Guadalupe Mountains National Park

From the National Park Service (www.nps.gov/gu...
Guadalupe Mountains National Park was authorized by an act of Congress (Public Law 89-667) in 1966 to preserve “an area possessing outstanding geological values together with scenic and other natural values of great significance.” The park was formally established in 1972 with an area of 76,293 acres.
Today, Guadalupe Mountains National Park includes 86,416 acres in west Texas, just south of the New Mexico state line and north of U.S. Highway 62/180. The Guadalupe Mountains rise more than 3,000 feet above the arid Chihuahuan Desert that surrounds them. El Capitan, the park’s most striking feature, is a 1,000-foot-high limestone cliff. Nearby Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 feet above sea level, is the highest point in Texas.
The Guadalupe Mountains are part of a mostly buried 400-mile-long U-shaped fossil reef complex, Capitan Reef, which extends through a large area of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The longest exposed stretch of Capitan Reef, 12 miles of which is in the park, extends from Guadalupe Mountains National Park northeast almost to the city of Carlsbad, New Mexico, a distance of almost 40 miles. This 260-million- to 270-million-year-old reef is one of the world’s finest examples of an ancient reef system. The fossilbearing strata of the park are also associated with the rich “oil patch” of the Delaware Basin of west Texas. Three internationally significant geological stratotype sections and points and numerous type sections of rock are present in the park.
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