WSA’s

A wilderness study area (WSA) contains undeveloped United States federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, and managed to preserve its natural conditions. WSAs are not included in the National Wilderness Preservation System until the United States Congress passes wilderness legislation

On Bureau of Land Management lands, a WSA is a roadless area that has been inventoried (but not designated by Congress) and found to have wilderness characteristics as described in Section 603 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 and Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Wilderness Study Area characteristics: 

Naturalness – generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature rather than human activity;

Opportunities – provides outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined types of recreation

The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument was established to protect significant prehistoric, historic, geologic, and biologic resources of scientific interest, and includes four areas: the Organ Mountains, Desert Peaks, Potrillo Mountains, and Doña Ana Mountains.

The Organ Mountains are a steep, angular mountain range with rocky spires that jut majestically above the Chihuahuan Desert floor to an elevation of 9,000 feet.  This picturesque area of rocky peaks, narrow canyons, and open woodlands ranges from Chihuahuan Desert habitat to ponderosa pine in the highest elevations. 

The Desert Peaks include the Robledo Mountains, Sierra de las Uvas, and Doña Ana Mountains, characterized by desert mountains rising steeply from flat plains. 

The Potrillo Mountains are the most remote section of the Monument located a distance to the southwest from Las Cruces, and is comprised of a volcanic landscape of cinder cones, lava flows, and craters. 

The Robledo Mountains WSA is located in the south-central portion of New Mexico in the Chihuahuan Desert. A diversity of habitats such as canyons, limestone cliffs, gentle slopes, caves, and riparian areas combine to make this area unique. Vegetation includes scattered junipers, diverse cacti, mesquite, creosote bush, and grassland.

The Las Uvas Mountains WSA is located in the south-central portion of New Mexico in the Chihuahuan Desert. The area is a mountain complex of tilted, bedded volcanic rock. The western slopes are gentle, while cliffs dominate the east side. The landform is characterized by mesas, buttes, and canyons. The vegetation is primarily grasses and desert shrubs, with juniper on north facing slopes at higher elevations. Rimrock along the mesas provides nesting sites for many raptors.

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Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center

New Mexico State University operates the Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center in order to protect and insure availability of its resources for teaching, research, and extension endeavors that benefit the citizens of New Mexico as originally declared in Congressional Act S4910, 1927. The mission will be:

The Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center conducts educational, demonstrative, and experimental development with livestock, grazing methods, and range forage including investigation of the sustainability and management of natural resources and environmental ecosystems.

The Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center (CDRRC) is part of the New Mexico State University which is located in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It is a major source of arid lands research in the Department of Range Sciences, which is part of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics. Established in 1927 to conduct "educational, demonstrative, and experimental development with livestock, grazing methods, and range forage," the CDRRC...is administered by the NMSU Board of Regents.

The Potrillo Mountains are home to some of the most famous geologic formation in the world. The Potrillo Volcanic Field is continuously studied by volcanologists for its maars, shield volcanoes and features associated with the Rio Grande Rift.

The West Potrillo Mountains WSA is located in southern New Mexico, approximately 30 miles southwest of Las Cruces in the Chihuahuan Desert. These mountains are a series of 48 volcanic cinder cones with small sand dunes, playas, and lava fields in-between. The vegetation consists of desert grasses and shrubs. Indian Basin, a natural depression at the southwest end of the West Potrillo Mountains, fills with water during the rainy season providing a temporary pond for ducks. Wintering raptors are found in high numbers due to a high small mammal prey base.

The Mount Riley WSA is located in southern New Mexico approximately 30 miles southwest of Las Cruces. The WSA is comprised of three volcanic cinder cones approximately 1,500 feet high. Vegetation consists of desert grasses and shrubs. There are no maintained trails to the summits; however, hikers are rewarded with 360 degree views from the top.

The Aden Lava Flow WSA is located 20 miles southwest of Las Cruces in the Chihuahuan Desert. The area is characterized by basalt flows, volcanic craters, and coppice sand dunes. The lava flow includes pressure ridges, lava tubes, and steep-walled depressions of up to 100 feet wide. Grass and shrubs grow on the flow with many cacti and yucca. Vegetation consists of grasslands and desert shrubs such as mesquite and creosote. Vent tubes, and the many crevices found in the lava, provide cover and den sites for wildlife. Bats are numerous and the rock pocket mouse and black-tailed rattlesnake are found on the black lava flows.

 Aden crater is a volcano that erupted and created its crater above the Robledo Fault that gave, rise to the Fissure and subsequently the Afton Lava Flows. Here one can see lava tubes as small as a regular sewer line or as large as a house, some even on Hawaii can be as tall inside as a three-story building. Unfortunately most of the lava tubes in our area have been destroyed or are caved in due to the high number of earthquakes and the incredible amount of movement on the Rio Grande Rift. This rifting is the slow pulling apart of the plates in our area. As a result due to the fissure, Afton's flows were able to produce a lot of lava before being shut down and covered by Aden Crater. 

Kilbourne Hole is a maar volcanic crater, located 30 miles (48 km) west of the Franklin Mountains of El Paso, Texas, in the Potrillo volcanic field of Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Another maar, Hunt's Hole, lies just two miles south of Kilbourne Hole. These holes are rare examples of volcanic action without a mountainous rim.

The theory of maar formation is that rising magma super-heats water-saturated earth, far enough below the surface that a high pressure can be contained. At some point, the pressure is too much, and a steam explosion occurs, throwing the earth out in a catastrophic event.Country rocks are fragmented and expelled in the atmosphere (together with fragments of the magma), eventually creating a deep crater, the bottom of which sits below the pre-eruptive ground surface.

Estimates of the age of the crater vary from about 24,000 to about 80,000 years.

For additional information click here for the Wikipedia page

Hunt's Hole is a similar but somewhat smaller maar, a few miles south of Kilbourne Hole; both are part of the Potrillo volcanic field.

A remnant of an ancient volcanic explosion, Kilbourne Hole was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1975. This crater can be found in a desert basin between the Potrillo Mountains and the Rio Grande in southern Dona Ana County. Kilbourne Hole is roughly elliptical in shape, and is known as a Maar — a pit or depression caused by a volcanic explosion with little material emitted except volcanic gas. The crater is between 24,000 and 100,000 years old, and measures 1.7 miles long by well over a mile across, and is hundreds of feet deep.

Kilbourne Hole has many unique minerals remaining from the eruption. The crusts of the Kilbourne Hole volcanic bombs — objects blown from the volcanic vent in a near plastic state — are dull black or brown, but when broken open they often reveal a brilliant, sparkling yellow and green interior of olivine glass granules.

The Rio Grande rift is a north-south trending zone of approximately east-west oriented extension that bisects the state of New Mexico. The extension is due to the Colorado Plateau pulling away from the High Plains, which causes the Earth's crust to be stretched and thinned. New Mexico is not the only area affected by this extension; the Rio Grande rift has deformed areas as far north as Leadville, Colorado and as far south as west Texas. The course of the Rio Grande is controlled by the rift. The northern part of the rift is relatively narrow, consisting of a series of westward-stepping, en echelon basins flanked by rugged mountains. The amount of extension increases toward the south. The rift broadens considerably south of Socorro and merges with the Basin and Range province in southwestern New Mexico. Rio Grande rift extension began earlier in southern New Mexico (~36 million year ago) compared to the northern New Mexico (~26 million years ago), with extension peaking 10 to 16 million years ago. The axial basins are in the form of half-grabens that are tilted strongly toward the east or the west, depending on the location of the master fault system on the margins of each basin. As much as 15,000 feet of rift sediment has accumulated in the axial basins of the Rio Grande rift, forming important aquifers for some of the largest cities in our state.

The "journey of the dead man", a 90 miles stretch of the Camino Real usually traversed in two days and one night with but a short pause at the heat of the day. The only water available was in intermittent playas that would useful for a few days after rainfall. The description below is from Eugene Manlove Rhodes in his novel "Stepsons of Light"

"The Jornada is a high desert of tableland, east of the Rio Grande. In design it is strikingly like a billiard table; forty-five miles by ninety, with mountain ranges for rail at east and west, broken highlands on the south, a lava bed on the north. At the middle of each rail and at each corner, for pockets, there is a mountain passway and water; there are peaks and landmarks for each diamond on the rail; for the center and for each spot there is a railroad station and water--Lava, Engle and Upham. Roughly speaking there is road or trail from each spot to each pocket, each spot to each spot, each pocket to every other pocket. In the center, where you put the pin at pin pool, stands Engle."

The Prehistoric Trackways National Monument was established in 2009 to conserve, protect, and enhance the unique and nationally-important paleontological, scientific, educational, scenic, and recreational resources and values of the Robledo Mountains in southern New Mexico.  The Monument includes a major deposit of Paleozoic Era fossilized footprint megatrackways within approximately 5,280 acres.

The trackways contain footprints of numerous amphibians, reptiles, and insects (including previously unknown species), plants, and petrified wood dating back 280 million years, which collectively provide new opportunities to understand animal behaviors and environments from a time predating dinosaurs.  The site contains one of the most scientifically-significant Early Permian track sites in the world.

The Organ Mountains WSA is located in south-central New Mexico on the eastern edge of Las Cruces.  The Organ Mountains range from 4,600 to just over 9,000 feet, and are so named because of the steep, needle-like spires that resemble the pipes of an organ.  Alligator juniper, gray oak, mountain mahogany and sotol are the dominant plant species here, but in the upper elevations stands of ponderosa pine may be found.  Seasonal springs and streams occur in canyon bottoms, with a few perennial springs that support riparian habitats.  Wildlife includes desert mule deer, mountain lion, a variety of song birds, and a race of the Colorado chipmunk.  The WSA includes the Baylor Pass National Recreation Trail.  

The Organ Needles WSA is located in the south-central portion of New Mexico on the eastern edge of Las Cruces. The mountain range is composed of jagged, high spires with steep rocky ridges interspersed by narrow rocky canyons. The steep, angular, rock pinnacles and outcroppings are massive. The northern area is granite, while the southern portion is rhyolite, which creates a distinct color variation. Vegetation consists of mixed desert shrubs, piñon, and juniper woodlands and, in narrow chasms between rock outcrops, ribbons of green oak trees and ponderosa pine. Many of the canyons contain seasonal or year-long springs which create unique habitats for plants and animals. Archaeological sites include remnants of historic mining and prehistoric rock shelters.   

The Peña Blanca WSA is located in the south-central portion of New Mexico on the eastern edge of Las Cruces. The Peña Blanca rock shelters are the site of the earliest known cultivated corn in the United States, a primitive variety with eight rows of kernels.

The Florida Mountains WSA is located in southern New Mexico about 10 miles southeast of Deming. The Florida Mountains are an isolated, rocky, north-south trending range with steep canyons and vertical cliffs. Alluvial fans slope toward the valley floors on all sides of the mountain range. The plant species in the WSA consist of grasses, mixed desert shrubs, and juniper trees.

The Cooke's Range WSA is located in southern New Mexico about 60 miles from Las Cruces. The central feature in the WSA is Cooke's Peak, which rises over 3,600 feet above the surrounding plains. The northern portion is extremely rugged while the southern portion is rolling and includes open hills cut by deep canyons. Vegetation consists of piñon and juniper woodlands as well as mixed desert shrubs. The cliffs in the higher elevations provide nesting sites for birds of prey. Mogollon style petroglyphs are found at Frying Pan Spring.

For more information please click on the link for the applicable BLM WSA

The Alamo Hueco Mountains WSA is situated in southwestern New Mexico. It is characterized by highly eroded volcanic mountains, mesas, vertical cliffs, and long sinuous canyons that are dominated by juniper and oak brush. There are no maintained trails in this area; however, the desert scenery, archaeological sites, and wildlife diversity make this area unique. Wildlife species include javelina, Montezuma quail, desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, and prairie falcons.