Welcome to Southern New Mexico. A place of history, nature and industry. There is a reason it is called the Enchanted State that you won’t want to miss. For example, within the Rio Grande Rift is the mid- sized city of Las Cruces of which the Rio Grande river flows through. If you go 22 miles southwest as the crow flies, you will end up in the Portillio Volcanic Field. Within the volcanic field is the Kilbourne Hole, a massive marr volcano.
At 1.5 x 2.1 miles wide and over 300 feet deep, it is a sight to behold. To get there you exit off of Interstate 10, you go through public land maintained by the Bureau of Land Management , then the 250,000 acres of JCJ Ranch. You might see a Union Pacific intermodal on its way to the City of Angels. Once you have arrived you will be in awe! Though the floor of the crater is private land, the rim is all yours to explore! Lying all around are basalt rocks, which make up 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth! You might even find olivine, a beautiful mineral which is a major component of the Earth’s upper mantle. If you do research to find where to search for olivine, it may say to look on the east dunes in harder, heavier and oxidized basalt rock. Which you could break open and possibly strike the desired treasure. (Incomplete sentence) I personally had more luck on the southwest area of the hole, and I found it lying around. We used a regular hardware hammer, so you may have more luck with a rock hammer when it comes to breaking the hard basalt rock. Also nearby is the Hunt Hole which is a smaller marr volcano, but don’t count it out. It is caused by the same type of eruption, a phreatomagmatic eruption. Which is caused by the interaction of lava and groundwater, this causes a big explosion. The two holes are not the only thing to see! In fact I’m only getting started…
Also nearby is the Aden Lava Flow along with the Aden Crater. The Aden Crater despite its name is not a crater, but a small shield volcano. While that alone in itself is neat, there is something I find even cooler to tell you. In late1927 or early 1928 two young adventurers came to the “crater” prepared to do what explorers do… explore. With the rope that they brought, the pair repelled down a fumarole, or gas vent. Little did they know what great discovery they would make. As they explored the fumarole, they must have been in shock about what they found under a layer of bat guano. They had discovered a surprisingly well preserved (thanks to the bat guano) Shasta Ground Sloth! The sloth is believed to have lived during the end of the last ice age. Scientists believe the sloth fell into the fumarole with a misstep and that it survived the fall, but found no way out and died trapped. It is believed that the young men who discovered the sloth may have been Boy Scouts, so if you’re a Boy Scout you should be proud. You may not find a ground sloth on your trip, but you can find some neat minerals that are just as old! The area where the two holes are, were once a part of Mexico until 1854. When the US purchased 30,000 square miles of what is now Southern Arizona and New Mexico, in what is now known as the Gadsen purchase. We purchased it to build the Trans- continental Railroad, but that didn’t pan out. In fact the railroad did not arrive in New Mexico until 1878, yet the purchase has still shaped shape the territory and the border.
Being by the border you might see Border Patrol on your trip. In fact located 30 miles North of the border is Deming, New Mexico. A small town founded over a 100 years ago in hope of growing into a bustling city with the help of the railroad. That planned failed. Now with a population of 14,000, the city has a poverty level twice the national average and a very high unemployment rate. Then on Mother’s Day weekend of 2019 Border Patrol dropped off a group of undocumented migrants in Deming, after federal facilities in El Paso ran out of space. The town of Deming came together and made a shelter for the migrants. In an old wwII hanger a shelter was created for the families who crossed the border illegally in search of asylum. which even had an area for kids sponsored by save the children. This was Save the Children’s first time in their 100 year history that they have responded to a humanitarian crisis in the US. Costing the city 15 to 17,000 dollars per day and this is the poorest city in New Mexico, which is one of the poorest states in the nation. The city council allocated 1 million dollars to shelter the migrants. Locals are still happy to help. This is not a federally run detention center, but a humanitarian shelter. The shelter has drawn national attention as it is the smallest town in America to shelter migrants.
I have told you myriad facts about the Kilbourne hole and other places in the Portllio Volcanic Field. There’s so much more to Southern New Mexico, such as White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns, and for the extra-terrestrial enthusiasts out there… Roswell. I would definitely recommend coming to Southern New Mexico; there is something for almost every one! So with all that’s out there, what will you discover