The Valles Caldera, New Mexico, USA was created by two caldera-forming eruptions at ~1.6 and ~1.1 Myr. Since then, post-caldera activity has consisted of lava domes, lava flows, large explosive phases, and a hydrothermal system active today. Possibly the youngest eruption sequence, El Cajete, was emplaced 74.4 ± 1.3 ka (Zimmerer et al., 2016) and began with pyroclastic surges, followed by pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) and pumice-rich Plinian pyroclastic fall (Self et al., 1988).

The objective of this project was to characterize crystal grains from the early El Cajete sequence, in terms of morphology and textures, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The early El Cajete differs from the later part of the sequence in its greater stratigraphic and lithologic complexity, having been formed from not only pyroclastic fall (like the later El Cajete) but also surge beds and PDCs.

This dataset was collected under the national open access action at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Pisa SEM/EDS facility supported by WP3 ILGE – MEET project, PNRR – EU Next Generation Europe program, MUR grant number D53C22001400005. This allowed me to obtain the present dataset of 31 cathodoluminescence (CL) images of 30 quartz crystals and one sanidine crystal.