SIERRA MADRE

The Sierra Madre. principal mountain system of Mexico. It includes the three ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental (to the west), the Sierra Madre Oriental (to the east), and the Sierra Madre del Sur (to the south). These ranges enclose the great central Mexican Plateau, which itself is a part of the systemalthough the northern portion of the plateau also is considered to be part of the Basin and Range Province of the United Statesand is broken by blocks of mountain ranges and large populated ephemeral drainage basins (bolsones). The greater part of Mexico comprises this comprehensive Sierra Madre. principal mountain system of Mexico, including the three ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental (west), the Sierra Madre Oriental (east), and the Sierra Madre del Sur (south). These ranges enclose the great central Mexican Plateau, which is itself a part of the system and is broken by blocks of mountain ranges and large populated basins. The Sierra Madre constitutes the greater part of Mexico. Additional reading The geology of the Sierra Madre is described in Lee A. Woodward and Stuart A. Northrop (eds.), Tectonics and Mineral Resources of Southwestern North America (1976). Large-scale maps of Mexico, made with the help of satellite photography, are found in Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Estadstica, Geografa e Informtica, Atlas nacional del medio fsico, rev. ed. (1988). Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico: A Record of Five Years' Exploration of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; And Among the Tarascos of Michoacan, 2 vol. (1902, reissued as Unknown Mexico: Explorations in the Sierra Madre and Other Regions, 18901898, 1987), offers an account of the author's pioneering geographic and anthropological research in the Sierra Madre Occidental. T. Philip Terry, Terry's Guide to Mexico, rev. ed., edited by James Norman (1972), is a classic descriptive guide. On animal life in the Sierra Madre, two books are especially useful: A. Starker Leopold, Wildlife of Mexico: The Game Birds and Mammals (1959, reprinted 1972), contains excellent illustrations and maps, including a good map of vegetation; while A. Starker Leopold, Ralph J. Gutirrez, and Michael T. Bronson, North American Game Birds and Mammals (1981), a similar later work, covers a larger area but less intensively. The people of the mountains are discussed in Robert C. West and John P. Augelli, Middle America: Its Lands and Peoples, 3rd ed. (1989), a broad systematic geography covering Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies; and Robert Wauchope (ed.), Handbook of Middle American Indians, 16 vol. (196476), especially vol. 1, Natural Environment and Early Cultures, and vol. 78, Ethnology. Henry J. Bruman