Grand Sarcoui, Dome volcano in Puy-de-Dôme, France

Grand Sarcouy is a péléen dome volcano in the Chaîne des Puys, without a crater, whose flattened top gives it the nickname "le Chaudron". It rises 250 m above its base to 1,147 m and measures 800 m across, built against the puy des Goules and the Petit Sarcouy. Its near-white trachyte, or domite, is visible in the quarries that cut into the trachytic ash around the dome.

The Sarcouy complex began with two basaltic scoria cones, the puy des Goules and then the Petit Sarcouy. Explosions then opened a trachytic maar, later filled by viscous domite lava that formed the Grand Sarcouy dome. On its eastern flank, a shallow cave is a Merovingian quarry from the 5th to 7th century, where trachyte blocks were cut for sarcophagi.

The name Sarcouy is said to derive from an Auvergne dialect form of the word for coffin, a reference to the Merovingian quarry on the eastern slope. There, between the 5th and 7th centuries, blocks of white trachyte were cut to make sarcophagi. Similar quarries exist on the Clierzou and puy de l'Aumône domes.

The summit is reached on foot from the Col de la Nugère side or from Chanat-la-Mouteyre, about 2 km to the north-east; the climb covers roughly 250 m of height. The old quarry cave opens on the eastern flank, where the ground is uneven and unlit, so bring a torch. The two summits are joined by a grassy saddle, and the crest of the higher one is bare.

The name Sarcouy derives from an Auvergne dialect form of "cercueil" (coffin), after the Merovingian quarry on the eastern flank where trachytic lava blocks were cut into sarcophagi in the 5th to 7th centuries. Similar quarries exist on the Clierzou and puy de l'Aumône domes.