On the recordMarch 10, 2011
today I join Senator Bingaman in reintroducing a bill to designate the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico as a unit of the National Park System. The Valles Caldera is one of the largest volcanic calderas in the world. The vast grass-filled valleys, forested hillsides, and numerous volcanic peaks make the area a treasure to New Mexico, and a landscape of national significance millions of years in the making. It is appropriate that an area of such value be protected in perpetuity as a unit of the National Park Service. Around 1.5 million years ago a series of explosive rhyolitic eruptions created the massive caldera and dropped hundreds of meters of volcanic ash for miles. This volcanic activity gave the Pajarito Plateau its distinctive cliffs of pink and white tuff overlaying the black basalts of the Rio Grande Rift. In the millennia following the caldera's explosive creation, erosion and weathering carved vibrant canyons and left pinion-topped mesas stretching like fingers away from the massive crater. In time, magma and water drained from the great valley, and a diversity of plants and wildlife took their place. With such resources and natural beauty, it is no wonder that for millennia people have also been an integral part of the Valles Caldera. For the Pueblo Tribes of northern New Mexico, the Valles Caldera has been a part of life from time immemorial.
