Tracy L. Barnett

Special for USA TODAY

From the glowing lava flows of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to Yellowstone's spewing geysers and bubbling paint pots, our national parks provide a window into the molten interior of our planet. Indeed, literally dozens of our national parks hold volcanic origins, and some of them have specifically been set aside to preserve them. Others, like Big Bend, Zion and the Badlands National Park, have been protected for other reasons, but still contain “significant volcanological resources,” as the National Park Service’s Vincent Santucci puts it.

The National Park Service celebrates its 100th anniversary

USA Today asked Vincent Santucci to help us select 10 that show the range and diversity of volcano-related National Park Service areas:

Mount Rainier National Park, Wash.

The tallest mountain in the Cascade Range, Mount Rainer is an active volcano and has been designated as one of the most dangerous in the continental USA. Partly that’s because of its proximity to the heavily populated Seattle/Tacoma area, and partly because of its propensity to spawn “lahars,” or catastrophic, boulder-carrying mudflows that have in the past made their way as far as the Puget Sound. The mountain also contains the most glacial ice of any other single peak in the country outside of Alaska; glacial ice helped guide the form of the mountain, slowing, damming and deflecting lava flows into high, dramatic ridges.

Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyo.

The iconic stone pillar was memorialized in Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but has been a sacred worship site of the Northern plains tribes since time immemorial. There are various theories as to how it was formed; some say it’s the neck of an ancient volcano, and others say it’s an igneous extrusion, where magma welled up over time between cracks in the bedrock. The park shares several distinctions with Yellowstone: Both are volcanic parks, and both were firsts, with President Theodore Roosevelt declaring it the nation’s first national monument in 1906, while Congress designated Yellowstone the first national park in 1872.

Crater Lake National Park, Ore.

Another volcanic wonder of the Cascade Range, Crater Lake is the caldera of an extinct 12,000-foot-tall volcano, where the intensely blue waters form the country’s deepest lake. About 7,700 years ago the massive volcano that once stood there collapsed, leaving the crater to gradually fill with crystalline waters, its glassy surface broken at the center by the dramatic Phantom Ship Island.

El Malpais National Monument, N.M.

“Trek on, above, over and under lava!” exclaims the park service website. What makes El Malpais special, says Santucci, is that it’s a first-rate example of a volcanic field. Named by the Spanish explorers using their word for “badlands,” the formidable terrain is made from large basalt lava flows. Some of those flows hollowed out and formed lava tubes, including some big enough to drive a car through. These cavities formed during the cooling process when the material closest to the surface cooled faster than the liquid rock beneath it, creating a crust on the surface while the molten lava continued to move below it, forming a cavity. Another rare feature is the tree mold, impressions that were made of trees that were knocked down and covered by the fast-moving lava. The landscape today is a fantastic collection of formations that now serve as caves for wildlife and spelunkers alike. Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho is a similar volcanic field where lava tubes and tree molds can also be found.

Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Established to preserve the remains of the violent 1912 Novarupta volcano, the 20th century’s largest eruption, the park is home to 15 active volcanoes that form part of the Aleutian Range, and is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world. The National Geographic Society expedition that made its way there in 1916 to explore the volcano’s aftermath dubbed the ash-filled plain “Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes” because of the steam that rose from thousands of fumaroles.

Sunset Crater National Monument, Ariz.

This park was set aside to preserve the eponymous crater, an asymmetrical basaltic volcanic cinder cone that rises 1,000 feet above its surroundings. Formed around 900 years ago in 1085 A.D., Sunset Crater Volcano is named after the distinctive sunset-hued mineral deposits at the crater’s edge. It’s called a cinder cone volcano and is part of the San Francisco volcanic field around flagstaff Arizona. During the past six million years, this 1,800-square-mile field has produced more than 600 volcanoes; most of the hills and mountains that rise above this plain are volcanoes, including the San Francisco Peaks. Sunset Crater Volcano is the youngest.

Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska

The least visited of all the National Park Service units due to its remoteness and difficult weather, the Aniakchak is an active volcano that last erupted in 1931 and is home to the 30-square mile Aniakchak Caldera, “a trippy mishmash of postapocalyptic cinder cones, hardened lava, and flame-colored walls,” as Outside Magazine wrote. Considered one of the greatest examples of a “dry caldera” in the world because it is not filled with standing water, it does still contain the remnants of lake that once filled the caldera. Surprise Lake, as it is called, flows into Aniakchak River, which cascades dramatically through a 1,500-foot breach in the caldera wall.

Lassen Volcanic National Park, Calif.

Bumpass Hell, Devils Kitchen and Sulphur Works are a few of the colorful names applied to the Yellowstone-like hydrothermal features of this park, which include roaring fumaroles, boiling mud pots and steaming ground. One of the most active volcanoes in the continental USA, Lassen last exploded in 1915 and has been threating a repeat performance ever since. Lassen Peak is the world’s largest plug dome volcano, and the park is one of the few areas in the world where all four types of volcano can be found: plug dome, shield, cinder cone and strato.

Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Hawai’i

Hawaii is home to the most actively erupting volcano in the USA and possibly in the world: Kīlauea has been going off consistently since 1983, making the park one of the places in the world where one has the greatest chance of seeing a volcanic eruption. Neighboring Mauna Loa, also within the park, experienced its last eruption in 1984. The park contains 520 square miles of active volcanic summits, craters, lava flows, forests, deserts and archeological resources. The five volcanoes on the island have long been considered sacred by the Hawaiian people, and in Hawaiian cosmology Kīlauea's Halemaumau Crater serves as the body and home of Pele, goddess of fire, lightning, wind, and volcanoes.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.

Everyone’s heard of the volcanic features in this park, but not everyone knows the park sits atop a massive supervolcano that, if it erupted, could wipe out half of the United States. Indeed, it’s that supervolcano that generates the more than 10,000 geothermal features that make the park one of the world’s most famous. Those features include Grand Prismatic Spring, the nation’s largest hot spring; Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest geyser; and Old Faithful geyser, famous worldwide not so much for its size as for its regular eruption interval. At least three massive eruptions among the world’s largest have occurred here, covering most of central North America in ash and altering global weather patterns. Such an eruption could and probably will happen again, although scientists see no indication that it will be during our lifetimes.