The Pajarito Mesa 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. 16, 1916, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1891. Next is 10° in 1915.
Pajarito Mesa’s center stands about 5,370 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,010 ft to 5,610 ft, a difference of 600 ft: hilly country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Vulcan Volcano, about 5,990 ft, 11 miles north.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Upper Santa Fe Group (conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital), from the Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 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 17×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Conglomerate-sandstone, coarse-detrital, fine-detrital. Age: Late Miocene to Pleistocene, 0.1 to 7.2 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, 0.1 to 2.6 million years old. About 1 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 Pajarito Mesa reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Rio Grande: about 1,540 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 Pajarito Mesa; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Pajarito Mesa has a cold semi-arid climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 9 inches of water.
On November 14 Pajarito Mesa normally reaches 58° and falls to 34°. The record high is 76°, in 1903; the record low 11°, in 1916. The most rain on this date, 0.37 in, fell in 2001.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1891 from the Albuquerque Area threaded record (Albuquerque International Airport, 10 miles east-northeast). NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
