Craters of the Moon Lava Field

Craters of the Moon National Monument occupies a vast volcanic landscape on Idaho's Snake River Plain. Its lava flows, cinder cones, spatter cones, fissures, and sagebrush plains form one of the best-preserved recent volcanic terrains in the continental United States.

The lava field covers about 620 square miles and is the largest predominantly Holocene lava field in the contiguous United States.

Eight major eruptive periods formed the present surface during the past 15,000 years; the youngest flows are about 2,100 years old. Apollo 14 astronauts trained at the site in 1969.