Around the year 1085 CE, a series of eruptions—the only eruptions in the Southwest indisputably witnessed by local peoples—brought the dormant San Francisco Volcanic Field back to life. Earthquakes, thunderclaps, and lava bombs shook the ground. Billowing ash, falling cinders, and forest fires blackened both the landscape and the daytime sky, while at night, the horizon glowed fiery red. When the field again grew quiet, a classic example of a cinder cone, Sunset Crater Volcano, loomed over a dramatically altered land of lava flows and cinders.