The Tularosa Basin is a

graben In geology, a graben () is a depression (geology), depressed block of the Crust (geology), crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German language, German, meaning 'ditch' or 't ...

basin in the

Basin and Range Province The Basin and Range Province is a vast United States physiographic region, physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and Northern Mexico, northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, charac ...

and within the Chihuahuan Desert, east of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

in southern

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

and

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...

, in the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

Geography

The Tularosa Basin is located primarily in Otero County, New Mexico. It covers about (35% larger than Connecticut). It lies between the Sacramento Mountains to the east, the Sierra Blanca to the northeast, and the San Andres and Oscura Mountains to the west. The basin stretches about north–south, and at its widest is about east-west. It is geologically considered part of the

Rio Grande Rift The Rio Grande rift is a north-trending continental rift zone. It separates the Colorado Plateau in the west from the interior of the North American craton on the east. The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuah ...

zone, which widens there due to the slight clockwise rotation of the

Colorado Plateau The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. This plateau covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within w ...

tectonic plate Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

. Notable features of the basin include

White Sands National Park White Sands National Park is a national park of the United States located in New Mexico and completely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range. The park covers in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a field of white sand ...

, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, the Carrizozo Malpais lava flow,

Holloman Air Force Base Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base established in 1942 located six miles (10 km) southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, which is the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The b ...

, and the

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity t ...

with the historic Trinity nuclear test Site. Tularosa Creek flows westward into the Tularosa Basin just north of the village of Tularosa. (The distinct northwestern New Mexico Tularosa River is not located in the basin, but rather in Catron County.) Hydrologically, the Tularosa Basin is an

endorheic basin An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

, as no water flows out of it. The basin is closed to the north by Chupadera Mesa and to the south by the broad flat 4000-foot-elevation plain between the Franklin and Hueco Mountains, with the conventional boundary taken to be the New Mexico–

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

border. Surface water that does not evaporate or soak into the ground eventually accumulates at playas (intermittently dry lake beds), the largest of which is Lake Lucero, at 3888 feet elevation, at the southwest end of the White Sands

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

s. The White Sands are a 710-km² (275-mi²) field of white sand dunes composed of

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

crystals. To the north of Lake Lucero are extensive alkali flats, which produce additional gypsum for wind deposition on the dunes. The town of Carrizozo at the northern edge of the basin has an elevation of . Near Carrizozo is the Carrizozo volcanic field, an elongated 5,000 year old lava flow with a length of {{cvt, 42, m, km)}

History

;

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

The White Sands fossil footprints in the Tularosa Basin are estimated by the National Park Service to be 21 000 to 23 000 years old and include footprints possibly showing humans stalking a giant sloth. The footprints are located at the shore of an

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

era lake. As of November 2021, 61 fossil footprints have been found at the site.{{cite web , title=The discovery of ancient human footprints in White Sands National Park and their link to abrupt climate change , url=https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-research-and-development-program/news/discovery-ancient-human-footprints-white , website=United States Geological Survey , publisher=Earth Science Matters Newsletter , access-date=23 April 2022 ;Apache, Spanish, and U.S. 'Old West' When the Spanish arrived in the Tularosa Basin, they found springs and small streams coming from the Sacramento Mountains that fed a relatively lush grassland on the eastern side of the basin. While the Spanish tried some sheep ranching and some mining, the area remained firmly under Apache control until the 1850s, when the United States established its military presence at Fort Stanton (in the Sacramento Mountains) (1855–1896), Torreon Fort (near Lincoln) (1850s), and Camp Comfort (1858–1859) at White Sands. Under US military protection, the first permanent settlement was established in 1862, when about 50 Hispanic farmers from the Rio Grande Valley moved to Tularosa. Efforts to control the Apache waned somewhat during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

and serious American settlement did not begin until the late 1870s, when settlers and cattle ranchers from Texas began moving into the basin. In 1969, the Gemsbok was introduced. Larrea tridentata 7

;Grasslands and grazing The native

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

s in the Tularosa Basin were able to support large herds in the wet years of the 1880s. When the Americans first started running cattle, in some places, the native perennial bunchgrasses grew 'as high as a horse’s shoulder' - {{convert, 1.0, -, 2.5, m, ft, abbr=on depending on species. One cowboy estimated in 1889 that 85,000 head were mustered within the basin, but said that was "far too heavy a burden for the range" - or beyond its

carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as the ...

.Tom Fraser in an interview in 1942, quoted in Sonnichsen, C.L. (1980) ''Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West'' Univ. of NM Press edition, p. 21. Severe drought followed for years, and the grassland pastures never recovered from the

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature ...

, which continued in many instances for 75 years or more and caused top-soil

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

and

desertification Desertification is a type of gradual land degradation of Soil fertility, fertile land into arid desert due to a combination of natural processes and human activities. The immediate cause of desertification is the loss of most vegetation. This i ...

. Even within the

, where cattle grazing was eliminated in 1945, the effects from the 1890–1945 period of overgrazing can still be seen nearly everywhere. Many areas that were historically known to be rich perennial grasslands are now xeric desert shrublands, with creosote bush—(''Larrea tridentata'') predominating. ;Groundwater salinization Since surface water was unable to sustain the cattle herds, ranchers turned to

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

, and the easily reachable

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...

of 'sweet water' was pumped out and depleted from under the basin, leaving only

brackish water Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuary ...

. Applying the groundwater to the surface resulted in additional salts being dissolved and transported back down by

groundwater recharge Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in ...

into the aquifer, increasing its

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

. By 2000, it became clear that salts in the aquifer needed to be significantly reduced if existing levels of water use were to continue. Therefore, in 2004, the Tularosa Basin National Desalination Research Facility was established in the basin at

Alamogordo Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico), Sac ...

, as a joint project of the Federal Bureau of Reclamation and

Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force B ...

. It is a national center for researching procedures to reduce brackish water creation and to develop new technologies for desalination as it is increasingly found in present-day inland basin aquifers with agricultural irrigation and potable water withdrawal demands.

Ecology

The Tularosa Basin is in the Chihuahuan Desert

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

, with the former

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

grassland habitat

ecotone An ecotone is a transitional area between two plant communities, where these meet and integrate. Examples include areas between grassland and forest, estuaries and lagoon, freshwater and sea water etc. An ecotone may be narrow or wide, and it ma ...

s. Because of the closed nature of the basin, a number of unique ecological niches have developed. A significant number of

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

species are only found in the Tularosa Basin. These include the White Sands pupfish (''Cyprinodon tularosa'') and the Oscura Mountains

chipmunk Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of subtribe Tamiina. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia. Taxonomy and systematics Chipmunks are classified as four genera: '' ...

Counties

While the Tularosa Basin lies primarily in New Mexican Otero County, it also extends into Doña Ana, Sierra, Lincoln, and Socorro Counties in New Mexico, and El Paso County in southwest

Cities, towns, and ghost towns

{{coord, 32.90, N, 105.96, W, region:US_type:city * Alvarado {{coord, 32.08, N, 106.14, W, region:US_type:city * Boles Acres {{coord, 32.81, N, 105.99, W, region:US_type:city * Carrizozo {{coord, 33.64, N, 105.88, W, region:US_type:city * Coane *

Desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

{{coord, 32.12, N, 106.11, W, region:US_type:city * Elwood {{coord, 32.18, N, 106.08, W, region:US_type:city * Estey City * Holloman AFB {{coord, 32.82, N, 105.94, W, region:US_type:city ZIP Code: 88330 * Kearney {{coord, 32.98, N, 105.99, W, region:US_type:city * La Luz {{coord, 32.98, N, 105.94, W, region:US_type:city ZIP Code: 88337 * Lovelace {{coord, 33.46, N, 106.02, W, region:US_type:city * Monista {{coord, 32.83, N, 106.07, W, region:US_type:city * Omlee {{coord, 32.84, N, 105.97, W, region:US_type:city * Orogrande {{coord, 32.37, N, 106.08, W, region:US_type:city ZIP Code: 88342 * Oscura * Point of Sands *

Polly Polly is a given name, most often feminine, which originated as a variant of Molly (name), Molly (a diminutive of Mary (name), Mary). Polly may also be a short form of names such as Polina (given name), Polina, Polona (given name), Polona, Pauline ...

* Salinas * Three Rivers {{coord, 33.32, N, 106.07, W, region:US_type:city ZIP Code: 88352 * Tularosa {{coord, 33.07, N, 106.02, W, region:US_type:city ZIP Code: 88352 *

Turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone for millennia due to its hue. The robi ...

{{coord, 32.45, N, 106.03, W, region:US_type:city * Valmont {{coord, 32.75, N, 105.99, W, region:US_type:city * White Sands {{coord, 32.38, N, 106.48, W, region:US_type:city

Notes

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External links

Alamogordo Museum: "Tularosa Basin Historical Society" websiteCity of Alamogordo websiteTown of Carrizozo websiteU.S. Army: White Sands Missile Range website
Endorheic basins of the United States Landforms of New Mexico Natural history of New Mexico Regions of New Mexico Valleys of New Mexico Landforms of Otero County, New Mexico Landforms of Doña Ana County, New Mexico Landforms of Lincoln County, New Mexico Landforms of Sierra County, New Mexico Landforms of Socorro County, New Mexico Landforms of El Paso County, Texas Basin and Range Province Structural basins of the United States Valleys of Texas