The Landforms of Texas
Let’s take a trip around Texas. We can’t really take a trip. But we can travel in our minds! Texas is a big place. It is 800 miles from the north to the south. It has many different kinds of landforms because it is so big.
We will start our trip in the West. That is where Big Bend National Park is found. Big Bend has mountains where people hike and camp. Mountains are tall landforms with steep sides. They have pointed peaks or tops. They can be made in many ways. The mountains of West Texas were made 35 million years ago. They were made from volcanoes.
Next, we will go to the northern plains. Plains are broad, flat areas. Shallow seas covered most of Texas until about 35 thousand years ago. These seas were pushed apart as the land came up. Over time, the flat sea floor turned into dry land. It is now called the High Plains. Plains are mostly covered with grass. They have few trees. The plains of Texas are used for farming. They are also used for cattle ranching.
We will come to another kind of plain as we move south. This kind of plain is called a coastal plain. Coastal plains are areas of low land. They are next to large bodies of water. These form when river sediments build up the sea floor. Texas has almost 600 miles of coastline. It runs along the Gulf of Mexico. The Texas coast is one of the best places to bird watch in the United States.
If we travel along the coast, we will come to the area that we call the Rio Grande Valley. A valley is the low land between mountains or hills. Rivers or streams flow from the mountains through the valley. The Rio Grande Valley is not a true valley. There are no mountains or hills. We still call it a valley because the Rio Grande River flows there.
We have moved in a circle all around the edge of Texas. But what’s in the middle? The center of the state formed more than 600 million years ago. It is called the Hill Country. Hills are high mounds. They are smaller than mountains. Hills can be made when Earth materials build up into piles. They can also form when softer rocks are weathered away from harder rocks. This is what happened in central Texas. The high, flat Edwards Plateau (pla-toe) has been worn into hills. This happened over millions of years. Then rivers carried the rock downstream. Beaches were formed.
No matter what kind of landforms you like, Texas has them all!
No matter what kind of landforms you like, Texas has them all!
- mountains
- volcanoes
- plains
- coastal plains
- valley
- hills
- plateau
- beach