The 37-Ma-old Infiernito caldera of the northern Chinati Mountains is a major eruptive center of the mid-Tertiary volcanic field of Trans-Pecos Texas. Volcanism in the Chinati Mountains began with eruption of a sequence of rhyolitic to trachytic lavas, the precollapse lavas.

Chemical and physical approaches are used to study unsaturated flow; however, few studies include an in-depth analysis of data from both approaches. Detailed chemical tracer studies were conducted at a site in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, and the results were compared with hydraulic attributes of the system.