The Belen plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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9° on Nov. 13, 2012, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1923. Next is 11° in 2005.
Belen’s center stands about 5,070 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,830 ft to 5,690 ft, a difference of 860 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is El Cerro De Los Lunas, about 5,940 ft, 2 miles north-northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Older alluvial deposits of upland plains and piedmont areas, and calcic soils and eolian cover sediments of High Plains region (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, 0.1 to 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 23×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Andesite, basalt. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.1 to 2.6 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Belen reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Grande: about 1,530 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Elephant Butte Reservoir and Caballo Reservoir.
760 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Belen; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Belen has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 93° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 5 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Belen normally reaches 62° and falls to 27°. The record high is 76°, in 2007; the record low 12°, in 2018. The most rain on this date, 0.45 in, fell in 1993.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1923 at Los Lunas 3 SSW, 3 miles east, 230 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
