The Southwestern Boundary of the Southern High Plains: The Mescalero Ridge and the Red Bed Ridge

ABSTRACT The Southern High Plains are bounded on the west through the southern half of eastern New Mexico by the roughly linear Mescalero Ridge, an erosional, well-defined, westward-facing near vertical escarpment, up to 150 ft (45.7 m) in height, capped by the 10 to 40 ft (3 to 12.2 m) thick caprock caliche. As it approaches the Texas state line, it loses linearity and much of its topographic definition, developing numerous re-entrants and exhibiting significant erosional cuts and gullying. Ove