- mining
- Frozen in Time
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- Power to Symbolize
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- Curtain of Fire
Meanwhile, lava broke out of the base of this side of the cinder cone forming the Bonito Flow all around you. The lava pooled, trapped by surrounding older volcanoes, and accumulated to perhaps 100 feet (30 m) thick during at least three separate flows. On the opposite of the cone, lava flowed more than six miles (10 km), filling a narrow valley. When the volcano coughed out its last cinders – after several months or perhaps several years – they were colored by the oxidation of iron in the magma. Similar to the way metal rusts, the magma came in contact with water-rich gasses emitted during the final stages of the eruption. These red cinders rim the top of the cone.- Eruption date: sometime between 1040 and 1100
- Height: 1,000 feet (305 m)
- Elevation at summit: 8,029 feet (2,447 m)
- Diameter at base: 1 mile (1.6 km)
- Diameter at top: 2,250 feet (868 m) from rim to rim
- Depth of crater: 300 feet (91.4 m)
- Extruded material: approximately 1 billion tons
- Extent of ashfall: approximately 800 square miles (2,072 sq km)
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- Life and Landscape Transformed
- Surface Currents
Looking beyond the lava and spatter in front of you, and just beyond the line of trees, can you see a reddish hill? This is an agglutinate mound or pile of welded pyroclastic material. In the early stages of the eruption, a cone began to form next to a major explosive vent. The cone became armored by welded deposits. Then a column of dense magma broke through the base of the cone, causing the upper part of the cone to collapse onto the top of the flow. The slumped pieces were then rafted away by the flowing lava. You are looking at a large piece of an early-stage cone of Sunset Crater. Perhaps within weeks or days after breaching, the cone was rebuilt, creating the symmetrical cone of Sunset Crater we see today. Any remnants of the earlier cone lie buried beneath tons of cinder. - cult-railnew
- As Powerful as a Volcano
- Volcanoes