page_title: Kilbourne Hole
section_title: Description of the crater
hierarchical_section_title: Kilbourne Hole / Description of the crater
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the trail into the Kilbourne Hole from the extreme southwest corner, 7:30 AM July 29, 2012
context_page_description: Kilbourne Hole is a maar volcanic crater, located 30 miles west of the Franklin Mountains of El Paso, Texas, in the Potrillo volcanic field of Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Another maar, Hunt's Hole, lies just two miles south of Kilbourne Hole. These holes are rare examples of volcanic action without a mountainous rim.
  The theory of maar formation is that rising magma super-heats water-saturated earth, far enough below the surface that a high pressure can be contained. At some point, the pressure is too much, and a steam explosion occurs, throwing the earth out in a catastrophic event. Country rocks are fragmented and expelled in the atmosphere, eventually creating a deep crater, the bottom of which sits below the pre-eruptive ground surface.
  Estimates of the age of the crater vary from about 24,000 to about 80,000 years.
  The volcanic features around El Paso and vicinity are part of the Potrillo volcanic field, in the Rio Grande rift, which extends northward into Colorado.
  In 1975, Kilbourne Hole was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
context_section_description: The crater is at an elevation of 4,239 ft (1,292 m). It has a diameter of 1.5 mi (2.4 km) by 2.1 mi (3.4 km) and a depth of 443 ft (135 m).
  The hole is over a mile wide, and over 300 feet (91 m) deep, with crumbling basalt cliffs all around except at the southwest corner.  The basalt cliffs resemble the cliffs of the Devils Postpile National Monument near Yosemite National Park, with the characteristic reddish purple hexagonal columns, except that they are not as tall.  The cliffs are about 40 feet (12 m) high.  Lava chunks exist in abundance.
  Hunt's Hole is a little smaller, with basalt cliffs only at the northeast and southeast sides of the crater. Layers of ashfall and crumbling sediment also rise about 40 feet (12 m) high, on the south rim of the crater. Sand dunes have collected on the east sides of the both craters, rising about 100 feet (30 m) above the desert floor. A dry lakebed lies on the floor of each crater.
caption: A view of the Kilbourne Hole from the trail at the southwest corner.  Everything visible in this photo is the maar, bottom lands and rim with basalt cliffs.
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