Otero Mesa

Otero Mesa is a plateau in the Trans-Pecos. The plateau extends north from Hudspeth County, Texas, into Otero County, New Mexico. Otero Mesa is the dominant landform in Hudspeth County, composing 70% of its land area. Otero Mesa has a more limited extant in Otero County. Overall, two-thirds of Otero Mesa is in Texas, but the colloquial usage of "Otero Mesa" is restricted to the component of the plateau in New Mexico. This is only a political distinction; Otero Mesa is physiographically continuous across the New Mexico – Texas state line. In the center of Otero Mesa, the plateau is interrupted by the Cornudas Mountains, a cluster of buttes that jut almost 2,000 ft (610 m) above the plateau. The Cornudas Mountains include Wind Mountain, the highest point on Otero Mesa at 7,282 ft (2, 220 m). The range is peppered with thousands of petroglyphs, complementing the well-known Hueco Tanks site farther west. Otero Mesa is the northernmost part of the Chihuahuan Desert at its longitude. While the Chihuahuan Desert extends another 200 miles north along the Pecos and Rio Grande River Valleys, the high backslopes of the Sacramento, White, and Manzano Mountains between the basins are too mesic to support Chihuahuan Desert vegetative sites. These areas are instead classified as Southwestern Tablelands. Grassland is the predominant landcover on Otero Mesa. These semi-arid grasslands are a rem

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