Cinder Cone and the Fantastic Lava Beds form a young volcanic landscape in the northeastern part of Lassen Volcanic National Park. The steep scoria cone, rising about 700 to 750 feet above the surrounding ground, erupted ash across roughly 30 square miles and later produced lava flows from vents near its base, creating the dark lava field known as the Fantastic Lava Beds. These eruptions reshaped local drainage, helping form Snag Lake and affecting Butte Lake. Once thought by some to date from 1850 or 1851, the volcano is now understood through modern U.S. Geological Survey research to have formed in a single eruptive sequence in the 1650s, making it the youngest mafic volcano in the Lassen volcanic center.