Luxor Peak is a
summit
A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous.
The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...
located in
Pershing County,
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
, United States.
Description
Luxor Peak is the second-highest peak of the
Selenite Range which is a subset of the
Great Basin Ranges.
This peak is set on land 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 ...
. It is situated south of
Selenite Peak, north of
line parent Kumiva Peak, and south-southeast of the town of
Empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
.
Topographic relief
Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...
is significant as the west slope rises in one-half mile. The large Empire gypsum quarry lies below the west slope of Luxor Peak. The Selenite Range was named for deposits of
selenite, a variety 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 ...
. This landform's toponym has been officially adopted by the
U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
Climate
Luxor Peak is set at the southern edge of the
Black Rock Desert
The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe ecoregion) of lava beds and Dry lake, playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt ...
which has hot summers and cold winters.
The desert is an example of a
cold desert climate
The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...
as the desert's elevation makes temperatures cooler than lower elevation deserts. Due to the high elevation and aridity, temperatures
drop sharply after sunset. Summer nights are comfortably cool. Winter highs are generally above freezing, and winter nights are bitterly cold, with temperatures often dropping well below freezing.
See also
*
*
Great Basin
The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
* Weather forecast
Luxor PeakNational Geodetic Survey Data Sheet
Mountains of Pershing County, Nevada
Mountains of Nevada
Two-thousanders of the United States
Mountains of the Great Basin