Sunset Crater and the surrounding landscape are less than 1,000 years old, making this environment younger than Romanesque architecture or paper money and giving it unique scientific value. Geologists study weathering processes and soil formation here, while ecologists examine what it takes, and how long, to recolonize a new, hotter, drier, nutrient-poor environment. The harsh conditions may mimic the effects of global warming and long-term drought, helping predict the impacts of continued warming trends. The eruption occurred sometime between 1040 and 1100. Sunset Crater is 1,000 feet high, has a summit elevation of 8,029 feet, a base diameter of 1 mile, a top diameter of 2,250 feet from rim to rim, and a crater depth of 300 feet. It extruded about 1 billion tons of material, and ashfall extended about 800 square miles. Photos document 100 years of change and show how bare the cone remains, especially on the drier south-facing slope. Archeologists debate how much the eruption influenced human behavior in the centuries that followed, and nearby Wupatki and Walnut Canyon preserve evidence of life after the eruption.