Region 7, Central Alluvial Basins

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Abstract
The Central Alluvial Basins of North America encompass about 700,000 km2 in southwestern United States and northcentral Mexico (Fig. 3; Table 2, Heath, this volume). The land form of the area is characteristic of Basin and Range physiography with sharply rising mountains separated by broad alluvial plains (Fenneman, 1931). The structural basis of the present-day topography was created by regional extension and block faulting along steeply dipping normal faults during the middle to late Tertiary Period (Eberly and Stanley, 1978; Seager and others, 1984; Scarborough and Peirce, 1978; Shafiqullah and others, 1980). Mountains have a general north-to-northwest trend and divide the area into many basins. The term “basin” refers to the major sediment-filled graben that lies between the mountains, which may have either closed or through-flowing drainage. The extreme southern part of the region, the Central Mesa of Mexico, is separated from the remainder of the region by a major structural feature that trends east to west south of Torreon. The mountains that separate the region are an extension of the range of mountains that lies east of the cenetral alluvial basins within Mexico (Region 7, Fig. 1).

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