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VULCAN’S ANVIL: 50-FOOT TALL VERTICAL VOLCANIC PLUG
Just before the river plunges into Lava Falls, one of the most notorious rapids in the Grand Canyon, you float past a 50-foot tall vertical volcanic plug protruding out of the deceptively calm pool that lies above the maelstrom below.
The plug is named Vulcan’s Anvil after the Roman god of beneficial fire and volcanoes, Vulcan. Like his Greek counterpart, Hephaestus, Vulcan was a blacksmith who forged swords, spears, jewelry and other metallic objects on his anvil in a smithy beneath the slopes of Mount Etna, a volcano in Italy. Vulcan’s Colorado anvil was created by massive lava flows that poured through this part of the canyon 400,000 years ago, damming the river and leaving behind the black rocks that mark the landscape in the lower part of the canyon.
According to river lore, Native American’s consider Vulcan’s Anvil to be sacred and prefer that visitors refrain from touching the rock or leaving artifacts on its sides.
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