Caprock Escarpment

Caprock Escarpment, geological feature, Texas, U.S., that forms a natural transition between the High Plains (west) and the western edge of the North Central Plains (east). It forms the eastern border of the semiarid Llano Estacado (Spanish: “Staked Plain”) and is a prominent feature of Borden, Briscoe, Crosby, Dickens, Floyd, and Motley counties, where it rises in places as high as 1,000 feet (305 metres) above the plains. The escarpment, which stretches for some 200 miles (320 km) south-southwestward from the northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle, is technically hardpan rather than rock, a layer of lithified calcrete (calcium carbonate), or caliche, that is impervious to water and resists erosion. Cut by rivers and streams, the escarpment is often fringed by arroyos and larger formations, including the Palo Duro Canyon.

Caprock Canyons State Park and Trailway, near the city of Quitaque in Briscoe county, opened in 1982. Ten years later a 65-mile (105-km) multiuse trail was developed as a rail-to-trail project. Clarity Tunnel, on the trail, is home to one of the state’s largest colonies of free-tailed bats, and the park contains several exotic species of wildlife including herds of pronghorn, buffalo, and aoudad (Barbary sheep) and the rare golden eagle.