Tag Archives: caldera

Wheeler Geologic Area

As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to have a volcano or two within exploring distance. Given that I was 8 years old and couldn’t drive, that distance was about five miles. My friends and I used to make up stories that the nearby mountains were volcanoes and could erupt at any moment just to sate our sense of adventure. As far as we knew, the only volcanoes in the United States were Yellowstone, in Hawaii, or along the West Coast. The rest of the world’s volcanoes were in far off, exotic places like Japan or Iceland. Little did we know that real volcanoes were closer to home than we ever imagined – including the most explosive and epic eruption in Earth’s history: La Garita.

The San Juan Volcanic Field

La Garita Caldera sits in the middle of Colorado’s San Juan Volcanic Field. Located in the southwestern part of the state, the volcanic field was once extremely active. Two continental plates once collided here and caused the ground to fracture and faults to form. These faults allowed heated magma from the Earth’s mantle to rise and pool in massive magma chambers beneath the crust. The results were often explosive.

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Vital Stats
Name: Capulin
Type: Cinder Cone
Eruption Status: Extinct

Last Eruption: Approximately 60,000 years ago
Location: 36.7811° N, 103.9695° W
Northeastern New Mexico; Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field

The drive east through Northern New Mexico can be a pretty boring one.  The landscape is flat and brown, minus a few hills popping up here and there.  Major yawn factor – until you see the unmistakable cone of a volcano standing majestically next to the highway.  And then you realize exactly what you’re driving through.

The Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field stretches from southern Colorado to the western border of Oklahoma and Texas, near the town of Clayton, NM.  This volcanic field is a bit of an anomoly in the volcano world. Most volcanoes form on hot spots (like Hawaii) or along plate boundaries (Cascade Range).  New Mexico doesn’t sit on either one.  However, a continental rift does run though the area where the land is pulling apart and much thinner than the surrounding crust. This is what allowed magma to rise to the surface, creating some spectacular volcanic activity.

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Vital Stats
Name: Yellowstone
Type: Supervolcano
Eruption Status: Active
Last Eruption: Approximately 640,000 years ago
Location: Upper Geyser Basin 44.4600° N, 110.8292° W
Northwestern Wyoming/Southeastern Idaho

Volcano Hopping at Old Faithful Geyser.


As we head west along the southern loop road, we catch glimpses of wildlife in the thick trees. A mother elk and her calf are grazing on sweet grasses that are clinging to what’s left of autumn. The father, a majestic ten point buck, bounds across the road in front of us and disappears up the hill. As we pass West Thumb Geyser Basin, the trees begin to take on a ghastly appearance. Here you can see the scars of the 1988 forest fires. I was just a kid then, on a cross country trip to Oregon to visit family, but I remember the roiling smoke on the horizon. The fires destroyed 36% of Yellowstone. But forest fires have a natural way of clearing out the old junk and creating space for new life. This is similar to how volcanoes behave. Ash mixes with soil to create fertile land and vibrant life springs forth from it. Now, nearly 30 years later, we can see where life is making her comeback.

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