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- ORV
- One Volcano Amid Many
At nearly 1,000 years young, Sunset Crater volcano is a geological infant, the latest development in a series of eruptions that have taken place here over the past 6 million years. It is only a small part of the impressive San Francisco Volcanic field of northern Arizona. From this point, three different types of volcanoes are visible. What makes a volcano tall or short, steep or gentle, or an eruption more or less violent? Mostly the magma’s stickiness or viscosity, which is determined by its chemical composition and gas content. Cinder cones, like Sunset crater and most of the 6000 or so volcanoes in this field, tend to be cone shaped with sides not steeper than 33 degrees. A cinder cone is literally a pile of loose fragments. It is easily eroded and will change shape, becoming less steep as it ages. - Obsidian Projectile Points
Description: Obsidian projectile points. Dimensions: Left-2.3 cm (L), 1.0 cm (W), 0.3 cm (Th), Middle-2.7 cm (L), 1.3 cm (W), 0.4 cm (Th), Right-1.78 cm (L), 1.22 cm (W), 0.4 cm (Th). Collection: On display at the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card 1, catalog card 2, catalog card 3). - O'Leary Peak
Look for a dome volcano (O’Leary Peak) on the horizon in front of you. Dome volcanoes tend to have steep sides and rounded shape. - mining
- Miniature Volcanoes
On the slope below you is a small spatter cone. Spatter cones, or hornitos (“little ovens” in Spanish), form when lava is forced up through an opening in the cooled surface of a lava flow. They are “rootless,” fed by the underlying flow rather than a deep magma conduit. Can you picture fluid fragments of liquid spurting upward, flattening, congealing, and mounding around the opening? Can you imagine approaching an erupting spatter cone? Unique artifacts found nearby – corn casts in lava rock – suggest people did. Experiments conducted in Hawaii demonstrated that “corn rocks,” like the one on display in the visitor center, can form when ears of corn are covered by fluid blobs of spatter. It appears people intentionally ventured close to an active hornito, maybe this one, to leave corn – perhaps as an offering. More than 50 rocks with corn casts have been found in homesites attributed to the local Sinagua cultural tradition. - Miniature Sunset Red Smudged Bowl
Description: Miniature Sunset Red Smudged bowl. Dimensions: 6.1 cm (H), 9.4 cm (Diam). Collection: On display at the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card). - Miniature Rio de Flag Brown Bowl
Description: Miniature Rio de Flag Brown bowl with irregular incisions on one side. Dimensions: 1.97 in (Height), 0.2 in (TH), 2.8 in (Diam), 1.46 in (Neck Diam). Collection: On display at the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card). - Life and Landscape Transformed
- Lava Stone with Corn Impressions
Description: Piece of a'a lava stone with several prehistoric corn cob impressions. Dimensions: 25.0 cm (L), 25.0 cm (W), 15.0 cm (TH), irregular shape. Collection: On display at the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument Visitor Center (catalog card). - Kachina Doll
Description: Kana'a Kachina doll carved and painted by Lloyd Masayumptewa. Signed on the bottom with Piiyayouma Masayumptewa "05." Collection: On display at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. - Introduction to the Trail
A sculpture garden of extraordinary shapes and forms awaits you on this walk through the lava flow and cinder fields. This moderate (1 mile, 1.6 km) trail has rough surfaces and takes you through lava flows and cinder barrens to the base - not to the top - of Sunset Crater. In person, you need water and sturdy footwear. There is also an alternate 1/4-mile (0.4 km), easy, wheelchair accessible paved loop.
Throughout this virtual trail guide, you will find benchmark pages and interpretive station pages. The benchmarks are those numbered in the guidebook, and the interpretative stations are text and photo displays placed along the trail itself. - Hornito
- Give and Take
From the earliest times, people have enjoyed the long-term benefits of volcanic eruptions. People journeyed long distances to volcanic areas to gather materials for their daily lives, including important minerals, raw materials like obsidian for tools, and building supplies. And always, in return for these benefits, people have paid a high short-term price in the form of volcanic disasters. Our culture influences how we forecast events, choose to prepare and adapt to catastrophes, and how we explain our world and its phenomena. Some of us look to science, some to religion, and some to traditional knowledge. It is not surprising that worldwide, when people live near volcanoes, they often develop related rituals and belief systems. This eruption was a significant event in the lives of the native peoples of the Southwest, and today all of the region’s American Indian groups consider this a scared landscape. - Geology Training on the Bonito Lava Flow, 1964
Description: Astronauts C.C. Williams, Frank Borman, and Gene Cernan with Branch of Astrogeology trainer Dale Jackson on the Bonito Lava Flow in 1964. Collection: USGS Open-File Report 2005-1190, Figure 014e; NASA photo S-64-23729, 30 April 1964.