As you drive eastward from El Paso, Texas, toward Guadalupe Mountains National Park, one of the first things to catch your eye after about an hour’s worth of driving is the light-colored rock of El Capitan at the southernmost point of the park lifting itself high above the atmospheric haze. What you see as you approach this landform is the Western Escarpment of the Guadalupe Mountains, one of the best-exposed geologic cross sections in the world. According to Wikipedia, “An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.”