Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute
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Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute
The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute or CDRI, incorporated in December 1973, is an independent non-profit, scientific and educational organization conducting its operations as a multi-featured Nature Center and Botanical Gardens located on a tract in the foothills of the Davis Mountains. The organization's mission is to promote public awareness, appreciation, and concern for nature generally and the natural diversity of the Chihuahuan Desert region specifically through education, the visitor experience, and through the support of research. Its original principal founders were Science professors at Sul Ross State University, a university that the institute continues to work closely with, as well as a variety of other TEA Region 18 public schools, grades Pre-K through 12, regional colleges and universities, and other non-profit organizations. Since 2018, Lisa Fargason Gordon has served as the Executive Director, working with a small team of employees, along with many members, volu ...
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Davis Mountains
The Davis Mountains, originally known as Limpia Mountains, are a range of mountains in West Texas, located near Fort Davis, after which they are named. The fort was named for then United States Secretary of War and later Confederate President Jefferson Davis. They are a popular site for camping and hiking and the region includes Fort Davis National Historic Site and Davis Mountains State Park. The historical and architectural value of the fort, alongside the rugged natural environment of the park are a significant destination for tourism in Texas. Most of the land in the Davis Mountains is under private ownership as ranch land, but The Nature Conservancy owns or has conservation easements on more than . Description Rather than being a single coherent range, the Davis Mountains are an irregular jumble of isolated peaks and ridges separated by flatter areas. The mountains occupy a rough square about on each side. The mountains are of volcanic origin composed of strata associ ...
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Trachyte
Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava enriched with silica and alkali metals. It is the volcanic equivalent of syenite. Trachyte is common wherever alkali magma is erupted, including in late stages of ocean island volcanismMacDonald 1983, pp. 51-52 and in continental rift valleys, above mantle plumes,Philpotts and Ague 2009, pp. 390-394 and in areas of back-arc extension. Trachyte has also been found in Gale crater on Mars. Trachyte has been used as decorative building stone and was extensively used as dimension stone in the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Chemical composition Trachyte has a silica content of 60 to 65% and an alkali oxide content of over 7%. This gives it less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differences are consistent with the posi ...
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Protected Areas Established In 1974
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage serving ...
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Protected Areas Of Texas
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servi ...
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Protected Areas Of Jeff Davis County, Texas
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servi ...
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Independent Research Institutes
Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independents (Oporto artist group), a Portuguese artist group historically linked to abstract art and to Fernando Lanhas, the central figure of Portuguese abstractionism Music Groups, labels, and genres * Independent music, a number of genres associated with independent labels * Independent record label, a record label not associated with a major label * Independent Albums, American albums chart Albums * ''Independent'' (Ai album), 2012 * ''Independent'' (Faze album), 2006 * ''Independent'' (Sacred Reich album), 1993 Songs * "Independent" (song), a 2007 song by Webbie * "Independent", a 2002 song by Ayumi Hamasaki from '' H'' News and media organizations * ''The Independent'', a British online newspaper. * '' The Malta Independent'', a Maltes ...
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Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center And Botanical Gardens
Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens (507 acres) is a nonprofit nature center with botanical gardens on the grounds of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute, the parent organization. It is located off Texas State Highway 118 about south of Fort Davis, Texas, United States. The Center is open Monday through Saturday, except major holidays. An admission fee is charged. The Nature Center includes grasslands, oak studded hillsides, mountains of volcanic origin, canyon springs, and seasonal wetland pools in the Chihuahuan Desert. The adobe visitors' center is located at an elevation of , almost a mile (5,280 feet) high. The surrounding Davis Mountains region is a sky island, with temperatures falling and annual precipitation tending to increase as the elevation rises from the desert floor. Exhibits include one about the geologic history of the Davis Mountains and how culture and history are linked to geology; another highlights the history, geology, and culture of ...
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Roger Conant (herpetologist)
Roger Conant (May 6, 1909 – December 19, 2003) was an American herpetologist, author, educator and conservationist. He was Director Emeritus of the Philadelphia Zoo and adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. He wrote one of the first comprehensive field guides for North American reptiles in 1958 entitled: ''A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America'', in the Peterson Field Guide series. Biography Born in Mamaroneck, New York, Conant lost his father when he was young. When he was a teenager he took a job at a local zoo to help his mother make ends meet, which, along with participating in the Boy Scouts of America, began his lifelong passion for reptiles. He was the first Eagle Scout in Monmouth County Council, New Jersey in 1924. He moved to Toledo, Ohio in 1929 and worked as Curator of Reptiles, and later General Curator at the Toledo Zoo from 1929 to 1935. In 1935 he returned to Philadelphia and became the Curator of Reptiles at ...
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Clayton Williams
Clayton Wheat "Claytie" Williams Jr. (October 8, 1931 – February 14, 2020) was an American businessman from Midland, Texas who ran for governor in 1990. Despite securing the Republican nomination and initially leading in the polls against Democratic challenger State Treasurer Ann Richards by twenty points, Williams ultimately lost the race due in part to a comment he made about rape. During the campaign Williams cultivated an image of a cowboy figure who had risen from humble roots to become a powerful business tycoon. The image played well in public opinion polls. Williams often had a propensity for making poorly planned statements on the campaign trail. Early life Williams was the son of Clayton W. Williams, Sr., an oilman and Pecos county commissioner, and the former Chicora Lee "Chic" Graham. He was born in Alpine, Texas in the Big Bend country of far West Texas, but reared in his father's native Fort Stockton, the seat of geographically large Pecos County. He graduat ...
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Laccolith
A laccolith is a body of intrusive rock with a dome-shaped upper surface and a level base, fed by a conduit from below. A laccolith forms when magma (molten rock) rising through the Earth's crust begins to spread out horizontally, prying apart the host rock strata. The pressure of the magma is high enough that the overlying strata are forced upward, giving the laccolith its dome-like form. Over time, erosion can expose the solidified laccolith, which is typically more resistant to weathering than the host rock. The exposed laccolith then forms a hill or mountain. The Henry Mountains of Utah, US, are an example of a mountain range composed of exposed laccoliths. It was here that geologist Grove Karl Gilbert carried out pioneering field work on this type of intrusion. Laccolith mountains have since been identified in many other parts of the world. Description A laccolith is a type of igneous intrusion, formed when magma forces its way upwards through the Earth's crust but co ...
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Chihuahuan Desert
The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lower Pecos Valley in New Mexico, and a portion of southeastern Arizona, as well as the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau. It is bordered on the west by the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northwestern lowlands of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. Its largest, continual expanse is located in Mexico, covering a large portion of the state of Chihuahua, along with portions of Coahuila, north-eastern Durango, the extreme northern part of Zacatecas, and small western portions of Nuevo León. With an area of about , it is the largest desert in North America. The desert is fairly young, existing for only 8000 years. Geography There are several larger mou ...
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Igneous
Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial melts of existing rocks in either a planet's mantle or crust. Typically, the melting is caused by one or more of three processes: an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition. Solidification into rock occurs either below the surface as intrusive rocks or on the surface as extrusive rocks. Igneous rock may form with crystallization to form granular, crystalline rocks, or without crystallization to form natural glasses. Igneous rocks occur in a wide range of geological settings: shields, platforms, orogens, basins, large igneous provinces, extended crust and oceanic crust. Geological significance Igneous and metamorphic rocks make up 90–95% of the to ...
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