Sulphur Springs. Courtesy/NPS

NPS map depicting the location of Sulphur Springs Inholding. Courtesy/NPS

VCNP News:

The National Park Service has completed the purchase of a 40-acre inholding known as Sulphur Springs within Valles Caldera National Preserve.

The property contains volcanic features like sulfuric-acid hot springs, volcanic fumaroles and steaming mud-pots.

Acquiring Sulphur Springs was critical to protecting the breadth of geothermal features within the preserve, 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, Wyo., Long Valley Caldera, Calif., Lassen Volcano, Calif., The Geysers, Calif., and a very small system at Dixie Valley, Nev.

“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,” VCNP Superintendent Jorge Silva-Bañuelos said. “Without the Land and Water Conservation Fund and support from the New Mexico congressional delegation and our non-profit partners, this acquisition would not have become a reality.”

Sulphur Springs was originally patented in 1898 as a mining claim by New Mexico businessman and politician, Maríano Otero, who mined sulfur at the site from 1902 to 1904. The Otero family then developed the site as a health resort spa, which operated through much of the twentieth century until it burned down in the 1970s. The property then passed to several private owners. 

In the late 1980s, Los Alamos National Laboratory established an experimental geothermal well on the site, and a small number of residents occupied the property into the early 2000s. In 2016, the property was purchased by the Heritage Partnership Trust in a deal facilitated by the National Parks Conservation Association. Heritage Partnership held the property pending sale to the National Park Service.

Public access and visitation to the site will remain limited while the Park Service conducts formal surveys of the property’s natural and cultural resources, restores the site from previous mining activity, eliminates safety hazards, and develops visitor-related infrastructure.

Dry fumarole mud pot in early summer before the rains begin. Courtesy/NPS

Los Amigos 2019 Geology Tour with Kirt Kempter included a special access visit to the Sulphur Springs area. Courtesy/Los Amigos