When I moved to Abiquiú from Berkeley/California in 2000, I happily discovered many hiking trails almost right next door. Plaza Blanca was almost in my backyard, and Ghost Ranch was just ten minutes away. Once there one could climb up to Chimney Rock, explore the Box Canyon, and make it all the way to Kitchen Mesa – stunning hikes. The rocks one could find along the way were fascinating too, although I had no idea what they were; they looked like quartz crystals and mica and obsidian, but what were they really? I bought a book for New Mexico rockhounds and explored some of their recommended locations. Just past the Abiquiú Dam along Highway 96 towards Youngsville and Gallina one could find lots of agate, I learned. True enough; but when I moved to Coyote I found agates just about everywhere along the dirt roads and in the forests: near the Pedernal Mountain, around Cañones, along the Rio Puerco. Why not around Abiquiú? It took a long time before I got the answer to this question, simply because it hadn’t occurred to me to ask. Research about the agate around Coyote revealed a supervolcano known as Valles Caldera that erupted 1.25 million years ago in the Jemez Mountains, an area that is now known as the Valles Caldera National Preserve. I often went hiking near Valle Grande (the most famous section of Valles Caldera), but that’s really far away from Coyote — how did these agates end up here? Strictly speaking, “supervolcano” isn’t a scientific term. Geologists and volcanologists refer to a “Volcanic Explosivity Index” (VEI) of 8 and 7 when they describe super-eruptions. An increase of 1 indicates a 10 times more powerful eruption. VEI-8 are colossal events with a volume of 1,000 km3 (240 cubic miles) of erupted pyroclastic material (for example, ashfall, pyroclastic flows, and other ejecta). An example of a VEI-8 event is the eruption at Yellowstone (the Yellowstone Caldera) some 2.1 million years ago which had a volume of 2,450 cubic kilometers. VEI-7 volcanic events eject at least 100 km3 Dense Rock Equivalent (DRE). Valles Caldera belongs to the VEI-7 class of supermassive events (accounting for the countless agates in and around Coyote) and is situated within the Jemez Volcanic Field. The last eruption and collapse of the Valles Caldera occurred 1.25 million years ago, piling up 150 cubic miles of rock and blasting ash as far away as Iowa. Although huge in volume, the caldera-forming eruption in the Jemez Mountains was less than half the size of that which occurred at the Yellowstone Caldera system some 631,000 years ago. The name “caldera” comes from the Spanish word for “kettle”, “cooking pot”, or “cauldron”. Molten rock or magma begins to collect near the roof of a magma chamber bulging under older volcanic rocks. After an eruption begins and enough magma is ejaculated, the layer of rocks overlying the magma begins to collapse into the now emptied chamber because of the weight of the volcanic deposits. A roughly circular fracture develops around the edge of the chamber. In the case of Valles Caldera, the surrounding area continues to be shaped by ongoing volcanic activity, and an active geothermal system with hot springs and “fumaroles” (smoke plumes) exists even today. Pyroclastic flows descend the south-eastern flank of Mayon Volcano, Philippines. Maximum height of the eruption column was 15 km above sea level, and volcanic ash fell within about 50 km toward the west. There were no casualties from the 1984 eruption because more than 73,000 people evacuated the danger zones as recommended by scientists of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. Photograph by C.G. Newhall on September 23, 1984 Source USGS.gov, Public Domain Even if it wasn’t quite “super”, it felt exciting to know that such an amazing (and unique, I thought) event had happened not very far from where I lived. Because I’m so ignorant as far as geology is concerned, I couldn’t really imagine what such an eruption would look like. But my interview in September with geologist and volcanologist Kirt Kempter reawakened my interest. He had explained WHY there were no agates to be found near Abiquiú, and had I lived in Coyote 1.25 million years ago when the Valles Caldera erupted, I wouldn’t have survived! Abiquiú was protected from the pyroclastic flow by mountains such as the Chicoma Peak and the Polvadera Peak, and a high plateau called the La Grulla Plateau. But more to the north and the northwest it could flow unhindered as far as at least 12 miles. AND: it can move as fast as 100 to 200 miles per hour. Almost impossible to imagine! Geological time usually is measured in really long time intervals, also hard to imagine – 1.25 million years ago? Can you picture this? – and yet, there are events that last maybe days only but change the landscape forever. There’s a difference between lava and pyroclastic flow: lava is the general term for magma (molten rock) that has been erupted onto the surface of the Earth and maintains its integrity as a fluid or viscous mass, rather than exploding into fragments. It usually flows slow enough to give people and animals near a volcanic eruption some time to escape. Pyroclastic flow, on the other hand, is more like a cloud: a mixture of hot gases, rock fragments, and ashes which moves at extremely high speeds. It wipes out anything living in its path and burns all organic matter. When I asked Kirt where I could find more information on the Valles Caldera, he kindly sent me a link to his six-part YouTube series: https://youtu.be/2gCm7et-N0s?si=GV1Ihq5NejM3RInD I highly recommend you watch this; it helps to get a better overall picture and has lots of fascinating facts. I will mention just a few more: Did you know that the area of the Jemez Mountains consists entirely of volcanic rocks, created by hundreds if not thousands of volcanic eruptions over the span of 14 to 15 million years? 350,000 years BEFORE the Valles Caldera eruption, a similar event happened: the Toledo Caldera (1.6 million years ago), in the same location, with the same magnitude. In his video Kirt shows us the different colorations in the landscape: the pyroclastic flow of the more recent Valles Caldera eruption has an orange-brown color. Below this one can see a light-beige volcanic rock layer without stratification, which is the remnant of the catastrophic pyroclastic flow of the Toledo Caldera. And below that is a thick layer of pumice and small particles, deposited by a single, extremely powerful vent which shot 20 kilometers or higher into the stratosphere – the beginning of the eruption of the Toledo Caldera. It’s amazing that scientists were able to figure out where these different streaks of colored rocks came from. One has to ask: Will the area of the Valles Caldera erupt again? While most of the media hype surrounding supervolcanoes focuses on Yellowstone where a VEI-8 event happened some 640,000 years ago which means that the next one could take place any moment or at least within the next 40,000 years, the Discovery Channel called Valles Caldera “a sleeping monster in the heart of New Mexico” but added in answer to the above question: No one knows. Duh.
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By Jessica Rath It’s 7:35 am on the morning of June 13, 1947. At the Chamita Train Station people are waiting for the 7:45 train to Los Alamos Junction. The Station Master had just informed them that the train would be late 30 minutes. Unfortunately, a fairly common event. What to do? A few Chamita residents decided to walk along the tracks to Martin’s General Store; it would save a later trip to pick up some cans of beans and other groceries. And Gallegos’ Produce & Farm Supplies was just next door; a good opportunity to pick up some early tomatoes. Gallegos’ always had fresh and tasty produce. For other passengers Chamita was a transfer station. They came from Santa Fe and had to change trains in order to visit Chama. The delay was a welcome opportunity to explore the town a little: after all, it had become a rather prosperous community due to its proximity to the Los Alamos Lab. It was an interesting little spot for tourists where the Chamita Trading Post offered Native American art and jewelry. Out-of-town visitors also were eager to visit the offices of the Chamita Gazette, Rio Arriba’s only newspaper. Editor José Cabeza de Vaca always had some interesting stories to tell and welcomed folks willing to drop by. Even more fascinating was the neighbor next door: Private Eye R.R.C. Thompson (The Right-Reverend-Colonel). How often could one chat about the latest crimes in the region? Not that there were many, but Mr. Thompson definitely had an air of mystery about him which was pleasantly unsettling. For those interested in railroads it was only a short walk from the train station to the Engine House where one could have a quick peek at the upkeep of the gigantic locomotives. Although one wasn’t allowed to get too close – “Hey! Stay away! Too dangerous!” one would hear – the well-lit hall allowed good views from a distance. You’ve probably guessed by now that this is a “What If?”, in other words, largely fictional railroad. It was built by Bob Dolci, a long-time model railroad enthusiast who agreed to let me visit and interview him and who showed me his totally amazing and beautiful model railroad. It was so much fun to experience his exquisite railroad track, and it was fun again to look at the many photos I took and discover the lovingly crafted details. When I was a kid, a cousin of mine had a model railroad set which was spread over a huge table. There were trains which could run faster and slower, houses, trees, little people and animals – it was a delight to watch. But it was clearly a toy. Not so Bob’s creation: this is a serious hobby which reconstructs historically correct timeframes. Much of it is built from scratch and takes weeks, even months, to finish. The backdrop, for example, of the above picture covers one huge wall. Bob painted it. He and his wife Wendy moved from Sunnyvale/ California to New Mexico in 2011. Shortly after they moved in, Bob built a 24’ x 40’ building to house his railroads. He had become interested in railroading when he was maybe four or five years old and his dad had bought him a Lionel train set. Actually, he didn’t become REALLY interested until he joined the Navy, but it has stayed with him ever since. “I was part of the South Bay Historical Railroad Society that reached out to the counties along the Peninsula out of the Bay Area”, Bob told me. “There was a railroad depot in Santa Clara that was built in 1863 and that was falling apart. It was a very large depot and freight house and passenger depot and waiting room and it had an interlocking tower and other buildings. We wanted to see if we could get the state to turn it over to us so we could restore it, and then convert it into a railroad museum, a railroad library, that would work with state and local governments. They allowed us to start restoring the depot; that must have been in 1975 or 76? But we restored the depot.” “Supposedly it is the oldest depot west of the Mississippi. It was built in 1863 during the Civil War and was built all out of redwood. So, we took it over and restored it and it's still there today – it's still very active. Whenever something needs to be done, the group does it. I was one of the founding fathers of the group, and this got me then interested in not only model railroading, but actual railroading”. Model railroads come in different scales, Bob explained. There's HO, S, O, G, F, and there are others – all different sizes. Before moving here, he changed scales and now models in F scale, which is a large scale that's intended mostly for outdoors. His railroad is both indoor and outdoor. The indoor portion is where he can do fine scale modeling. The outdoor portion of the railroad takes a few hours to prepare for operations. It takes about 30 minutes to move the outdoor buildings from indoors to their place outdoors. Once that is done four “operators” can run/operate trains for about 3 hours. I got a bit of the historical background: “So the Chili Line was formed in 1880. And originally it was part of the North Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, before it became the Denver and Rio Grande Western. It went to Española. Originally, it was supposed to go to Chamita, which is right here. And then it was supposed to go from Chamita all the way to Mexico. But because of an agreement with Santa Fe RR they eventually stopped in Española, then finally in Santa Fe. Originally it was supposed to go back from Chamita up to Española through Medanales and then Abiquiú and Tres Piedras and then to Chama, but that never happened. But my fictitious railroad does!” “So, this is a fictitious railroad set in 1947, and it's pretty much based around the town of Chamita. It's pretty much a “What If” version of the Chili Line. But I spell “Chili Line” not with an “I”, I spell it with an “E”, because that's how we spell it here. And we don't really know who coined the Santa Fe branch as the Chili Line. We know that it was that in the 1920s.” What does it take to build model railroad displays such as this one, I wanted to know. “As a model railroader you have to know more than just about the railroad”, Bob answered. “You have to know things about electronics, (it used to be just electrical, basic electrical work, but now it's all electronics). And you have to know about carpentry, and you have to know about geology. And you have to know all the various types of railroads, whether it’s a branch line, a short line, a main line or whatever. So, it's a pretty complex hobby, especially if you do a lot of scratch building, which means you start with raw materials. There are some really serious scratch builders that will scratch build everything. And then there's those such as myself: if I can buy it, and it works for me, and it fits my needs, I will buy it. If I can't, I will scratch build it. I would say the vast majority of serious model builders falls into my category. Rather than spending a few hundred hours building a locomotive, they’d rather buy one. Then you can spend that time doing a lot of other things. Because this can actually be a very time-consuming hobby. It can take me a couple months just to build a structure or a building, and some others I can build in a couple of weeks. And yet other things I can build in a couple of days. Other things can take a long time. The painting of a backdrop for example: one of my backdrops took me I think three months to paint and the other took a couple of weeks to paint. It depends on what you're trying to achieve.” Bob opened the door on the other side of the building, and there was a mechanism which connected the inside tracks to some more tracks that continued outside. They went way further than I could see. Clearly, the outside required a lot of extra work. For one thing, Bob explained, the problem is rain: it'll wash a lot of dirt down from the side of the hill onto the tracks. And the other problem is one of expansion and contraction. The heat differential in the track causes all kinds of problems. Yes, that certainly looked like a lot of work!
I was content with the exquisite inside exhibit. Bob’s sense for authentic detail is amazing and I felt transported into a different time and place. Thank you, Bob, for a splendid afternoon. Jessica Rath When you live in Abiquiú, you probably drive to Santa Fe more or less regularly. Maybe you need to shop for groceries, or you want to dine at a specific restaurant, or maybe there is a special event at the Lensic. It’ll take you give or take one hour to get there, but that’s alright, no big deal. If you drive one hour north on 84 instead of south, you’ll get to Chama. The drive is absolutely stunning, Colorado and the Rocky Mountains are right in front of you, traffic is moderate, and yet – I, for one, have made the trip just a few times, because I didn’t know any better. Which is a shame, because Chama is such a lovely, vibrant community. When I drove up there recently to interview Anita Massari, Executive Director of Chama Valley Arts, I thought of encouraging the readers of Abiquiú News to spend a day here. While there are many other interesting reasons to visit Chama, such as the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the historic downtown area, or the Edward Sargent Wildlife Preserve – a 20,000 acre area offering elk viewing, bird watching, hiking, and other fun activities for outdoors enthusiasts, my purpose was to learn more about this outstanding arts center which offers all kinds of art classes for all ages. And an annual Art Festival and Studio Tour. And Yoga. And Zumba. And Story Hour. And, and, and… How did this come about, in a town with little more than 1,000 residents? I had to find out. It seemed to be a happy concurrence that brought together the right people at the right time, and to the right place. It all started with “Diffendoofer Day”, based on a children’s book credited to Dr. Seuss. Anita Massari had moved to Chama in 2017 and together with an acquaintance, Bruce McIntosh, offered some events at the library, “Diffendoofer Days”, to bring people of all ages together. At the same time, because of a lucky coincidence the building where Chama Valley Arts is now was bought by someone who wanted it to serve the community, to open an arts center. When a friend approached Anita and suggested that she’d make a great director, she gladly accepted and actively worked on getting more people involved. “ I'm a special ed teacher”, Anita told me. “So I did some things that they didn't expect: I had them write down their hopes and dreams for themselves, for their family, for their community, on post-it notes. And I took those and then I got some people to start coming to a monthly meeting as volunteers and we looked at all of that and started to build our mission. And then 2020 began and the lockdown happened and we looked at what we could do to provide arts for kids who were stuck at home. We got people to donate art supplies and put together art supply bags for kids and we did some online art challenges. Meanwhile, Ashlyn and Dan Perry were fundraising and working on this building, which cost probably close to a third of a million dollars to rehabilitate. And at the same time we got the nonprofit founded and they donated the building to the nonprofit. They are still on the board currently, but they are not seeking to stay on the board and direct us in any way. They are really hoping that we can get as independent as possible and when they know that we're solid, then they will step off the board. So a pretty amazing thing happened – some people take a bunch of money and turn it into something good.” Yes, that does sound like a wonderful coincidence. I wanted to know who the events at the center were for: kids? Adults? Or both? “ We have a really broad mission, cultivating creativity, learning and community through arts and culture. We have programs all the way from early childhood, through school age, that goes all the way up to age 18. And then classes for adults.” “In 2021 the women who had been organizing the Chama Valley Art Festival for more than a decade asked me to take it over. So I got this huge event that happens on Labor Day weekend. At the same time, I had written a whole bunch of grants and had discovered that I enjoyed grant writing and was getting a lot of money that way. And one of those grants was to provide arts in the schools. And so I jumped right into providing the entire Fine Arts program for Chama Valley Schools, all simultaneously.” Anita’s energy is contagious and it is obvious that she truly loves what she is doing. She is full of ideas but has a sense for detail which helps her to realize her plans efficiently. Some of the local artists offer their services to give classes for kids and adults. “For the last two years, we have had Mary Cardin, who is in her 80s, and has 50 years teaching experience of watercolor. And she has been teaching watercolor. Last year, she did a watercolor series, and this year she did single day workshops, so that you come and you complete a painting in one day. And then we have a tie dye artist. We have really worked on the marketing for that class, because people think, ‘Oh, I'm not that into tie dye’, when it is really the art of folding in order to make patterns. It's much more of an art than people think. She teaches techniques from across the world. What we did this year was if you sign up, you just get a bandana. And then if you want to come again, you can choose what other types of textiles you want to dye. We have a neighbor here, who brought her own huge bolts of cloth that she can turn into curtains and tablecloths and sew into dresses, whatever she wants.” I can’t hear enough about the rich programs being offered. “There have been other painting classes and photography classes, and there's dance, Zumba, and Yoga every week,” Anita continues. “And we did some belly dance, we did some salsa, and other different things. But coming up in October – every year in October, right when the leaves are changing, we have an art exhibit here. So this will be our third one. And this year, we're focusing on heritage arts, arts that are passed down through generations, really looking at cultural transmission and cultural heritage.” “And then the first weekend of December is our Winter Art Market. And the whole place is full of people selling art!” Mark your calendars! This month on the last Saturday, they’ll start with a ceramics program which is open to all ages. For right now they’ll be using air dry clay – it works the same as clay that needs to be fired, but people can just take it home. They do have a kiln, and in the future they’ll open a ceramic studio using real clay. Anita has developed her own theory about art. “I've been around the edges of art throughout a lot of my life, but I've never said I am an artist. I don't actually believe in talent anymore. What you create comes from your spirit, your aesthetic, but how good you are at it is merely a matter of practice.” “What I noticed about drawing in terms of talent, is that it seems easier for some people to make something that looks the way they want it to. When I look at my two daughters, one loves to draw and draws constantly and of course is getting very good at it. And the other one almost never draws. But when she does draw, even if it's just a little scribble, and she goes, ‘Look at this’, everybody says: ‘that's an elephant’! “ “There’s one thing that I want to transmit to new people who come here to work with us. If you're working with children, if you're working with this organization, I want you to know that we focus on process instead of product. It’s important how we speak to our students. Children will immediately begin to create for somebody else, and for somebody else's approval. So you can train yourself to speak differently about creativity and about what your students are creating. So that you break that habit.” When I looked around me, when I looked at the walls which are decorated with children’s art work, I understood what Anita was saying. I saw all these beautiful pictures. It would seem wrong to claim that one of the creators is more talented than another; that would be judgmental in the wrong way. And the idea that the process is more important than the finished product makes total sense. Drawing or painting, any artistic expression is a dynamic activity, a doing that changes and develops the artist as well; it’s not a static “thing”. I think that Anita has this fantastic job – a job tailored for her. It's not for everybody, but she has all these ideas, and she has initiative, and it seems she really has the freedom to manifest whatever she wants to create here. That's really nice, compared to a lot of other jobs.
But she doesn’t do all this by herself. She pointed out to me that her work, and the success of the organization and its programs, depend on the support of the community. “Every year dozens of volunteers donate hundreds of hours of their time . Many people lend their expertise to us, teaching me valuable skills. I also must acknowledge the community members who donate money to support us. The generosity and support we receive mean that, in all aspects of our work, I dwell in gratitude.” And I bet that the success of her endeavors is directly related to her sense of recognition and connectedness. When people feel appreciated for what they do, when they know that their time, energy, and resources are being acknowledged, they’re motivated to do more. A win-win situation. “And I have got my assistant director now – so now there's two of us. Lisa Martinez is from here and works in emergency medicine.” Well, it’s easy to imagine that with TWO energetic, creative people the sky's the limit for the Chama Valley Arts Center. The best of luck for all your future endeavors! An afternoon with Dexter Trujillo By Jessica Rath Not many people, myself included, would call their life beautiful, without reservation. Maybe after thinking about it for a while – yes, I agree, it IS beautiful. But often life throws frustrating and annoying stuff at us which dominates the way we feel and overshadows the beauty. When I met with Dexter Trujillo at the Abiquiú Library he totally convinced me that his life is indeed beautiful. And I learned that his life has its share of frustrating and annoying, even sad, events. However, these events don’t cast a pall on his basic outlook. Here is an example: in May, he visited his sister Margo who lives in Minnesota. While there, he did the 21-mile-long Walk to Mary – a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of our Lady of Champion in Wisconsin. Dexter had to explain: this is the only site in the United States where the Catholic church recognizes an apparition of Mary. She appeared to Sister Adele (or St. Adele) in 1859 and told her to teach the young children, often orphans. “There were 4,000 pilgrims, it was so beautiful. But it was freezing! But we made it; I don't know how we made it. We started at six in the morning. And it went until 5:30 pm. We had an ending mass at 5:30. But we almost froze! I just couldn't walk anymore. I could barely kneel, I couldn't even think! Maybe 20 years ago, yes, I could have done it. But now – I can do the pilgrimage from Abiquiú to Santa Rosa de Lima, but no more than that!” Dexter laughs. “It was like a blizzard! The whole way it rained down. The wind was awful and had the rain pour into your face. But it was beautiful. You know, 4000 people, youngsters and not not so young and average people in all kinds of walks of life and so beautiful that there's that devotion. We had an outdoor mass and it was packed. I wanted to get souvenirs but I couldn't even walk to the shop anymore. I walked in the church and prayed the rosary and then we went down into the crypt, where they have an image of the Blessed Mother. You know, the Peshtigo Fire (which happened the same day as the Great Chicago Fire) extended all the way to that place in Wisconsin right there. They say that Sister Adele got all the people on their knees, and they went on their knees around the chapel. And they had a wooden fence and the fire spread to just the wooden fence. It stopped right there. And all the people were unharmed. That’s how deep their faith was. So I'm glad I went and it was beautiful. It reminds me a lot of here too because we just had our annual Santa Rosa de Lima Fiesta.” I should point out here that I’m not affiliated with any organized religion, and in general, my views are rather dim on the subject. But Dexter’s sincerity and devotion, his genuine desire to help people and to make the world a better place, impressed me deeply. He dedicates every moment of his life to follow the teachings of his religion, the teachings of Jesus Christ, as well as he can. This is unusual and quite remarkable. U.S.Postal Service in 1902. The library has many historic photographs. Image credit: Jessica Rath Dexter showed me around the library, and then we went across the Plaza and entered the church of Santo Tomás el Apostol, Saint Thomas the Apostle. It was built around 1935. Here is an interesting anecdote from its early days: “The wealthy people lived towards the highway, the current highway. And the church was really the work of the hermanos and penitentes, they were doing all the backbreaking labor, also the women and children. Anyway, they found out that the pueblo was going to get the back end of the church. And the church was already four feet high. When the people realized that they were going to get the back of the church facing the pueblo, they came with their axes and with their plows and they plowed everything down. They said if we're getting the back of the church, then we don't want a church here in Abiquiú. So anyway, what happened was that the people said we will have our church but we want the face toward the pueblo, to our side. Because they were doing all the work.” “There's pictures at the library of the old church. The only reason they had to destroy that church was because the adobes weren't tight together. So the walls started to separate.” We spent some time in the church, and Dexter pointed out various paintings, images, and weavings. People with a sick family member would make a promise: they’d weave a tapestry if the person got well again. There’s a lot of local history embedded in the church, and the knowledge of this cultural tradition, of the history going back several generations, enriches Dexter’s life and gives it meaning and significance. After our visit to the church Dexter invites me to have a look at his garden. “In my garden I grow my own chile, my own vegetables, tomatoes, pinto beans, I plant a little bit of everything, even Zinnias. We have apricots, apples, grapes, plums – you name it. We have our apricot tree that’s over 300 years old. It has sweet almonds, they say that if you eat the almonds of that tree you won’t get cancer.” First, though, I want to admire the big horno that he built himself. The bricks are made from the soil around Abiquiú. And then we visit the chickens. Dexter opens a gate to let them out of their coop; they happily run around and enjoy their freedom. At night they’ll return to their shed to be safe from coyotes and racoons. We walk through the vegetable garden to go to the almond tree, and Dexter picks a few ripe tomatoes and little round cucumbers for me. It is obvious that his life is strongly connected to the soil, to the natural spring that flows close by, to the apple trees that his grandfather planted, and of course to the magnificent apricot tree. “When my grandpa was alive, he told us that he would ask his great-grandpa how old this tree was. And his great-grandpa would say that it was already a tree when he was a little boy. So it must be at least 300 years old.” As somebody who has changed locations all her life, I ponder: what must it feel to have deep roots to one’s past? Our last stop is the Morada de Alto, the true center of Dexter’s life. I always thought that los Hermanos Penitentes was a secretive society who don’t welcome any outsiders, but this is completely wrong, according to Dexter. He calls them sacred places where people should feel at home, that unite people, where everybody is cared for. He compares them to kivas: a space for gatherings. When the land here still belonged to Mexico, many of the smaller settlements and pueblos were without a priest. It was the laity, the hermanos penitentes, the brothers that kept Catholicism alive. “ The Morada is like a retreat center, a house of prayer. It’s for everybody, you don’t have to be Catholic to attend. But this is where we learn about our Catholicism. This is where we've learned the doctrine of the Church. This is where we really dissect the information and pass it along to the community as best as we know how. This is really laity. A lot of people think that this is where the priests lived, or this is where the priests recite, and it's not, it’s laity. It's both men and women, we get together and we pray every Friday throughout the year, every second Friday here. This is called La Morada D’Alto. It is dedicated to Nuestra Señora Santa Dolores which means the house of Our Lady of Sorrows.” It was deeply touching to meet somebody so open, so ready to share some aspects of his life with a stranger. His long practice of serving the community, of helping other people, of dedicating his life to creating a peaceful and better world gives him a presence that one can feel strongly. Thank you, Dexter, for a beautiful afternoon.
Imagine you’re listening to the audio recording of a book. Suddenly, the speed slows way down, and what normally would take two hours now takes one week, or even one month. You’d still hear something, but it would be a very low hum and you can’t understand the words any more. The meaning of the book is lost. That’s how I as a lay person experience the rock formations, mesas, canyons, and mountains all around me here in northern New Mexico – I certainly appreciate the beauty of the colored layers, the different rock textures, the shapes that can look so other-worldly, but questions such as WHY? HOW? WHEN? remain a mystery. I see a still-photo of a long movie, but it is static. Because I have no understanding of geologic time. Our resident geologist Kirt Kempter compared it to money, when I talked to him recently. When we think of billionaires, most of us can’t really conceive what this entails, it just sounds crazy: one thousand times one million. Geologic time is similar. “When you study geology, once you get your geology degree from college, you know almost nothing”, Kirt explained. “You get introduced to all these various sub-fields: paleontology, geochemistry, geophysics, a bit of historical geology. But it’s not until you start your professional career in geology when you think about this geologic time on a daily basis. You look at the landscape and you see surfaces or geologic events that happened in the past few thousand years. And then you see canyons in New Mexico where the capping lava is a million years old, and here you have this 600 foot deep canyon, for example, along the Rio Chama or the Rio Grande, and you learn that this particular kind of erosion can occur within this particular span of geologic time. So, you’re constantly thinking of these millions of years in the geologic past, and at last, as you deepen into your profession, you feel that you have a good concept, a good grasp of these millions of years. I’m not actually sure that it’s true, but you feel comfortable speaking in this deep-time language”. I was curious: how does one become a geologist? Did he collect rocks as a little kid? Kirt grew up in Albuquerque, and his parents were musicians. They were 100% city-slickers, they were afraid of nature, and they almost never went camping, Kirt explained. “But my friends and I were always going out into vacant lots, catching snakes, catching lizards. I had a whole slew of reptile and amphibian pets, I even had a pet racoon for a while. I was always driven to the outdoors naturally, to my parents’ incomprehension. When I was in Junior High I saw a flyer on the campus of UNM: an ad-hoc group wanted to hike down into the Grand Canyon and raft down the river. This was in 1974, before rafting became popular. I think it was kind of a premonition of me becoming a geologist. I begged my parents to let me go on my own with this group, I didn’t know anybody, I was 14 years old and they let me hike down the Grand Canyon, 18 miles to the river”. He never had Earth Science at school, and it wasn’t until he was a biology major in college that he took Introductory Geology for fun in his junior year. And it ticked off all the things he enjoyed: having a profession where one could be outdoors most of the time; it included biology, the study of paleontology, life on our planet and how it evolved. He changed his major immediately after that class. It was one of those moments in life where one takes a turn and it changes everything after that. “My Bachelor’s was from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, but my Master’s and PhD were from the University of Texas at Austin. Both projects were studying big volcanoes in Latin America. My Master’s thesis was in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, studying a giant caldera, twice as big as the Valles Caldera, and my PhD project was studying an active volcano in Costa Rica, and this, what I call a “young” volcano, was growing inside a much bigger caldera, also bigger than the Valles Caldera”. I live in Coyote, and all along the roads one can find agates and other rocks that apparently stem from the big “SuperVolcano” eruption at Valles Caldera. I asked Kirt to tell me more about that. “Yes, the pyroclastic flow from Valles Caldera went as far as Coyote. There were two giant eruptions in the Jemez Mountains. The first one was 1.6 million years ago, which made the caldera we call the Toledo Caldera. Then, 350,000 years later, the Valles Caldera forms in the same place, with the same volume of magma, the same chemistry of magma; the exact same eruption happened 350,000 years apart. The Valles eruption started off as a single vent that was really powerful going up tens of kilometers into the stratosphere, but then it transitioned into multiple vents tapping into the magma chamber. These multiple vents were not as energetic as the single vent, so these multiple eruption columns were going up maybe five kilometers high, and collapsing, and sending out pyroclastic flows. These are turbulent clouds of hot gasses, magma particles, and rock fragments that can flow across the landscape at speeds of one hundred, even two hundred miles per hour. And the topography of the surrounding area of the eruption vents dictated where those pyroclastic flows went. So for those of us in the Rio Chama Valley, in the Abiquiu area, there were high topographic features like Chicoma Peak, Polvadera Peak, and a high plateau called the La Grulla Plateau. These highlands kind of blocked the pyroclastic flows. But then there were low areas to the north and to the northwest towards Coyote. That's where the pyroclastic flows were able to flow for many kilometers, probably 20 kilometers away. So yeah, if you had been in the Coyote area 1.2 5 million years ago, you wouldn't have survived!” “What's neat though about these pyroclastic flows, there were previous canyons like Cañones Creek and the one in Youngsville, the Rio Puerco. There were already canyons that existed before the eruption. And these canyons filled up with the pyroclastic flows. Once they had solidified, they became what we call the Upper Bandelier Tuff. And what’s so amazing is these giant eruptions transform the typography in the blink of an eye. They fill up canyons, and so they totally can change where rivers once flowed. New rivers have to form afterwards. I love catastrophism in geology! Certainly, these big volcanic eruptions, like the Valles, are catastrophic and change the landscape in just a few days. We're not looking at geologic time, we're looking at hours and days that totally changed the landscape story”. This reminded me of the little earthquake we had in this area last year. Was this related to the volcanic activity at Valles Caldera? Kirt had a surprising explanation: “You live in a transition zone between the Rio Grande Rift, which is the Española Valley that's to the east of you, and the Colorado Plateau, which is all the land to the west of you. So we have this geologic boundary, the Colorado Plateau to the west, the Rio Grande Rift to the east. The Colorado Plateau is trying to pull away from the rest of New Mexico. And as it is doing that, we have this tear in the crust in New Mexico called the Rio Grande Rift. Along the rift boundaries, the basins keep dropping down over time, filling up with sediments and volcanic deposits. And so, since you live in that transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande Rift, we get more earthquakes there, based on this pulling apart of New Mexico”. “In general, when the crust is pulling apart, this results in smaller earthquakes. When you have geologic boundaries, like the San Andreas Fault in California where there's a lot of compression and stress, you tend to get the bigger earthquakes. The rocks in geologic zones on either side of a fault experience compression and there's a lot of friction. Stress and strain keep building up until finally it has to release in a big earthquake. When the crust is just pulling apart, then you always have these little earthquakes. So we don't tend to get the big magnitude-seven earthquakes. Now, I say that we don't tend to, but that's not to say it's impossible”. I had no idea that there were two different kinds of earthquakes. Having experienced the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 I feel a sense of relief. Kirt has led many tours both for the Smithsonian Institution and for National Geographic Expeditions. I asked him how this came about? It kind of fell into his lap, Kirt tells me. In 1993, when he was working on his PhD and studying a volcano in Costa Rica, one of his committee members was a volcanologist at the Smithsonian, Bill Nelson. Smithsonian was starting one of their educational tours to Costa Rica and they asked Dr. Nelson if he could lead the tour. He was too busy, but he recommended Kirt. So Kirt led his first tour in 1993 to Costa Rica, and because it went really well they asked him to do a few more. At first he would just do a couple of tours a year, but then they started giving him more tours, even to places he didn’t know. In 1995 they were starting a tour to Iceland and asked if he could manage although he had never been there. And it went well. “So then they started letting me go anywhere. I started doing tours to Patagonia, and just all over – to places where the landscape was the focal point of the tour. I found that I could lead tours to places I’d never been because you're basically teaching introductory geology to lay people as you travel. So, if we're going to Iceland, for example, I need to teach the basics about volcanoes. Also, teach basic plate tectonics and glaciology. So, more than half of the teaching on these tours is basic geology so that people can understand these geologic processes that are forming the landscape”. “For 25 years, I would do these educational tours all over. National Geographic had a big educational tour program. For about 20-some years I did, on average, eight international tours a year. And it was great. I loved it. But I've retired from doing those big trips now. However, I had told National Geographic that if they ever do a tour to the Kimberley region of Australia, I would be back in. Well, they did call me up about a month ago and told me that they have a tour to the Kimberley! So I have agreed to do one more tour next year. It includes Northwest Australia and some of the islands of Indonesia”. I asked Kirt to talk a bit about Iceland. He had been there several times. “Yeah, Iceland is unique on our planet. There are frequent eruptions, about one every four years somewhere in Iceland. And what makes Iceland particularly interesting is the last two million years – which means young geologic time. Most of those eruptions have happened underneath ice. You get very, very odd volcanoes when you're forming a volcano underneath an ice sheet. You get these very different types of eruptions and shapes of volcanoes. The combination of fire and ice is young geology, we find really, really young geology in Iceland. And I love that”. What’s another favorite spot on Earth? “In South America I love Patagonia, and in particular, one part called Torres del Paine. I've probably done a dozen tours to Patagonia which is part of Chile, and it's just gorgeous. It's like South America's Yellowstone. There’s lots and lots of wildlife – guanacos, camels, pumas, rheas which are ostrich-like birds, and the condors”. Wait a minute. Did you say camels? In South America? “Yes, there's a whole branch of camels that evolved in North America and that went extinct in the Ice Age, but they migrated into South America. So when you think of llamas, they are part of the guanacos of South America. There's a whole family of camels that evolved in North and South America”. “Sometimes geology can bring continents together, and the different flora and fauna can mix. And sometimes geology can separate landmasses. And then very different animals and plants evolve if we have a geologic separation or barrier. So yeah, that is the camel story of South America. It is really interesting because it relates to North and South America, joining together through the Panama Isthmus. That land bridge connection where Panama is today is a young connection between North and South America”. I’m surprised again. “You mean it came out of the ocean?” “Yes. If we go back in time five million years ago, there was still an ocean connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic, through southern Central America. But when all these volcanoes started to come up above sea level, they got bigger and joined together. Eventually they formed a land bridge connecting North and South America that for the first time allowed animals to migrate from south to north and vice versa. If you see an armadillo or a possum in North America, they walked up from South America” This is so fascinating, and again, I had no idea! We were reaching the end of our interview, and I wanted to know what Kirt was up to these days. He had said earlier that he wasn’t doing long educational tours any more, but still offered day tours out of Santa Fe. What else is he involved with these days? Since 2000, Kirt’s career has involved making geological maps. Funded mostly through the US Geological Survey, that’s how he came to know the Abiquiu area so well, starting in the Jemez Mountains, moving down to the Rio Chama Valley, then moving north to El Rito, eventually to Las Tablas and Tres Piedras. Falling in love with the landscape has helped with the many years of making geological maps.
“When I’m hiking I’m trying to read the rocks and read the landscape. This adds a deeper dimension to my aesthetic appreciation. Trying to understand what all those rocks tell you – how can there have been an ocean here? Sand dunes? A river the size of the Mississippi? It’s mind boggling, but those are the environments of northern New Mexico at different times in the past. As a teacher, I enjoy taking people – non-geologists – on these trips, and I try to paint the picture that I see in my mind, from the story that I’m reading.” This was a most fascinating conversation, and I thank Kirt for taking the time to share this wonderful information with us. I felt I was looking through 3-D glasses while I was listening, whereas normally all I see is a two-dimensional image. If you want to see more of his photographs, you can visit GeoMosaics. By Jessica Rath When you have an out-of-state guest during the summer weeks and want to offer something special, take your visitor to a performance at the Santa Fe Opera. One doesn’t have to be an opera aficionado to enjoy such an evening – there is much more besides the music to make this an unforgettable event. Take the setting for example – there are hardly any walls! Given the fact that the opera is built on a hill just north of Santa Fe, this means that the surrounding mesas and mountains are visible, and truly eye-catching sunsets over the Jemez Mountains are almost a given. The wind can add some dramatic effects, seemingly being in synchronicity with the events taking place on the stage. And while you can expect world-renowned performances, you can dress as casually or elegantly as you like: shorts and sneakers, jeans and sweatshirts are more common than formal evening wear, and anything in between goes. Since the venue is outdoors and Santa Fe nights can get quite chilly even in summer, staying warm and comfortable has priority over fashion statements. This unique opera setting was the brainchild of a unique person, the opera’s founding general director and conductor John Crosby. He launched the company in 1956 and remained its director for 44 years, until his retirement in 2000. His vision was to create a summer festival which would present five operas: two popular works such as Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (which was chosen as the inaugural performance to open the first season in 1957), and the other three would be more experimental pieces: rarely staged and lesser known operas, as well as American and world premieres. This programming turned out to be highly successful ever since its inception. Next to Madame Butterfly, 1957 also featured Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, with the composer present for two weeks. Each following summer, through 1963, Stravinsky returned to the Santa Fe Opera –the collaboration was beneficial for both. Another innovative idea which was initiated by Crosby and continues today is the Apprentice System. For the 2023 season, the company selected a group of 44 young singers from more than 1,000 applicants. They get the chance to sing in the chorus of each opera, perform in Apprentice Scenes on two Sunday evenings in August, prepare as understudies for some leading roles, and participate in seminars and master classes. This program was the first of its kind in the United States and has produced a large number of professional performers with distinguished careers. The Opera House didn’t always look the way it does now. The original theater, the location of the first performance of Madame Butterfly on July 3, 1957, was completely open-air and could seat only 480 people. The audience sat on benches and often got soaking wet because of the frequent summer rains. However, this wouldn’t deter the die-hard opera enthusiasts! On July 27, 1967, a fire started around 3:30 am and completely destroyed the opera building. In less than a year, John Crosby managed to raise enough money to rebuild the theater in time for the next season which opened on June 28, 1968 with – you guessed it – Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. The new building had a greater seating capacity for almost 1900 people and was exposed to wind and rain, as the earlier one. At the end of the 1997 opera season, extensive reconstruction added a distinctive roof which provided more protection and increased the theater’s seating capacity to around 2,200, among other changes. In July of 1998 a new season opened in the new theater with Madame Butterfly. Here is an article with photos of the destroyed 1967 theater and the newly built successor. And here you’ll find a number of photos from the 1957 building. My daughter who lives near Boston, MA came for a short visit and we decided to watch Rusalka, an opera written in 1901 by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, and a local premiere. I knew it was loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Little Mermaid, which I loved as a kid. But there are some significant differences. “Rusalka” is a female spirit from Slavic folklore which is associated with water, and can be benevolent but also dangerous and seductive. The Rusalka in Dvořák’s opera is a water nymph who has fallen in love with a young prince who often visits the lake where she lives. He cannot see her, and she longs to become human and visible. Her father tries to dissuade her, but when she won’t listen, he directs her to the witch Ježibaba who will help her – but it’ll cost her dearly. She will lose her voice. And if the Prince rejects her, she will be forever cursed and outcast, and he will be condemned to eternal damnation. But she accepts everything and turns into a lovely young woman whose beauty enchants the Prince. He takes her to his castle and plans to marry her. But he soon loses interest. And the staff in the castle think Rusalka bewitched the Prince and make fun of her. A Foreign Princess shows up and tries to seduce the Prince who pushes Rusalka away. She is now an outcast and asks Ježibaba for help again. If she kills the Prince with a knife, then she can save herself – that is Ježibaba’s offer. But Rusalka can’t do this and throws the knife away. The Prince, who is now ill with remorse, goes to the lake, looking for Rusalka. She has her voice back and tells him that because of his rejection, she is now a spirit and her kiss will kill him. But he begs her for it, to bring him peace. She embraces him, and forgives him as he dies, asking for mercy for his soul. It is a very sad story. Unlike The Little Mermaid fairy tale which has a more redemptive ending (which is, however, not the Happy End of the Disney version), Rusalka paints a bleak picture of human relationships and points out the fickleness of “eternal love”. The Santa Fe production under the direction of Sir David Pountney sets the stage in a psychiatric hospital in Vienna, which suggests Freudian subconscious struggles and underscores the pitfalls and misunderstandings which can trip up lovers and couples. Maybe there is redemption at the end – Rusalka’s final song may suggest this. A special treat was the female conductor, Lydia Yankovskaya, who is the music director of the Chicago Opera Theater. I looked it up – only 13% of all conductors in the United States are women. Brava!
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