in southern New Mexico and Arizona exhibited leaf scorch symptoms, and the results from a regional survey show that chitalpa trees from New Mexico, Arizona, and California are frequently infected with X. fastidiosa. Phylogenetic analysis of multiple loci was used to compare the X. fastidiosa infecting chitalpa strains from New Mexico, Arizona, and trees imported into New Mexico nurseries with previously reported X. fastidiosa strains. Loci analyzed included the 16S ribosome, 16S-23S ribosomal intergenic spacer region, gyrase-B, simple sequence repeat sequences, X. fastidiosa-specific sequences, and the virulence-associated protein (VapD). This analysis indicates that the X. fastidiosa isolates associated with infected chitalpa trees in the Southwest are a highly related group that is distinct from the four previously defined taxons X. fastidiosa subsp. fastidiosa (piercei), X. fastidiosa subsp. multiplex, X. fastidiosa subsp. sandyi, and X. fastidiosa subsp. pauca. Therefore, the classification proposed for this new subspecies is X. fastidiosa subsp. tashke.

scholarly journals Combining Uranium, Boron, and Strontium Isotope Ratios (234U/238U, δ11B, 87Sr/86Sr) to Trace and Quantify Salinity Contributions to Rio Grande River in Southwestern United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Garcia ◽  
Pascale Louvat ◽  
Jerome Gaillardet ◽  
Syprose Nyachoti ◽  
Lin Ma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Mexico ◽  
River Flow ◽  
Shallow Groundwater ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Isotope Ratios ◽  
Critical Zone ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Isotopic Compositions ◽  
Rio Grande River

In semi-arid to arid regions, both anthropogenic sources (urban and agriculture) and deeper Critical Zone (groundwater with long flow paths and water residence times) may play an important role in controlling chemical exports to rivers. Here, we combined two anthropogenic isotope tracers: uranium isotope ratios (234U/238U) and boron isotope ratios (δ11B), with the 87Sr/86Sr ratios to identify and quantify multiple solute (salinity) sources in the Rio Grande river in southern New Mexico and western Texas. The Rio Grande river is a major source of freshwater for irrigation and municipal uses in southwestern United States. There has been a large disagreement about the dominant salinity sources to the Rio Grande and particularly significant sources are of anthropogenic (agriculture practices and shallow groundwater flows, groundwater pumping, and urban developments) and/or geological (natural groundwater upwelling) origins. Between 2014 and 2016, we collected monthly river samples at 15 locations along a 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande river from Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, as well as water samples from agricultural canals and drains, urban effluents and drains, and groundwater wells. Our study shows that due to the presence of localized and multiple salinity inputs, total dissolved solids (TDS) and isotope ratios of U, B, and Sr in the Rio Grande river show high spatial and temporal variability. Several agricultural, urban, and geological sources of salinity in the Rio Grande watershed have characteristic and distinguishable U, Sr, and B isotope signatures. However, due to the common issue of overlapping signatures as identified by previous tracer studies (such as δ18O, δD, δ34S), no single isotope tracer of U, Sr, or B isotopes was powerful enough to distinguish multiple salinity sources. Here, combining the multiple U, Sr, and B isotope and elemental signatures, we applied a multi-tracer mass balance approach to quantify the relative contributions of water mass from the identified various salinity end members along the 200-km stretch of the Rio Grande during different river flow seasons. Our results show that during irrigation (high river flow) seasons, the Rio Grande had uniform chemical and isotopic compositions, similar to the Elephant Butte reservoir where water is stored and well-mixed, reflecting the dominant contribution from shallow Critical Zone in headwater regions in temperate southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In non-irrigation (low flow) seasons when the river water is stored at Elephant Butte reservoir, the Rio Grande river at many downstream locations showed heterogeneous chemical and isotopic compositions, reflecting variable inputs from upwelling of groundwater (deeper CZ), displacement of shallow groundwater, agricultural return flows, and urban effluents. Our study highlights the needs of using multi-tracer approach to investigate multiple solutes and salinity sources in rivers with complex geology and human impacts.

scholarly journals Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of the Morrison Formation in Dinosaur National Monument

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 86-91
Author(s):  
Christine Turner ◽  
Fred Peterson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Colorado Plateau ◽  
Upper Jurassic ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Morrison Formation ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Dinosaur National Monument

The overall goal of this study is to establish a stratigraphic, sedimentologic, and geochronologic framework for the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation within Dinosaur National Monument and to tie that framework to the rest of the Colorado Plateau and other important vertebrate fossil-bearing localities in the western United States. The study is also intended to complement ongoing paleontological inventories of the Morrison Formation within Dinosaur National Monument (DNM).

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