Judging from these high cliffs at the edge of the lava field, one might also suppose that the volcanoes are old. The rest of the cliff or petroglyph slope is just armored with blocks of basalt that have tumbled from the relatively thin lava flow cap rock. But the lava flows are only six to ten feet thick in most places and occur as a cap rock resting on softer underlying rift basin fill consisting of sands and gravels. In places the cliffs are over a hundred feet high. The Albuquerque Volcanoes are the source of lavas that make up the escarpment of the Petroglyphs National Monument. You can stand on their tops and actually see the craters surrounded by outward-dipping spatter and lava flows. Two humps on the south side of Vulcan are actually small volcanoes. Then there are other places on the larger cones where lava flowed in small gutters perfectly preserved with the last flows on the gutter floors. These look like lava tubes but actually were formed by a different process. Gradual weathering of the loose cinders in these places has created cavernous holes. For example, at the largest cone, "Vulcan volcano", the cone consists mostly of scoria and ash, but has a carapice of spatter and lava coating the exterior. The Albuquerque Volcanoes exhibit many unique volcanic features and you can see them on a short hike if you know where to look. Petroglyph National Monument is located along the rocky escarpment. Photo L. The direction of flow was away from the fissure vent which is visible in this image as an alignment of small cones. Note the lobe-shaped mesas whose margins outline the original flows. View of the Albuquerque Volcanoes from 10,000 feet. For informatin about the Cat Hills, Los Lunas, and Tomé volcanoes, go here. (The following is about the Albuquerque Volcanoes. Summary of Locations and Known Ages of Volcanoes in the Albuquerque Basin, Rio Grande rift Many of the mountains visible from Albuquerque, such as the Jemez Mountains to the north and Mount Taylor to the west are relatively young (meaning, still morphologically preserved) volcanoes. We only see some of the last erutive activity.įrom most locations in Albuquerque there are several shield volcanoes visible to the north and south in addition to the Albuquerque volcanoes. This means that although volcanism appears to be minor and only manifests itself in a few places in the current rift valley floor, there has been much more volcanism within the Albuquerque basin segment of the Rio Grande rift over the past several million years and it is simply buried in the sediments filling the rift. Although most of these volcanic areas consist of dark, relatively low silica, and relatively fluid basalt lava flow and scoria eruptions, andesitic and more silicic compositions are represented in some of the volcanic centers, especially at depth within the rift valley basin fill. Volcanism is distributed throughout the ABQ basin and the Albuquerque volcanoes are only one among several young volcanic features near Albuquerque. It is bounded on the north by the La Bajada fault, which defines the southern margin of the Española basin, and to the south by the Socorro constriction. The Rio Grande rift is segmented into a series of basins the Albuquerque basin being one of them. About the Sandia Mountain Natural History Center.Virtual Tour-Sayaka Ganz: Reclaimed Creations.Sensory Friendly Evenings at the Museum.
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