Sunset Crater National Monument

Arizona, the 48th state added to the United States of America, is home to 3 national parks and several other national monuments and historic sites and trails. I have only been to the Grand Canyon Park and more recently, Sunset Crater national monument. While there is much information and history covered in the Grand Canyon, Sunset Crater is often an overlooked site that offers ecological and geological history. 

Erupting in 1085, Sunset Crater Volcano changed the landscape drastically when it split the ground open in a nearly 6 mile fissure. An example of the term catastrophism, or earth today resulting from sudden, violent, large-scale events, the volcano spewed lava upwards in a “curtain of fire” formation, flinging out cinders and larger lava bombs. The current appearance of Sunset Crater still shows evidence of the cinder cones, especially when driving around the base of the crater itself. The San Francisco Peaks where the San Francisco Volcanic field lies, is also evidence of uniformitarianism, or the earth being formed through slower processes like erosion and deposition. The peaks were formed collectively over 2 million years and the mountain lost its top through two theorized catastrophic events such as “a major eruption, similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, or whether it collapsed in an event called a ‘gravitational collapse’” around 550,000 years ago ( nps.org ).

While Sunset Crater can be seen in a geomorphological way, it can also be studied through a biogeographical lens. Closely related to ecology, biogeography focuses on the geographic distribution of organisms in their habitats and the historical or environmental factors that produce them. The biome of the crater is ponderosa meadow that transitions to a pinyon juniper and ponderosa pine mix, but because of the eruption, much of the landscape is still covered in dark gray cinder and rocks. Only tall ponderosa pines are able to dominate the landscape and are even adapted enough to survive on the slopes of the cinders where few other species can take root. The hardy plants are usually the first to dominate during primary succession, or when a landscape change occurs where soil is completely eradicated and must start brand new, and Sunset Crater is very young in geological terms, only being less than 1000 years old. Grass has not made a claim on the gray cinder field slopes, but there are “166 documented species and… the oldest pinyon pines found here are about 250 years old” ( nps.org ).

In front of the crater, a flat grassland can be found that is more suitable to larger species such as deer, which I did get to see roaming far out. I also saw a Steller’s jay in the trees at the entrance of the park and a fast moving hawk. Smaller organisms such as insects, spiders and lizards can also be found in the environment of lava tubes, but the area is still tough to survive in when there is a lack of water and vegetation to hide in. Because I went to Sunset Crater for an ecology class, I used previously collected data over the life zone and concluded in my report that the Ponderosa pine biome has cooler temperatures but a smaller amount of precipitation when compared to a desert grassland biome. When driving past the crater, it is easy to see that the landscape is not lush and full of vegetation but rather scarce with smaller ecological diversity, so organisms have to find ways to retain moisture. It is such an amazing national monument that I encourage more people to visit!