<P> Mount Taylor is the cone in a larger volcanic field, including Mesa Chivato . The Mount Taylor volcanic field is composed primarily of basalt (with 80% by volume) and straddles the extensional transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and the Rio Grande rift . The largest volcanic plug in the volcanic field is Cabezon Peak, which rises nearly 2,000 feet above the surrounding plain . According to Robert Julyan's The Place Names of New Mexico, the Navajos identify Cabezon Peak "as the head of a giant killed by the Twin War Gods" with the lava flow to the south of Grants believed to be the congealed blood of the giant . </P> <P> To the Navajo people, Mount Taylor is Tsoodził, the blue bead mountain, one of the four sacred mountains marking the cardinal directions and the boundaries of the Dinetah, the traditional Navajo homeland . Mount Taylor marks the southern boundary, and is associated with the direction south and the color blue; it is gendered female . In Navajo mythology, First Man created the sacred mountains from soil from the Fourth World, together with sacred matter, as replicas of mountains from that world . He fastened Mount Taylor to the earth with a stone knife . The supernatural beings Black God, Turquoise Boy, and Turquoise Girl are said to reside on the mountain . Mount Taylor is also sacred to the Acoma, Hopi, Laguna and Zuni people . </P> <P> Mount Taylor was active from 3.3 to 1.5 million years ago during the Pliocene, and is surrounded by a field of smaller inactive volcanoes . Repeated eruptions built lava domes and produced lava flows, ash plumes, and mudflows . The mountain is surrounded by a great volume of volcanic debris, suggesting multiple major eruptions, possibly similar to that of Mount Saint Helens and the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona . Estimates vary about how high the mountain was at its highest . Conservative estimates place its maximum near a similar pre-explosion height for the San Francisco Peaks of 16,000 to 18,000 feet (4,900 to 5,500 m), and an extreme estimate places it near 25,000 feet (7,600 m). </P> <P> Mount Taylor is the site of the Mount Taylor Quadrathlon, an endurance event which has been held at this location for almost thirty years . The event includes running, skiing, bicycling and snowshoeing for 43 miles . </P>

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