Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley National Park is a volcanic canyon 600 feet deep and a half-mile across. It is often said, mistakenly, that "Ubehebe" means "big basket", but the Paiute name was first applied to the 5,678-ft. Ubehebe Peak, 24 miles southwest of the crater. How the name Ubehebe became associated with the crater is not known.

The crater was creaeted by one of what are known as maar volcanoes, created by steam and gas explosions when hot magma rising up from the depths reached ground water. The intense heat flashed the water into steam, which expanded until the pressure was released as a tremendous explosion.The western cluster of Maar volcanoes was the first to form, then the southern cluster, followed by Ubehebe, the largest of them all possibly as recently as 300 years ago.

Cinders from these explosions cover much of the surrounding area. Some are as much as 150 feet thick at the crater rim, decreasing in depth radially outward from there. Water erosion created the deep gullies that you see on the crater's east side. The pink and brown mud flat at the bottom of the crater is the site of many short-lived lakes. Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2012.