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.

Seen here is Sunset Crater, a cinder cone in Arizona's San Francisco Volcanic Field. More than 600 eruptive centers - mostly cinder cones - are present in the field, and date from the Late Miocene to the late Holocene. The largest volcano in the area is San Francisco Mountain, an eroded stratovolcano. Cinder cones in the field have erupted a variety of igneous products, ranging from mafic to felsic to alkaline in composition - most are alkaline basalt. The most recent activity in the field was at Sunset Crater - it had an eruption in the late 11th century A.D., variously dated to 1064 and in the 1080s. The eruption involved lava flows and relatively widespread deposition of airfall scoria and ash.