A bolson is a desert valley or depression, usually draining into a playa or salt pan, and entirely surrounded by recently uplifted hills or mountains. Bolsons are sites of active deposition of sediments (aggradation).[1] They are a type of endorheic basin characteristic of basin and range topography.
The term was an Americanism originating in the 1830s and 1840s during the explorations of the far west of North America, particularly of what became the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.[2][3] It was derived from the Spanish bolsón (large purse).[2]
Examples of this type of formation would be the Hueco Bolson in the western Trans-Pecos of Texas, and the Mesilla Bolson in southern New Mexico and the northeastern part of Chihuahua, Mexico.
Water can accumulate over millennia in deep seniments to form a bolson aquifer. Many have been tapped for human use.[4]
^* Connell, Sean D. (2001). "Stratigraphy of the Albuquerque Basin, Rio Grande Rift, Central New Mexico: A progress report". New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources Open File Reports. 454B: A8. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.524.6206.
^ abbolson from www.britannica.com accessed July 29, 2018
^bolson from dictionary.com accessed July 29, 2018
^The Hueco Bolson: An Aquifer at the Crossroads from utminers.utep.edu accessed July 29, 2018
A bolson is a desert valley or depression, usually draining into a playa or salt pan, and entirely surrounded by recently uplifted hills or mountains....
The Bolson tortoise (Gopherus flavomarginatus), also called the Mexican giant tortoise or yellow-margined tortoise, is a species of tortoise from North...
083°W / -65.167; -63.083. A glacier flowing northwest into the head of Bolsón Cove, Flandres Bay. First charted by the BelgAE under Gerlache, 1897-99...
Bolson pupfish (Cyprinodon atrorus) is a species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinodontidae. It is endemic to northeastern Mexico, in the Río Salado...
Comancheria. In the mid 1830s, the Comanche formed a colony in Mexico called the Bolson colony. Conditions in this colony were similar to how they were in Comancheria...
highlands of Guatemala. It is cryptorheic. Lago Coatepeque, El Salvador. Bolsón de Mapimí, in northern Mexico. Willcox Playa of southern Arizona. Tulare...
the highest point of 53 UN-recognised sovereign states. It is part of the Bolsón de Fiambalá, a semicircular sand valley. The dune is named after Argentine...
lies on the Mexican Plateau, and is part of the Chihuahuan Desert. The Bolsón de Mapimí is a large endorheic basin which covers much of the western portion...
of environments. In addition to being distributed in practically all of Bolsón Cabeza de Vaca, and being quite abundant. These organisms can be easily...
Mexico, the Guzmán Basin in New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico, and both the Bolsón de Mapimí and the Llanos el Salado in Mexico. Such basins can be, and routinely...
feet/metres Location Notes Duna Federico Kirbus ≈4,035/1,230 ≈9,334/2,845 Bolsón de Fiambalá, Fiambalá, Catamarca Province, Argentina Highest in the world...
de los Andes Villa La Angostura Zapala Viedma Choele Choel Cipolletti El Bolsón General Roca Ingeniero Jacobacci San Antonio Oeste San Carlos de Bariloche...
the basins formed by the opening of the Rio Grande rift were initially bolsons, with no external drainage and a central playa. An axial river existed...