English: Cinder cone volcanoes & spatter cone volcanoes in the Holocene of Idaho, USA.

The peak in the left background is a dormant cinder cone volcano in Idaho's Craters of the Moon Lava Field. Cinder cones are relatively small, steep-sided cones of loose igneous debris. They have few eruptions and a relatively large summit crater. Cinder cones are principally composed of scoria and vesicular basalt. This is Big Cinder Butte - it has an estimated volume of 0.2 cubic kilometers. The volcano was active in the Holocene and consists of a mix of basaltic lava flows and various-sized mafic tephra.

Several smaller cinder cones are present in front of Big Cinder Butte. (click on the photo once or twice to zoom in)

At right are spatter cones atop a late Holocene pahoehoe basalt-hawaiite lava flow called the Blue Dragon Flow. The spatter cones and the lava flow are about the same age: ~2076 ± 45 years old. Also known as "hornitos", spatter cones are small to very small, steep-sided volcanic cones formed by the accumulation and solidification of blobs of lava that sputtered from a vent. They are usually basaltic in composition.

Locality: view from the summit of Inferno Cone, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Snake River Plain, southern Idaho, USA