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Database for the Geologic Map of the Bonanza Caldera Area, Northeastern San Juan Mountains, Colorado

Metadata Updated: November 27, 2025

The San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado have long been recognized as a site of exceptionally voluminous mid-Tertiary volcanism, including at least 24 major ignimbrite sheets (each 150-5,000 km3) and associated caldera structures active at 33-23 Ma. More recent volcanologic and petrologic studies in the San Juan region have focused mainly on several ignimbrite-caldera systems: the southeastern area (Platoro complex), western calderas (Uncompahgre-Silverton-Lake City), the central cluster (La Garita-Creede calderas). The northeast San Juan region that was far less studied until recently occupies a transition between earlier volcanism in central Colorado and the larger-volume younger ignimbrite-caldera foci farther south and west. The present study of the Bonanza area evaluates eruptive and magmatic processes of silicic Cordilleran volcanism in this northeast region, based on new geologic mapping (mainly summers of 2007-12) and concurrent petrologic and geochronologic analysis. The resulting map is based on new field mapping of volcanic rocks in thirteen 7.5-minute quadrangles in northeastern parts of the volcanic field, petrologic studies involving several hundred new chemical analyses, and high-resolution age determinations for about 130 sites. The Bonanza center contains exceptionally complete and diverse features of an ignimbrite caldera cycle, including voluminous andesite erupted before and after ignimbrite eruptions, complex compositional zonation within both the outflow ignimbrite sheet and the tuff concurrently ponded within the caldera, extensive portions of the ring-fault system that accommodated subsidence, thick compositionally diverse lavas that filled the caldera after subsidence, remnants of the original topographic caldera rim, widespread erosional exposure of caldera-floor features, and postcaldera granitic intrusions that generated a notably steep resurgent dome within the caldera.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 27, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 27, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5e1f8f74e4b0ecf25c632d9e
Data Last Modified 2020-08-31T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 2e365d6d-d7b2-419f-a188-51241f52d171
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 7bc3fb4602abcae7520598570e8e5496863831e23a2be27835f55f2d31eba9a1
Source Schema Version 1.1

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