Within Colorado is one of the largest supervolcanoes on the planet. Although it is extinct, its eruptions were responsible for vast the deposition of vast quantities of gold, silver, and other precious metals. The supervolcano I am referring to is called the La Garita Caldera, which produced an eruption 3,846 times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens. This video will discuss this fascinating long extinct volcanic system, and state how it formed. Thumbnail Photo Credit: This work "WheelerGeologicArea4", is a derivative of a photo (resized, cropped, increased image color saturation, text overlay, overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border & the GeologyHub logo)) from "Wheeler Geologic Area", by: C. K. Hartman, cheezepix, 2009, Posted on Flickr, Flickr account link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheezepix/, Photo link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cheezepix/33584347321/, CC BY 2.0. "WheelerGeologicArea4" is used & licensed under CC BY 2.0 by Youtube.com/GeologyHub If you would like to support this channel, consider using one of the following links: (Patreon: http://patreon.com/geologyhub) (YouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeGh5VML5XPr5jYnzh3J6g/join) (Gemstone & Mineral Etsy store: http://prospectingarizona.etsy.com) (GeologyHub Merch Etsy store: http://geologyhub.etsy.com) Google Earth imagery used in this video: ©Google & Data Providers This video is protected under "fair use". If you see an image and/or video which is your own in this video, and/or think my discussion of a scientific paper (and/or discussion/mentioning of the data/information within a scientific paper) does not fall under the fair use doctrine, and wish for it to be censored or removed, contact me by email at [email protected] and I will make the necessary changes. Various licenses used in sections of this video (not the entire video, this video as a whole does not completely fall under one of these licenses) and/or in this video's thumbnail image (and this list does not include every license used in this video and/or thumbnail image): Public Domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode Sources/Citations: [1] U.S. Geological Survey [2] Lipman, P.W., 2006, Geologic map of the central San Juan Caldera cluster, southwestern Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Investigations Series I-2799, scale 1:50,000, 34 p. [3] Robinson, J.E., Dutton, D.R., Ramsey, D.W., Lipman, P.W., and Felger, T.J., 2006, Database for the geologic map of the central San Juan Caldera cluster, southwestern Colorado in Lipman, P.W., Geologic map of the central San Juan Caldera cluster, southwestern Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Investigations Series I-2799, scale 1:50,000, 34 p. [CD-ROM]. [4] Steven, T & Lipman, Peter. (1976). Calderas of the San Juan volcanic field, southwestern Colorado. USGS professional paper. 958. [5] Wikipedia, "List of large-volume volcanic eruptions in the Basin and Range Province", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large-volume_volcanic_eruptions_in_the_Basin_and_Range_Province, CC BY-SA 4.0 license [6] Alaska Volcano Observatory [7] Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys [8] Cascades Volcano Observatory [9] University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute 0:00 Ancient Supervolcano 0:47 La Garita Caldera 2:39 Caldera Ages 3:10 San Juan Volcanic Field 3:35 Mid Tertiary Ignimbrite Flareup