For another Mount Taylor, see Mount Taylor, Australian Capital Territory

Elevation = 3,445 metres (11,301 feet)
Location = New Mexico, United States Range = Rocky Mountains Prominence = 1,248 metres (4,094 feet)

Mount Taylor is a stratovolcano in northwest New Mexico (35° 14' 16"N, 107° 36' 25"W) northeast of the town of Grants. It was named in 1849 for then president Zachary Taylor. Prior to that, it was called Cebolleta (tender onion) by the Spanish, and Tsoodzil by the Navajo. Both the Navajo and the Acoma consider it to be sacred. The mountain's peak is at 11,301 ft (3445 m), making it the highest point in the Cibola National Forest. Mount Taylor is largely forested, rising like a blue cone above the desert below. Its slopes were an important source of lumber for neighboring pueblos.

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 volcanos. It is part of the same volcanic system as the nearby El Malpais.

When Mount Taylor erupted, it cut off a large chunk of the mountains summit. Estimates vary about how high the mountain was before the eruption, common estimates are between 12,000 and 17,000 feet, although more recent estimates estimate that it could have been much higher, between 15,000 and 22,000 feet.

Mount Taylor is very rich in a uranium-vanadium bearing mineral, and was mined extensively for it from 1979 to 1990. The Mount Taylor and the hundreds of other uranium mines on Navajo lands have provided over thirteen million tons of uranium ore to the United States since 1945.

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