Llano Estacado

The Llano Estacado (ˈʝano estaˈkaðo), sometimes translated into English as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North American continent, the elevation rises from in the southeast to over in the northwest, sloping almost uniformly at about . The Spanish name Llano Estacado is often interpreted as meaning "Staked Plains", although "stockaded" or "palisaded plains" have also been proposed, in which case the name would derive from the steep escarpments on the eastern, northern, and western periphery of the plains. Leatherwood writes that Francisco Coronado and other European explorers described the Mescalero Ridge on the western boundary as resembling "palisades, ramparts, or stockades" of a fort, but does not present the original Spanish. In Beyond the Mississippi (1867), Albert D. Richardson, who traversed the region from east to west in October 1859, wrote that "the ancient Mexicans marked a route with stakes over this vast desert, and hence its name." Other sources refer to "stakes" used to mark routes on the featureless plain, often meaning piles of stone, bone, and cow dung. Leatherwood opines in the Handbook of Texas that such way markers could plausibly explain the origin of the name, but that the "comparison of cliff formations and palisades made by explorers argues more convincingly for the geological origin". In his Roadside Geology of Texas, Geologist Darwin Spearing also prefers the geological solution to the etymology: The 'Staked Plains' tale is deeply entrenched in Texas mythology, but the real interpretation of Llano Estacado is sensible geologic: it means 'stockaded' or 'palisaded' plains - which is precisely how the edge of the plains appear when viewed from below the caprock. The Llano Estacado lies at the southern end of the Western High Plains ecoregion of the Great Plains of North America; it is part of what was once called the Great American Desert.