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Research about San Juan Mountains

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including San Juan Mountains.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
USGS1974

Palaeomagnetism and magnetic–polarity zonation in some Oligocene volcanic rocks of the San Juan Mountains, south–western Colorado

Palaeomagnetic results have been obtained from thirty sites in intrusive and extrusive rocks of Oligocene age from the San Juan Mountains, south-western Colorado. All specimens from each site were subjected to af demagnetization, and the reliability of each site determined. Twenty-three sites gave reliable results. Because five sites from the thick intracaldera part of the La Jara Canyon Member of the Treasure Mountain Tuff appear to have become magnetized during the same small interval of geological time, their results were combined and their mean pole and direction used in the final calculations. The eighteen remaining reliable sites yielded an average Oligocene palaeomagnetic pole at 85·6° N and 298·0° E (δ p = 8°, δ m = 11°, k = 24·1). A stratigraphic sequence is given for the major San Juan ash-flow sheets and selected additional units with their corresponding magnetic polarities and mean K-Ar ages.

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USGS1973

Revised volcanic history of the San Juan, Uncompahgre, Silverton, and Lake City calderas in the western San Juan Mountains, Colorado

The sequence of mid-Cenozoic volcanic events in the western San Juan Mountains is closely analogous to that elsewhere in the San Juan volcanic field. The Lake Fork, Picayune, and San Juan Formations were erupted from a cluster of central volcanoes from 35 to 30 m.y. ago, when dominant activity shifted to more silicic ash-flow eruptions with accompanying caldera collapses. The Uncompahgre and San Juan calderas, each about 20 km across, formed mainly from eruption of the 28-m.y.-old Sapinero Mesa Tuff. Collapse occurred concurrently with eruption, and intracaldera tuffs accumulated to a thickness of more than 700 m. Both calderas were resurgently domed together; the northeast-trending Eureka graben formed along the distended crest of that dome. The Uncompahgre caldera was then flooded by several 27- to 28-m.y.-old ash-flow sheets from easterly sources, and also by one apparently erupted from the Silverton caldera nested within the older San Juan caldera. The Lake City caldera, located within the older Uncompahgre caldera, formed about 22.5 m.y. ago in response to eruption of the Sunshine Peak Tuff.

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USGS1970

Volcanic history of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, as indicated by potassium-argon dating

Volcanic rocks in the San Juan Mountains constitute the largest erosional remnant of a once nearly continuous volcanic field that extended over much of the southern Rocky Mountains and adjacent areas in Oligocene and later time. Recent regional studies have shown that the gross petrologic evolution throughout the San Juan remnant of this field was relatively simple, with initial intermediate lavas and breccias, followed closely in time by more silicic ash-flow tuffs, and ending with a bimodal association of basalt and rhyolite. More limited data from other remnants of the original field indicate a similar evolution. In the San Juan field, voluminous early lavas and breccias - mainly alkali andesite, rhyodacite, and mafic quartz latite - were erupted from numerous scattered central volcanoes onto an eroded tectonically stable terrane. They formed mostly during the interval 35 to 30 m.y. ago, but some probably were erupted earlier and others up to several million years later. About 30 m.y. ago, major volcanic activity changed to explosive ash-flow eruptions of quartz latite and low-silica rhyolite that persisted until about 26 m.y. ago. Source areas for the ash flows are marked by large calderas in the central and western San Juan Mountains. Two groups of lavas and associated rocks of intermediate composition intertongue with the ash-flow sequence: (1) quartz latitic lavas that were erupted in and adjacent to caldera structures and are genetically related to the ash-flow activity; and (2) other, generally more mafic lavas and related rocks that are widely distributed without evident structural relation to the ash-flow eruptive centers. The second group apparently represents a continuation of the early intermediate activity into the period of major ash-flow eruption. In the early Miocene the character of volcanism changed notably. Whereas the Oligocene volcanics are predominantly intermediate lavas and related silicic differentiates, the younger rocks are largely a bimodal association of basalt and high-silica alkali rhyolite. Basalt and minor rhyolite were erupted intermittently through the Miocene and Pliocene, and at one time formed a widespread thin veneer over the older volcanic terrane. The marked contrast between the Oligocene intermediate to low-silica rhyolitic magmas and the later basaltic and rhyolitic magmas implies either different conditions of magma generation or processes of differentiation for the two suites. This petrologic change coincides approximately in time with nearby development of the Rio Grande depression, a major rift that is the local expression of widespread late Cenozoic crustal extension. Whatever the cause of the petrologic change, the progression from predominantly intermediate to bimodal basalt-rhyolite volcanism, approximately concurrent with initiation of late Tertiary crustal extension, appears characteristic of Cenozoic volcanism for much of the western interior United States. © 1970, The Geological Society of America, Inc.

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USGS1966

Volcanism in the western San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Three major cycles of volcanism during the Miocene and Pliocene formed a layered succession of calc-alkaline eruptive materials in the western San Juan Mountains nearly 1.5 miles thick and having a volume greater than 1,000 cubic miles. Each cycle was characterised by major eruptions followed by subsidence in the vent areas, and the resulting structure was a great volcanic plateau surrounding a complex of nested cauldrons. In the first cycle, cruption of several hundred cubic miles of tuff breccia and subordinate lavas was followed by subsidence that created the San Juan volcanic depression, about 15 miles wide and 30 miles long. During the second cycle, pyroclastic rocks and lava flows accumulated within this depression and on its borders, and the depression subsided further. During the third cycle, ash flows spead widely from centres within the depression, and their eruption resulted in formation and subsidence of the nearly circular comagmatic Silverton and Lake City cauldrons, each about 10 miles across, within the earlier depression. Cauldron subsidence in the second and third cycles was followed by resurgence and doming of the central blocks. Keystone grabens formed along the distended crests of the domed floors; graben faults formed in the third cycle were in part controlled by those formed in the second cycle. The distribution of post-cauldron radial and concentric fractures, dikes, and intrusive plutons, particularly around the Silverton cauldron, suggests that the underlying magma chamber must have been appreciably larger than the associated cauldrons.

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USGS1949

The relation between earth movements and volcanism in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado

The late Tertiary volcanism in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado followed a long interval during which the crust was stable. The volcanic rocks have been divided into four main groups, (1) those of pre‐Potosi (?) age in the eastern area, (2) the Lake Fork quartz latite, San Juan tuff, and Silverton volcanic series, (3) the Potosi volcanic series and the Fischer quartz latite, and (4) the Hinsdale formation separated by long intervals without eruptions. Each of the groups is made up of rocks from basalt to rhyolite with chemical and other peculiarities. During the eruption of a group there was little deformation but there was subsidence after the eruption of two of the groups and doming after the eruption of the last group. The magma moved into the area from the sides and was erupted about as rapidly as it moved.in. For the group named the Potosi volcanic series, the first eruptions had a composition near that of the primary magma ‐ dark quartz latites. Their eruption was followed by a short time without eruptions during which the magma became layered by crystal settling. The next eruptions were rhyolites followed abruptly, probably because of active movement of magna by dark quartz latites. The process was repeated three times. Subsidence caused by withdrawal of magma followed, and after a long time a new and different magma moved into the area and yielded the rocks of the Hinsdale formation. After the Hinsdale, a magma intruded the area with subsequent doming, but without eruptions.

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USGS1946

Stages and epochs of mineralization in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, as shown at the Dunmore Mine, Ouray County, Colorado

The Dunmore lode is localized along a persistent fissure zone over two miles long and averaging nearly 100 feet in width along the length of the Dunmore claim. The fault in which the lode is located offset the pre-Cambrian quartzite and slate walls about 4,500 feet prior to deposition of the overlying thick San Juan tuff. Late Tertiary faulting extended the fissure into the San Juan tuff, dropping the south side about 80 feet. Although most of the lode crops out in the pre-Cambrian rocks, it extends upward across the profound unconformity into the tuff. The lode is complex, containing sharply marked fissure veins, sheared slate dragged into the fault zone, a sheared dike, breccia chimneys, and pebble dikes. An assemblage consisting of quartz, sericite, kaolin, and pyrite appears to be of early Tertiary age. The more productive part of the lode, however, is late Tertiary and consists of a hematite chimney inclosing a copper shoot, a tungsten chimney, and compound base-metal fissure veins. These chimneys and veins are mostly localized along early Tertiary structures, but their mineral sequences correlate them with the second stage of late Tertiary deposition recognized by Burbank in the adjoining Red Mountain and other districts. The Dunmore lode, however, is believed to have been deposited at greater depth and higher temperature and nearer to a source of supply than the lodes of these districts. In structure as well as mineral assemblages the Dunmore lode shows a connection between the chimneys and veins of the region.

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