Technical Tours
Sunday, 8 June 2025
9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
TECHNICAL TOUR 1
Oppenheimer Los Alamos Tour with Lunch
Tour leader: Local professional guide
Cost: $185 per person includes guides, transportation, bottled water on board, entrance fees, lunch at a local restaurant, gratuities and sales tax.
Tour description
First inhabited by the ancestors of Northern New Mexico’s pueblos, Los Alamos is located on the Pajarito Plateau of the Jemez Mountains, formed by eruptions of a giant volcano more than a million years ago. In 1917, H.H. Brook’s Alamos ranch was purchased by Ashley Pond II to start Los Alamos Ranch School, a boys’ school which combined academics and a physical curriculum. During World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers took over the mesa and sealed it for a secret mission, the Manhattan Project. Join your local guide on a fascinating tour of the world of J. Robert Oppenheimer and see where the Manhattan Project happened, visit the Los Alamos Ranch School and Oppenheimer’s home, and learn about the Los Alamos National Laboratory which is located there today. Good walking shoes are recommended.
Sunday, 8 June 2025
8:00 AM – 4:00 PM
TECHNICAL TOUR 3
Rockfall and Debris Flow Barrier Site Visits
Tour leaders: Dane Wagner and Rachel Jackson, Geobrugg North America
Cost: $225
Tour description
The objective of this field trip will be to examine rockfall and debris flow barriers and understand their impact on road safety and environmental protection.
Tour itinerary (PDF)
Thursday, 12 June 2025
8:00 AM – 4:00 PM
TECHNICAL TOUR 2
Jemez Mountains Geology Field Trip
Tour leaders: Nelia Dunbar, New Mexico State Geologist Emerita, and Bill McIntosh, NMT Emeritus Volcanologist / Geochronologist
Cost: $248 per person includes tour, transportation, bottled water, snacks, and a boxed lunch.
Tour description
The Rio Grande Rift in central New Mexico is a place where the earth’s crust has been stretching for the past 40 million years, resulting in highly extended “basin-and-range” terrain (stretched, broken, and tilted the earth’s crust in this area to form fault-block ranges and intervening sedimentary basins). This geologic history has also involved a variety of volcanic eruptions and landscapes, with one of the most spectacular volcanic fields being the Jemez Volcanic Field and Valles Caldera. Although the Jemez Volcanic Field has erupted intermittingly for at least 16 million years, the present-day landscape of the Valles Caldera is the result of the collapse of 1.2-million-year-old supervolcano eruption, which produced extremely explosive eruptions and the outpouring large-scale ash, pumice, and pyroclastic flows. The most recent volcanic eruption is only 68,000 years ago, and may present the beginning of a new cycle of volcanic activity. The Caldera displays classic hydrothermal features like those of Yellowstone National Park, including sulfuric-acid hot springs, fumaroles, and steaming mudpots.
Our field trip will be led by Dr. Nelia Dunbar (New Mexico State Geologist Emerita), Dr. Bill McIntosh (NMT Emeritus Volcanologist/Geochronologist. We will explore the fascinating geology of the Jemez Volcanic Field area, starting at the White Rock Canyon overlook and ending in the quaint village of Jemez Springs, where geothermal springs are heated by the volcano.
Participants should meet in the hotel lobby (after having their breakfast) at 7:50 am for an 8:00 am departure. The expected return time to the hotel from the field trip is 4:00 pm. Bottled water, snacks, and a boxed lunch are included.
Tour itinerary (PDF)
