POST-SPELEOGENETIC EROSION AND ITS EFFECT ON CAVES IN THE GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS, NEW MEXICO AND WEST TEXAS

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Publication Date

2000

Publication Title

Journal of Cave and Karst Studies

Volume Number

62

Issue Number

2

Abstract

The Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and west Texas are a northeast-tilted fault block cut by canyons that increase in frequency and topographic relief from east to west. The processes of erosion and mass wasting have exposed more than 300 known caves,which range from systems like Lechuguilla Cave (>170 km) and Carlsbad Cavern (>49 km) in the east, to caves with less than 10 m of passage in the west. Erosion of the Capitan,Yates and Seven Rivers formations progressively removed more cave-bearing strata and destroyed more caves from east to west. It is likely that modern-day canyons in the central and western Guadalupe Mountains were once sites of long cave systems that have been truncated or destroyed by erosion and mass wasting.

Document Type

Article

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