The Taos Plateau Volcanic Field

Location: 36.6 degrees N latitude, 105.8 degrees W longitude Type: Tholeiitic sheet flows, scoria/spatter cones, and silicic shield volcanoes and domes Age: ~4 million to 1.8 million years; includes some 22 million year old vents Significance: Largest volcanic field within the Rio Grande Rift and unusual silicic shield volcanoes.

The Taos Volcanic Field is the largest volcanic field within the Rio Grande Rift (Figure 1, location). It is also petrologically and volcanologically diverse, including compositions from tholeiite to rhyolite, and vent morphologies from cinder cones to steep-sided domical volcanoes. The field covers over 7,000 km2 and shares the broad valley floor with the Rio Grande which cuts through extensive sheets of thicks lavas, the Serviellta basalts, to form the Rio Grande Gorge. It is bounded on the east side by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and on the west by the Tusas Mountains. On the north it terminates near the Colorado border and on the south squeezes into the narrow constriction between the Taos basin and the Espanola basin.

Space Shuttle image of the Taos Plateau Volcanic Field. Click on image to view larger version.

Geologic Map of the Taos Plateau Volcanic Field overlain on the shaded relief. Click on image to view larger version.

View east-northeast from summit of San Antonia volcano, across rift valley and Taos Plateau towards Ute Mountain volcano. Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Southern Rockies) are on the distant skyline.

View down north flank of San Antonio volcano. The valleys here are the contacts between separate lava flow lobes, not just erosional valleys.

View southeast from San Antonio volcano towards Taos.

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