Cinder Cone is a cinder cone volcano in Lassen Volcanic National Park within the United States. It is located about northeast of Lassen Peak and provides an excellent view of Brokeoff Mountain, Lassen Peak, and Chaos Crags.
The cone was built to a height of above the surrounding area and spread ash over . Then, like many cinder cones, it was snuffed out when several basalt lava flows erupted from its base. These flows, called the Fantastic Lava Beds, spread northeast and southwest, and dammed creeks, first creating Snag Lake on the south and then Butte Lake to the north. Butte Lake is fed by water from Snag Lake seeping through the lava beds. Nobles Emigrant Trail goes around Snag Lake and follows the edge of the lava beds.
Its age has been controversial since the 1870s, when many people thought it was only a few decades old. Later, the cone and associated lava flows were thought to have formed about 1700 or during a 300-year- long series of eruptions ending in 1851. Recent studies by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists, working in cooperation with the National Park Service to better understand volcanic hazards in the Lassen area, have firmly established that Cinder Cone was formed during two eruptions that occurred in the 1650s.
Geography
Cinder Cone lies in Lassen and Shasta counties, in Northern California, within the United States. Located southwest of Butte Lake and southeast of Prospect Peak it is surrounded by unvegetated block lava and has concentric craters at its summit, which have diameters of and . Cinder Cone comprises five basaltic andesite and andesite lava flows, and it also has two cinder cone volcanoes, with two scoria cones, the first of which was mostly destroyed by lava flows from its base.
When Cinder Cone formed, the magma feeding the eruption changed composition, shifting from basaltic andesite to andesite before returning to basaltic andesite with increased titanium content. While basaltic andesites are volcanic rocks containing 53 to 57% silica, andesites are those containing 57 to 63% silica. The lava flows and scorias at the volcano closely resemble each other despite distinct chemical compositions, forming dark, fine-grained rocks, with a few visible crystals of the minerals olivine, plagioclase, and quartz. Cinder Cone's name was officially recognized by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1927.