El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve ( es, Reserva de la Biosfera El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar) is a biosphere reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site managed by the federal government of Mexico, specifically by Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources, in collaboration with the state governments of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

and the Tohono O'odham. It is in the Sonoran Desert in northwest Mexico, east of the Gulf of California, in the eastern part of the Gran Desierto de Altar, just south of the border with Arizona, United States and north of the city of

Puerto Peñasco Puerto Peñasco ( ood, Geʼe Ṣuidagĭ) is a small city located in Puerto Peñasco Municipality in the northwest of the Mexican state of Sonora, from the border with the U.S. state of Arizona. According to the 2020 census, it has a population o ...

. It is one of the most significant visible landforms in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

seen from space. A volcanic system known as Santa Clara is the main part of the landscape, including three peaks: Pinacate, Carnegie and Medio. In the area there are over 540 species of plants, 40 species of mammals, 200 of

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

, 40 of

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...

and freshwater

fishes Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

. There are threatened endemic species as

Sonoran pronghorn The Sonoran pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana sonoriensis'') is an endangered subspecies of pronghorn that is endemic to the Sonoran Desert. Conservation Around 200 animals currently are believed to exist in Arizona in the United States, up fr ...

, bighorn sheep, gila monster and desert tortoise. The biosphere reserve covers an area of , making up about half of the World Heritage site. The extent of the World Heritage site is 7,146 km², greater than that of the states of

Aguascalientes Aguascalientes (; ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Aguascalientes ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Aguascalientes), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. At 22°N and ...

, Colima,

Morelos Morelos (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Morelos ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Morelos), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 36 municipalities and its capital city is Cuer ...

and Tlaxcala separated.

Formation

El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve is known for its unique physical and biological characteristics, by the presence of a

volcanic shield A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more vi ...

, and by the extensive areas of active

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

s that surround it, and the greatest concentration of

Maar A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow ...

craters. The

Pinacate Mountains Pinacate may refer to: * Pinacate beetle also known as the stink beetle or acrobat beetle * Pinacate, California, small settlement on the Santa Fe Railroad * Pinacate Mining District in Riverside County, California * Pinacate Peaks are volcanic pe ...

range has orogenic features of high interest, products of volcanic eruptions that accumulated lava in compact rocks, sand and volcanic ashes that formed colors of special beauty, and craters such as El Elegante, Cerro Colorado, MacDougal, and Sykes. The Pinacate Peaks (''Picos del Pinacate''), a group of volcanic peaks and

cinder cone A cinder cone (or scoria cone) is a steep conical hill of loose pyroclastic fragments, such as volcanic clinkers, volcanic ash, or scoria that has been built around a volcanic vent. The pyroclastic fragments are formed by explosive eruptions o ...

s, are located in the Reserve north of

. The highest peak is

Cerro del Pinacate The Pinacate Peaks (Sierra Pinacate, ood, Cuk Doʼag) are a volcanic group, group of volcanic peaks and cinder cones located mostly in the Mexican state of Sonora along the international border adjacent to the U.S. state of Arizona, surro ...

(Santa Clara volcano), with an elevation of . Pinacate comes from

Náhuatl language Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

word ''pinacatl'', for the

Pinacate beetle ''Eleodes'' is a genus of darkling beetles, family Tenebrionidae. They are commonly known as pinacate beetles or desert stink beetles. They are endemic to western North America, with many species found in the Sonoran Desert. The name ''pinacate' ...

, a stink beetle endemic to the Sonoran Desert. The Pinacate Peaks volcanoes have erupted sporadically for about 4 million years. The most recent activity was about 11 000 years ago. NASA sent astronauts to the Gran Desierto de Altar from 1965 to 1970, to train for walking on the moon, due to the similarities of the terrain to the lunar surface.

History

Pre-Columbian era

The first inhabitants are known as ''San Dieguito people'', they were

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

who lived off the land, moving from the mountains to the Gulf of California looking for food. The early stages of occupation seem to have ended at the beginning of the ice age about 20000 years ago, when drought forced people to leave the mountain range. A second stage of occupation by ''San Dieguito people'' began in the late glacial period. This group returned to the mountains and lived as their ancestors had.

Tinaja Tinaja is a term originating in Spain (Spanish for clay jar) and used in the American Southwest for surface pockets (depressions) formed in bedrock that occur below waterfalls, are carved out by spring flow or seepage, or are caused by sand and gra ...

s must have been a reliable source of water during this time. The second stage of occupation ended with the arrival of an antipyretic period 9000 years ago, which again forced the people to leave the territory. The most recent indigenous inhabitants of the Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar are the Pinacateño band of the Hia C-ed O'odham. Like the prehistoric San Dieguito culture, the Pinacateños roamed the Pinacate all the way to the sea in search of food, concentrating their camps near the tinajas. During these voyages, they left signs of their presence; one example of this is the network of paths that go from tinaja to tinaja, as well as the stone tools and potsherds found near these water sources.

Explorations

There are few records of those who were the first explorers in this area. Possibly the first European to see the mountain now known as Sierra Pinacate was the explorer Melchior Díaz on 1540. Subsequently, in 1698 the priest

Eusebio Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino ( it, Eusebio Francesco Chini, es, Eusebio Francisco Kino; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born i ...

, founder of Mission San Xavier del Bac in southern Tucson, Arizona, visited the site and returned on several occasions, he and his group climbed to the top of El Pinacate, which was then named Santa Clara Hill. Before 1956, few scientists and explorers had been in El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar, the most famous, the group MacDougal, Hornaday and Sykes who explored the western part of the mountain on 1907.

References

* ''Jack Ruby’s Kitchen Sink: Offbeat Travels through America’s Southwest'', by Tom Miller; ''pp. 10–26,''

External links

*
Volcano.si.edu: Global Volcanism Program—Pinacate

NASA: Satellite photo of Volcán Pinacate

{{DEFAULTSORT:El Pinacate Y Gran Desierto De Altar Biosphere Reserve *03 Biosphere reserves of Mexico Protected areas of the Sonoran Desert Protected areas of Sonora Natural history of Sonora Geography of Sonora Gulf of California Gran Desierto de Altar Ramsar sites in Mexico World Heritage Sites in Mexico Protected areas established in 1993 1993 establishments in Mexico Tohono O'odham