Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1909 — Plateau Plains of the West. [ARTICLE]

Plateau Plains of the West.

A phenomenal feature of the desert plains Is the plateau plain. Mesas they are called In the southwestern United States and Mexico. These mesas, as their 1 Spanish name signifies, are extensive. flat topped, table-like areas rising abruptly from the general plain to heights of from 100 or 200 feet to 1,000 feet or more. The great Mesa de Maya, In northeastern New Mexico, is 8,500 feet above the next lower plain. The surface of the plateau plain is usually found to be composed of some hard rock layer, as In the case of the vast Llano Eatacado, or “walled plains,” or staked plains, as It is called by the Texans, or Is made up of an extensive lava flow—as, for example, the

Mesa de Maya, tbe Ocate mesa and the majority of the plains of this kind. The surface beneath the lava flows of the mesas is itself a plain worn out on the beveled edges of the strata. The plateau plain thus represents a former position of the general plains level. It is the best example of circumdenudation through rigorous wind scour.— Popular Science Monthly.