The National Park Service has started a month-long public comment period that is due to end on January 26, 2017. Located in northern New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains, Valles Caldera sits atop a 13.7 mile (22.0 kilometer) wide 1.25-million-year-old dormant volcanic caldera.
Yellowstone National Park, Crater Lake, and Hawaii’s volcanoes are already on the list of parks with federally protected geothermal features. Valles Caldera, known as the “Yellowstone of the Southwest,” is known for its vast grasslands, the remnants of one of North America’s few super volcanoes and one of New Mexico’s most well-known elk herds.
The ring of mountain peaks surrounding the caldera in the shape of a bear’s claw is also culturally significant to Native American tribes dating back 11,000 years who frequented the caldera for hunting and gathering obsidian, used in making spear and arrow points.
Valles Caldera geothermal features
While Valles Caldera doesn’t have anything as spectacular as Yellowstone’s “Old Faithful” geyser, it does have some boiling and acidic calling cards to show off that highlight its volcanic past. Valles Caldera does have a number of pungent smelling sulfur springs with fanciful names like Stomach Trouble Spring and Laxative Spring,
And then, there are the volcanic domes, with the highest being Redondo Peak, an 11,253-foot (3,430 meters) resurgent lava dome located entirely within the caldera. Other features include mud pots and the 30 hot and cold sulfuric acid fumaroles that dot the Redondo and Alamo canyon areas.
In making its case for the added protection of the geothermal features in Valles Caldera, the U.S. Park Service said: “these springs and fumaroles (some of which take the form of bubbling mudpots in wet seasons) are indicators of subsurface thermal processes, are unique to the region, and are easily accessible for study and research; there are no comparable features in the state of New Mexico. The only other places in the United States that have such systems are Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho; Lassen Volcano, the Long Valley Caldera, and The Geysers in California, the latter two having thermal regimes degraded by geothermal production; and a very small system at Dixie Valley, Nevada.”
Why the need for protection?
The idea of tapping into the geothermal energy beneath the caldera has been bandied about for decades. In the 1980s, when the park was still private property, numerous entities, including the federal government and Union Oil spent millions of dollars looking into the feasibility of harnessing that energy.
Interest in New Mexico’s geothermal resources is again taking center stage as the state looks at ways to wean itself off fossil fuels while boosting renewable energy projects. The park Service is intent on addressing geothermal development just outside the preserve’s boundaries, requiring federal agencies to consult with the Park Service before any drilling is allowed that might adversely affect the geothermal features.
