The El Malpais National Conservation Area is a federally protected conservation area in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

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 ...

. The El Malpais National Conservation area was established in 1987 and is managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

as part of the

National Landscape Conservation System National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West.El Malpais National Monument El Malpais National Monument is a National Monument located in western New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. The name El Malpais is from the Spanish term '' Malpaís'', meaning ''badlands'', due to the extremely barren and dramatic volc ...

was established at the same time and is managed by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

. The El Malpais NCA includes two wilderness areas — the West Malpais Wilderness and Cebolla Wilderness Area — covering almost .

Cultural landscape

For more than 10,000 years people have interacted with the El Malpais landscape. Historic and prehistoric

Cultural landscape Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties hatrepresent the c ...

sites provide connections to past times. More than mere artifacts, these cultural resources are kept alive by the spiritual and physical presence of contemporary Indian groups, including the Puebloan peoples of

Acoma Acoma may refer to: * ''Acoma'' (beetle), a scarab beetle genus of subfamily Melolonthinae * Acoma Pueblo, a Native American pueblo * Acoma, Nevada, a ghost town * Acoma Township, McLeod County, Minnesota, US * , more than one ship of the US Navy ...

, Laguna and Zuni, and the Ramah

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

Features

El Malpais ('the

badlands Badlands are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded."Badlands" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 47. They are characterized by steep slopes, ...

') is Spanish, pronounced Mal-(rhymes with wall)-pie-ees(rhymes with rice). The El Malpais National Conservation Area was established to protect nationally significant geological, archaeological, ecological, cultural, scenic, scientific, and wilderness resources surrounding the Grants Lava Flows. In addition to the two

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

s, the NCA includes

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

cliffs, canyons,

La Ventana Natural Arch La Ventana Natural Arch is a natural arch in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. It is the second-largest natural arch in New Mexico and is situated in El Malpais National Conservation Area which is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. ...

, the Chain of Craters Back Country Byway and the Narrows Picnic Area. There are two visitor centers that serve the NCA, both off of I-40. El Malpais Visitor Center, operated jointly with the National Park Service, is on the south side of exit 85. The Bureau of Land Management Ranger Station is about eight miles south of exit 89 on State Highway 117.

References

External links

*
official El Malpais National Conservation Area website

{{authority control Malpaíses (landform) National Conservation Areas of the United States Bureau of Land Management areas in New Mexico Cultural landscapes Great Divide of North America Protected areas of Cibola County, New Mexico Protected areas established in 1987 Units of the National Landscape Conservation System 1987 establishments in New Mexico Nature reserves in New Mexico Badlands of the United States