The Sierra de Guadalupe is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have ari ...

in Mexico. It is found between the borough of

Gustavo A. Madero Gustavo Adolfo Madero González (16 January 187518 February 1913), born in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, Mexico, was a participant in the Mexican Revolution against Porfirio Díaz along with other members of his wealthy family. He was also k ...

in northern

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

and the municipalities of Cuautitlán Izcalli, Tultitlán, Coacalco, Ecatepec and

Tlalnepantla Tlalnepantla de Baz is one of 125 municipalities of the state of Mexico, north of Mexico City. The municipal seat and largest city in the municipality is the city of Tlalnepantla. ''Tlalnepantla'' comes from the Náhuatl words ''tlalli'' (land) a ...

, in the

State of Mexico The State of Mexico ( es, Estado de México; ), officially just Mexico ( es, México), is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Commonly known as Edomex (from ) to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is ...

. Its highest peak is at .

History

There is evidence that the Aztecs worshipped

Tonantzin Tonantzin ( nci-IPA, Tonāntzin, toˈnáːn.tsin) is a Nahuatl title composed of ''to-'' "our" + ''nān'' "mother" + ''-tzin'' "(honorific suffix)". When addressing Tonantzin directly, males use the suffixed vocative form ''Tonāntziné'' [], and ...

(Goddess of Sustenance) at Tepeyac hill. The sierra is named after Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Marian apparition that, according to oral and written colonial sources such as the '' Huei tlamahuiçoltica'',

Juan Diego Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, also known as Juan Diego (; 1474–1548), was a Chichimec peasant and Marian visionary. He is said to have been granted apparitions of the Virgin Mary on four occasions in December 1531: three at the hill of Tepeyac an ...

saw at the Tepeyac hill. In 1937, the

El Tepeyac National Park El Tepeyac National Park is one of a number of federally recognized national parks in Mexico that are protected natural areas and administered by the federal National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP), a subsidiary of SEMARNAT (Ministr ...

was created in the Tepeyac hill, in the eastern portion of the sierra, by decree of the president

Lázaro Cárdenas Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940. Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the Me ...

Geology

The sierra is a

dormant volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

that is part of the

Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt ( es, Eje Volcánico Transversal), also known as the Transvolcanic Belt and locally as the (''Snowy Mountain Range''), is an active volcanic belt that covers central-southern Mexico. Several of its highest peaks h ...

. The basement is made of

andesitic Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomin ...

and dacitic soil. The last volcanic activity in the area occurred 14 to 15 million years ago.

Ecology

Climate

The sierra has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

. It rains mostly during summers with rainfall of between 700 and 800 mm (2.5 and 3.5 in) per year. The temperature ranges from 12 to 16 °C (53 to 60 °F).

Fauna

Among the species found in the sierra, it is included the Mexican pine snake, the American kestrel, the roadrunner, the

opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered No ...

, and the

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the ...

Introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there ...

include the

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

tapir Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inh ...

s and

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North A ...

Flora

In the area, ''

quercus An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ...

'' trees and

xerophile A xerophile () is an extremophilic organism that can grow and reproduce in conditions with a low availability of water, also known as water activity. Water activity (aw) is measured as the humidity above a substance relative to the humidity above ...

plants are abundant.

Preservation

The area has suffered from environmental deterioration due to

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

. Part of the eastern part of the sierra was reforested with the introduction of ''

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as ...

'', ''

pinus A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden ...

'', ''

cedrus ''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, is a genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae (subfamily Abietoideae). They are native to the mountains of the western Himalayas and the Mediterranean region, occurring at altitudes of 1,500 ...

'' and ''

casuarina ''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in th ...

'' trees. It is composed of the following hills: * Cerro del Sombrero or Pico Tres Padres * Cerro de los Gachupines () *

Cerro del Chiquihuite Cerro del Chiquihuite (Chiquihuite Hill) is a hill located in the north of Mexico City, in the borough of Gustavo A. Madero and bordering the municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz in the State of Mexico. The hill has a height of above sea level a ...

() * Cerro del Picacho Moctezuma () * Cerro del Picacho El Fraile () * Cerro del Picacho El Jaral * Cerro del Tenayo * Cerro Petlecatl * Cerro de la Calavera * Cerro Gordo * Cerro Zacatenco () * Cerro del Guerrero () * Cerro de Santa Isabel * Cerro del Tepeyac ()

Gallery

File:Cerro Zacatenco.jpg, Cerro Zacatenco File:Cerro los Gachupines 01.jpg, Cerro Los Gachupines File:Cerro del Chuiquihuite - Panorama.JPG, Cerro del Chiquihuite File:Sierra de Guadalupe.jpg, Wider view

References

External links

*{{commons category inline, Sierra de Guadalupe Coacalco de Berriozábal Cuautitlán Izcalli Ecatepec de Morelos Gustavo A. Madero, Mexico City Landforms of Mexico City Landforms of the State of Mexico Mountain ranges of Mexico Tlalnepantla de Baz Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt Tultitlán