This park, about five miles west of Carrizozo on U.S. Highway 380,
features picnic tables amid the Carrizozo lava flow, or malpais, one of
the youngest in the United States. The lava flowed out of Little Black
Peak about 1000 years ago in a series of individual “rivers” of hot
black basalt. The composite flow is 44 miles long, 0.5 to 6 miles wide,
and is made up of about 1 cubic mile of basalt; it moved southward down
the lowest part of the northern Tularosa Basin.
Climb around on the lava and note the ropy nature of the surface
(_pahoehoe_ of the Hawaiians), the many frozen gas bubbles in the rocks
(vesicles), the squeeze-ups where once-liquid lava protrudes through
cracks in the hardened crust, the pressure ridges where the hardened
crust arched and broke, and collapsed lava tunnels where the outer lava
froze and the molten interior ran out, leaving an open tube or cave.