Valles Caldera Acquires Sulphur Springs Inholding

Valles Caldera National Preserve has completed the purchase of a 40-acre inholding known as Sulphur Springs within Valles Caldera National Preserve, a property containing unique volcanic features such as sulfuric-acid hot springs, volcanic fumaroles and steaming mud-pots and supporting a range of “extremophile” algae and bacteria living in the high-temperature acidic pool and stream environments.  

Acquiring Sulphur Springs was critical to protecting the breadth of geothermal features within the preserve, located in the center of the Jemez Mountains volcanic field in north-central New Mexico.  Many of the geothermal features on the property are found nowhere else in New Mexico, and similar sites are very rare in the western United States. The only other places in the United States that have such systems are Yellowstone National Park, WY, Long Valley caldera, CA, Lassen Volcano, CA, The Geysers, CA, and a very small system at Dixie Valley, NV.

As the only place in the State of New Mexico with geothermal features like mud-pots and fumaroles, this site has the potential to become a primary location to educate the public about Valles Caldera’s geologic origins and status as a dormant, but not extinct, volcano,” said preserve superintendent Jorge Silva-Bañuelos. “Without the Land and Water Conservation Fund and support from the New Mexico congressional delegation and our no