The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Eje Volcánico Transversal) also known as the Transvolcanic Belt and locally as the Sierra Nevada (Snowy Mountain Range), is a volcanic belt that extends 900 km from west to east across central-southern Mexico. Several of its highest peaks have snow all year long, and during clear weather, they are visible to a large proportion of those who live on the many high plateaus from which these volcanoes rise.
From the west, it runs from Jalisco east through northern Michoacán, southern Guanajuato, southern Querétaro, México State, southern Hidalgo, the Distrito Federal, northern Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, to central Veracruz. The Mexican Plateau lies to the north, bounded by the Sierra Madre Occidental to the west and Sierra Madre Oriental to the east. The Cofre de Perote and Pico de Orizaba volcanoes, in Puebla and Veracruz, mark the meeting of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt with the Sierra Madre Oriental. To the south, the basin of the Balsas River lies between the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and the Sierra Madre del Sur. This area is also a distinct physiographic province of the larger Sierra Madre System physiographic division.
The highest point, also the highest point in Mexico, is Pico de Orizaba (5,636 metres (18,491 ft)) also known as Citlaltépetl, located at 19°01′N 97°16′W / 19.017°N 97.267°W / 19.017; -97.267. This, and several of the other high peaks, are active or dormant volcanoes; other notable volcanoes in the range include (from west to east) Nevado de Colima (4,339 metres (14,236 ft)), Parícutin (2,774 metres (9,101 ft)), Nevado de Toluca (4,577 metres (15,016 ft)), Popocatépetl (5,452 metres (17,887 ft)), Iztaccíhuatl (5,286 metres (17,343 ft)), Matlalcueitl (4,461 metres (14,636 ft)) Cofre de Perote (4,282 metres (14,049 ft)) and Sierra Negra, a companion of the Pico de Orizaba (4,580 metres (15,030 ft)).
The mountains are home to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt pine-oak forests, one of the Mesoamerican pine-oak forests ecoregions.
The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt has many endemic species including the Transvolcanic Jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina).
Famous quotes containing the words volcanic and/or belt:
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones like paving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your head; and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the opposite side. Some think it is bottomless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)