Black Mesa is a mesa that extends from Mesa de Maya in Colorado southeasterly 28 miles (45 km) along the north bank of the Cimarron River, crossing the northeast corner of New Mexico to end at the confluence of the Cimarron and Carrizo Creek near Kenton in the Oklahoma panhandle. Its highest elevation is 5,712 feet (1,741 m) in Colorado (37° 4'52.90"N, 103°20'41.08"W). The highest point of Black Mesa within New Mexico is 5,266 feet (1,605 m) (36°59'55.61"N, 103° 9'51.70"W). In northwestern Cimarron County, Oklahoma, Black Mesa reaches 4,973 feet (1,516 m), the highest point in Oklahoma.
Black Mesa is found on six adjacent United States Geological Survey (USGS) 7.5 Minute (1:24,000) topographic maps (Dennis Canyon, Furnish Canyon West, Furnish Canyon East, Wedding Cake Butte, Goodson School, and Kenton).
The visual and map view appearance of Black Mesa is as an "inverted valley" because erosion has removed the relatively soft sedimentary strata from either side of the resistant Raton basalt of the lava which originally had occupied and filled a river valley. The erupting lava filled a stream channel in the Pliocene age Ogallala Formation. During the millions of years since the eruption, the adjacent rock of the Ogallala and older formations have been removed leaving the valley filling basalt perched atop a long ridge. Strata exposed along the mesa below the basalt and Ogallala include the Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone and the Jurassic Morrison Formation.
Abundant dinosaur fossils have been recovered from the Triassic and Jurassic strata in the area and a dinosaur trackway is located in Carrizo Creek to the north of the mesa.
It is home to Black Mesa Nature Preserve. A hiking trail of 4.2 miles (one-way) leads from the preserve to the summit which rises about 800 feet above the level of the surrounding plains. Black Mesa State Park is about 15 miles away. The vegetation of the preserve is mostly short-grass prairie with scattered juniper trees and Cholla cactus.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or mesa:
“As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“This mesa plain had an appearance of great antiquity, and of incompleteness; as if, with all the materials for world-making assembled, the Creator had desisted, gone away and left everything on the point of being brought together, on the eve of being arranged into mountain, plain, plateau. The country was still waiting to be made into a landscape.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)