Cíbola and Yootó Hahoodzo Though the name “Mexico” now emblazons the 10th-most-populated nation on the planet, it originally referred to a specific location. In Nahuatl, Mēxihco was the name for the Valley of Mexico, a region that surrounded the mega-city of Teotihuacan. Those who lived there – the Mexica – oversaw the Aztec Empire. When the Spanish conquered …
The Bootheel and Other Salients Humans love the notion of organization. We’ve taken a globe and sliced it into a grid; then we filled that grid with nations, states, counties, and cities. Viewing the planet from space, our longitudinal and border lines are invisible. Some of the lines between entities make sense, while others are …
Home of the Bat I thought it was a volcano—but then I’d never seen one…I had seen plenty of prairie whirlwinds during my life on the range, but this thing didn’t move. It seemed to stay in one spot near the ground—but the top kept spinning upward. I watched maybe a half-an-hour, and being about …
E.T. and the Kid Today, I have a challenge for you. Despite its relatively young age, the United States is a nation full of pop-culture character sensations. Some real – Elvis, Calamity Jane, Johnny Appleseed – some fictitious – Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Bigfoot. On a county-by-county basis, it’s hard to beat the folklore pedigree …
The Birth of the Space Age I climbed a tall cherry tree at the back of the barn…and as I looked toward the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars, and how it would look on a small scale, if …
Shiprock Today we travel to the northwest section of New Mexico, just southeast of the Four Corners, to visit a unique form that rises from the desert. Topping at 7,177 feet and rising 1,583 above the surrounding plain is the gargantuan Shiprock. Shiprock – photo by Bowie Snodgrass Shiprock’s location in New Mexico – Map by …
White Sands Nestled between the San Andreas Mountains to the west and the Sacramento Mountains to the east lies the Tularosa Basin. Today, Tularosa is an endorheic basin, which means no water outflows from its cupping contours via rivers or oceans. In these types of basins, water pools internally in swamps or lakes. Since the Tularosa …
An Ancient Walk to Rewrite History Since the 1970s, the predominant theory on the habitation of North America hinges on a land bridge from Asia. Approximately 13,000-16,000 years ago, near the end of the last Ice Age, climatic conditions precipitated a strip of land between Siberia and Alaska, called the Beringia land bridge. This theory …
Trinity Batter my heart, three-person’d God — John Donne, Holy Sonnet XIV Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. — Vishnu, Bhagavad Gita In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered the possibility of nuclear fission. Physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch realized the breakdown of radioactive elements could produce a weapon of planetary proportions. …
Guadalupe Peak Redux – Texas’ High Point Around 300 million years ago, western Texas and southeastern New Mexico were covered by an inland sea, called the Delaware Basin. Over time, a reef developed around the edge of the water. In these systems, calcium carbonate from organisms with shells forms limestone rock. Sometime during the Cenozoic …