Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

Located in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, the Guadalupe Mountains National Park covers 135 square miles and features the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, at 8,749 feet. The rugged mountain is an uplifted marine fossil reef from the Permian period that formed beneath the ocean some 250 million years ago. Millions of years of natural erosion have exposed the well-preserved fossils of this reef ’s prehistoric inhabitants.

—Prepared by the World Tribune staff