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The Summitville mine was the scene of a major environmental disaster in the 1990s when the hastily installed liner of a cyanide-laced tailing pond began leaking heavily. Summitville is in the Summitville caldera one of many extinct volcanoesThis article is about volcanoes geology. For the action movie see: Volcano (movie). A volcano (plural, volcanoes) is a geological landform (usually a mountain) where magma (rock of the earth's interior made molten or liquid by high pressure and temperatur making up the San Juan Volcanic Field . One, the La Garita Caldera, is 35 miles in diameter. Large beds of lavaLava is molten rock that a volcano expels during an eruption. Due to its high temperature, lava can be quite fluid when first exuded from a volcanic vent, but eventually solidifies into rock. However, the lava may flow many miles before solidification., some extending under the floor of the San Luis ValleySan Luis Valley is a large broad alpine valley in south-central Colorado. The valley is drained to the south by the Rio Grande which rises in the San Juan Mountains to the west of the valley and flows south into New Mexico. The valley is approximately 122 are characteristic of the eastern slope of the San Juans.

There is some tourism in the region, with the narrow gaugeNarrow-gauge railways are railroads (railways) with track spaced at less than the standard gauge of 4 8½ (1. In practice, all narrow gauge railroads in existence have gauges of 3 ft 6 in (1. 067 m) or less. The rationale for the use of a narrower gauge ra railway between DurangoDurango is a city located in La Plata County, Colorado. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 13,922. It is the county seat of La Plata County 6. Geography Durango is located at 37°16'43" North, 107°52'17" West (37. 278666, -107. Accor and Silverton being an attraction in the summer. JeepJeep is an automobile marque of DaimlerChrysler. The term derives from, and is often associated with, an automobile, originally a military vehicle built for the United States Army during World War II, and later produced in a line of consumer models. Althoing is popular on the old trails which linked the historic mining camps, particularly thrilling is the Black Bear RoadBlack Bear Road is a notorious jeep trail that extends from Red Mountain Pass on U. Highway 550 (between Ouray and Silverton) to Telluride, Colorado. The road was made famous in a Spoken word song by C. Black Bear Road is only open a few months out of the. Visiting old ghost towns is popular as is wilderness treking and mountain climbing. The San Juans are extremely steep, only Telluride has made the transition to ski resort . Purgatory is a small ski area north of Durango near the Tamarron Resort. There is also sking on Wolf Creek Pass, an area used mostly by locals.

The Rio Grande rises on the east side of the range. The other side of the San Juans, the western slope of the continental divide, is drained by tributaries of the San Juan, Dolores and Gunnison rivers which all flow into the Colorado River.