Life and Landscape Transformed

This is one of the youngest landscapes in the country, less than a thousand years old, newer than paper money. That makes it a natural laboratory. Geologists read weathering and soil formation here from the very beginning, and ecologists track how life reclaims a hot, dry, nutrient-poor surface, a process that may preview how ecosystems respond to a warming climate. The cinder cone rose about a thousand years ago, threw off roughly a billion tons of rock, and dusted some eight hundred square miles with ash. A short walk in, the recovery is still underway.

What the plaque says

Life and Landscape Transformed. , The landscape before you has existed on Earth for less than 1,000 years, less time than Romanesque architecture or paper money. Consequently, this environment has unique scientific value. Geologists come here to study weathering processes and soil formation. Ecologists are learning what it takes - and how long - to recolonize a new, hotter, dryer, nutrient-poor environment. The harshness of this environment may mimic the effects of global warming and long-term drought. What we learn here may help us predict the impacts of continued warming trends. Sunset Crater Facts. Eruption date: sometime between 1040 and 1100. Height: 1,000 feet (305m). Elevation at summit: 8,029 feet (2,447m). Diameter at base: 1 mile (1.6km). Depth of crater: 300 feet (91.4m). Extruded material: about 1 billion tons. Extent of ashfall: about 800 square miles (2,073sq km).

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sunset Crater Volcano — 0.7 mi
  The volcano northern Arizona watched erupt, around 1085
• San Francisco Peaks — 9.1 mi
  The sacred mountain of the west — 12,633 feet, and a live argument
• Walnut Canyon National Monument — 13 mi
  Sinagua cliff dwellings in the limestone — the Hisatsinom
• Flagstaff — 14 mi
  The ponderosa town where they found Pluto and saved the dark

More markers nearby

• As Powerful as a Volcano — steps away
• The Power to Symbolize — steps away
• The Birth of a Mountain — steps away
• Changes to Come — steps away