Google Maps | Purchase Print Shiprock is a volcanic monadnock that rises 1,583 feet above the desert landscape of the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico and is 7,177 feet above sea level. Multiple volcanic dikes radiate from it, including one pictured in the lower left of the image. The formation figures prominently in the religion, myth and traditions of the Navajo, and stood at the geographic and cultural center of the Ancient Puebloans of the Colorado Plateau, also known as the Anasazi. Three major Anasazi sites, Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Aztec Ruins National Monument reside less than a hundred miles from the volcanic plug Shiprock is made of volcanic breccia and dikes of igneous rock. It is what remains of the upper core of a volcano that formed 27 million years ago. The name of the formation derives from an anglicized perspective of what the rock looks like, in this case a 19th-century clipper ship. The Navajo have a different name, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, which means winged rock, and comes from the legend of a great bird. Navajo Tourism – ShiprockNew Mexico Department of Geology – Shiprock