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 Supervolcanoes Activity Report
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Details of Supervolcano
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| VEI Index: |
8 |
| Name: |
La Garita Caldera |
| Volcano ID: |
000 |
| Country: |
USA |
| Location: |
State of Colorado |
| Diameter: |
~5,000 km³ |
| Last Eruption: |
~27.8 million years ago |
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La Garita Caldera is a large volcanic caldera located in the San Juan volcanic field in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, United States, to the west of the town of La Garita, Colorado. The eruption that created the La Garita Caldera was, perhaps, the largest known explosive eruption in all of Earth's history (the Siberian Traps may have been larger but the cause is still being debated). The La Garita Caldera is one of a number of calderas that formed during a massive ignimbrite flare-up in Colorado, Utah and Nevada from 40–25 million years ago, and was the site of truly enormous eruptions about 28–26 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch. The area devastated by the La Garita eruption is thought to have covered a significant portion of what is now Colorado, and ash could have fallen as far as the east coast of North America and the Caribbean. The scale of La Garita volcanism was far beyond anything known in human history. The resulting deposit, known as the Fish Canyon Tuff, has a volume of approximately 1,200 cubic miles (5,000 km3), enough material to fill Lake Michigan (in comparison, the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens was only 0.25 cubic miles (1.0 km3) in volume). By contrast, the most powerful human-made explosive device ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba or Emperor Bomb, had a yield of 50 megatons, whereas the eruption at La Garita was approximately 105 times more powerful. It is possibly the most energetic event on Earth since the Chicxulub impact, which was 50 times more powerful. |
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Map of Supervolcano
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Latest seismic activity
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