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Home / What Would Happen if the Volcano of Paricutin Erupted Again

What Would Happen if the Volcano of Paricutin Erupted Again

Dormant scoria-cone volcano in Michoacán, United mexican states

Parícutin
Paricutin.jpg

Parícutin in 1994
Highest point
Peak 2,800 m (9,200 ft)[1]
Prominence 208 k (682 ft)[2]
Coordinates nineteen°29′35″N 102°15′4″W  /  19.49306°N 102.25111°W  / nineteen.49306; -102.25111 Coordinates: 19°29′35″N 102°xv′4″W  /  nineteen.49306°N 102.25111°W  / 19.49306; -102.25111
Geography

Parícutin is located in Mexico

Parícutin

Parícutin

location of Parícutin in Mexico
Country Mexico
State Michoacán
Geology
Historic period of stone 1941–1952
Mount type Cinder cone
Volcanic arc/belt Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt
Final eruption 1943 to 1952
Climbing
Offset rising 1943
Easiest route Hike

Parícutin (or Volcán de Parícutin, also absolute Paricutín) is a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican land of Michoacán, nearly the metropolis of Uruapan and about 322 kilometers (200 mi) westward of Mexico City. The volcano surged suddenly from the cornfield of local farmer Dionisio Pulido in 1943, alluring both popular and scientific attention.

Paricutín presented the offset occasion for modern science to document the full life cycle of an eruption of this blazon. During the volcano's nine years of action, scientists sketched and mapped it and took thousands of samples and photographs. By 1952, the eruption had left a 424-meter-high (i,391 ft) cone and significantly damaged an area of more than 233 square kilometers (90 sq mi) with the ejection of rock, volcanic ash and lava. Three people were killed, 2 towns were completely evacuated and buried past lava, and 3 others were heavily afflicted. Hundreds of people had to permanently relocate, and two new towns were created to accommodate their migration. Although the larger region still remains highly active volcanically, Parícutin is now dormant and has go a tourist allure, with people climbing the volcano and visiting the hardened lava-covered ruins of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church building.

In 1997, CNN named Parícutin one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.[3] The same year, the disaster film Volcano mentioned it equally a precedent for the moving picture'south fictional events.

Description [edit]

Parícutin is located in the Mexican municipality of Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, 29 kilometers (eighteen mi) west of the city of Uruapan and most 322 km west of Mexico Metropolis.[4] [v] [6] It lies on the northern flank of Pico de Tancítaro, which itself lies on meridian of an old shield volcano and extends 3,170 meters (x,400 ft) above ocean level and 424 meters (1,391 ft) above the Valley of Quitzocho-Cuiyusuru.[6] [7] These structures are wedged against quondam volcanic mountain chains and surrounded by small volcanic cones, with the intervening valleys occupied past small fields and orchards or small settlements, from groups of a few houses to those the size of towns.[vi] [7] [8]

Parícutin from Las Cabañas

The volcano lies on, and is a production of, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which runs 900 kilometers (560 mi) west-to-east beyond primal Mexico. It includes the Sierra Nevada mountain range (a prepare of extinct volcanoes) as well as thousands of cinder cones and volcanic vents. Volcanic action here has created the Central Mexican Plateau and rock deposits up to one.8 kilometers (1.1 mi) deep. It has too created fertile soils by the widespread degradation of ash and thereby some of Mexico'south most productive farmland.[nine] The volcanic activity hither is a event of the subduction of the Rivera and Cocos plates along the Middle America Trench.[x] More specifically, the volcano is the youngest of the approximately 1,400 volcanic vents of the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field, a 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi) basalt plateau filled with scoria cones like Parícutin, forth with small shield volcanoes, maars, tuff rings and lava domes.[10] [xi] Scoria cones are the about common type of volcano in Mexico, actualization suddenly and edifice a cone-shaped mountain with steep slopes before becoming extinct. Parícutin's immediate predecessor was El Jorullo, also in Michoacán, which erupted in 1759.[nine] [12]

View of the volcano from the town of Angahuan

Currently the crater of the volcano is about 200 meters (660 ft) across and it is possible to both climb the volcano and walk around the entire perimeter.[eight] Although classified as extinct by scientists, Parícutin is still hot, and seeping rainwater reacts with this estrus so that the cone withal emits steam in various streams.[8] [13] [fourteen] The forces that created the volcano are still active. In 1997 there was a vigorous swarm of 230 earthquakes in the Parícutin area due to tectonic motion, with five higher up 3.9 on the moment magnitude scale.[x] There were also some reports of rumbling in 1995, and of black steam and rumbling in 1998.[14] In the summer of 2006, there was another major volcanic earthquake swarm, with over 300 located nigh the volcano, indicating magma motion, merely with no eruption at Parícutin or elsewhere.[10]

Germination [edit]

Parícutin erupted from 1943 to 1952, unusually long for this blazon of volcano, and with several eruptive phases.[half-dozen] [11] For weeks prior, residents of the area reported hearing noises similar to thunder but without clouds in the sky. This sound is consistent with deep earthquakes acquired by the move of magma.[four] [11] A later study indicated that the eruption was preceded by 21 earthquakes over iii.2 in intensity starting five weeks before the eruption. One calendar week prior to the eruption, newspapers reported 25–xxx per day. The day before the eruption, the number was estimated at 300.[x]

The eruption began on February 20, 1943, at about 4:00 PM local time. The center of the activity was a cornfield owned by Dionisio Pulido, almost the boondocks of Parícutin. During that 24-hour interval, he and his family had been working their state, clearing information technology to prepare for spring planting.[9] Of a sudden the ground nearby swelled upwards and formed a fissure between 2 and 2.5 meters across. They reported that they heard hissing sounds, and smoke which smelled similar rotten eggs, indicating the presence of hydrogen sulfide. Inside hours, the fissure would develop into a small crater.[iv] [11]

Pulido reported:

At iv p.m., I left my wife to set fire to a pile of branches when I noticed that a cleft, which was situated on i of the knolls of my farm, had opened . . . and I saw that it was a kind of scissure that had a depth of only half a meter. I set about to ignite the branches once more when I felt a thunder, the trees trembled, and I turned to speak to Paula; and information technology was then I saw how, in the hole, the ground swelled and raised itself 2 or 2.five meters high, and a kind of smoke or fine dust – grey, like ashes – began to rise upwardly in a portion of the crack that I had not previously seen . . . Immediately more smoke began to rise with a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous; and there was a aroma of sulfur.[eleven]

He tried to find his family and oxen but they had disappeared; so he rode his horse to boondocks where he found his family unit and friends, happy to meet him alive.[9] The volcano grew fast and furiously after this.[4] Celedonio Gutierrez, who witnessed the eruption on the outset night, reported:

…when dark began to fall, we heard noises like the surge of the bounding main, and blood-red flames of burn down rose into the darkened sky, some ascent 800 meters or more into the air, that flare-up like aureate marigolds, and a rain similar fireworks fell to the basis.[4]

On that commencement day, the volcano had begun strombolian pyroclastic activity; and within 24 hours there was a scorian cone fifty meters high, created by the ejection of lapilli fragments up to the size of a walnut and larger, semi-molten volcanic bombs. By the end of the calendar week, reports held that the cone was between 100 and 150 meters loftier.[4] [nine] [11] Soon afterward the start, the valley was covered in smoke and ash.[4]

Phases [edit]

Basaltic andesite lava stone sample from Parícutin, nerveless from a lava period, erupted in October 1951, at the base of the volcano'south "East Pour"

The nine-twelvemonth activeness of the volcano is divided into four stages, with names that come from the Purépecha language. The beginning phase (Quitzocho) extended from February 22 to October eighteen, 1943, with activity concentrated in the cracks that formed in the Cuiyusuro Valley, forming the initial cone. During this time, the ejected cloth was by and large lapilli and bombs.[half dozen] In March, the eruption became more powerful, with eruptive columns that extended for several kilometers.[eleven] In four months, the cone reached 200 meters and in eight months 365 meters.[6] During this fourth dimension menses, at that place was some lava flow. On June 12, lava began to accelerate towards the village of Parícutin, forcing evacuations the next twenty-four hour period.[11]

The 2nd phase went from October xviii, 1943 to January 8, 1944 and is called Sapichi, meaning "child", referring to the germination of a lateral vent and other openings on the north side of the cone.[6] [eight] Ash and bombs connected to exist ejected but the new vent sent lava towards the boondocks of San Juan Parangaricutiro, forcing its permanent evacuation. By Baronial, the town was completely covered in lava and ash, with but the upper portions of the main church however visible.[6] [11] The evacuations of Parícutin and San Juan were able to be accomplished without loss of life due to the slow motion of the lava.[4] [xiii] These two phases lasted just over a year and account for more than 90% of the total material ejected from the cone, as well as most four-fifths (330 meters) of the final meridian of 424 meters from the valley floor. It also sent ash every bit far equally Mexico City.[4] [ix]

The tertiary (Taqué-Ahuan) lasted from January 8, 1944 to January 12, 1945 and featured mainly the formation of a serial of cracks on the south side of the cone, as well as an increase in activity in the center. Lava flows from this time mostly extend to the west and northwest. During this menses there as well formed a mesa, now called Los Hornitos, to the s.[6]

Over the next seven years, the volcano became less active, with the ejection of ash, stone and lava coming sporadically, with periods of silence in betwixt.[6] [ix] [xi] Professional geologists pulled out of the area in 1948, leaving just Celedonio Gutierrez to go along observations. The final burst of activeness was recorded past him betwixt Jan and February 1952. Several eruptions occurred in succession and a three-kilometer smoke column was produced.[half-dozen] [9]

Scientific study [edit]

The particular importance of the Parícutin eruption was that information technology was the first fourth dimension that volcanologists were able to fully document the entire life cycle of a volcano.[4] [eleven] The effect brought geologists from all over the world,[xi] merely the principal researchers were William F. Foshag of the Smithsonian Institution and Dr. Jenaro Gonzalez Reyna from the Mexican regime, who came about a month after the eruption started and stayed for several years. These two wrote detailed descriptions, drew sketches and maps, and took samples and thousands of photographs during this fourth dimension. Many of these are all the same used today by researchers. Foshag connected to written report the volcano until his decease in 1956.[iv] [9] Between 1943 and 1948, well-nigh l scientific articles were published in major journals about the volcano, with even more since. The worldwide endeavor to written report Parícutin increased understanding of volcanism in full general just especially that of scoria cone formation.[eleven] [12]

Socioeconomic consequences [edit]

San Juan Parangaricutiro Church building

Despite the ongoing Second World War, the eruption drew attending from around the globe, with reporters from newspapers and magazines including Life coming to cover the story. In the afterwards years of the eruption, airline pilots pointed the volcano out to passengers and one Hollywood film, Captain from Castile, was shot in the area, using the erupting volcano as a backdrop and employing locals equally extras.[9] The eruption also inspired a generation of Mexican artists to describe or insinuate to it in their works, including Dr Atl, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Alfredo Zalce and Pablo O'Higgins.[15]

The eruptions ended in 1952, leaving a final scoria cone with a top of 424 meters from the valley floor.[9] [11] The eruption destroyed or heavily damaged a 233 km2 expanse,[seven] and nigh all of the vegetation within several kilometers of the crater was destroyed.[nine] The volcano spread lava over 26 kmii, with 52 km2 covered in volcanic sand.[9] The town of Parícutin, which one time had a population of 733, is now completely gone, and all that remains of the town of San Juan Parangaricutiro, with a former population of 1,895, are parts of its main church which stand up out amid the hardened lava flow.[seven] [11] [thirteen]

Though no i died directly from the eruption, 3 people were killed when they were struck by lightning generated by pyroclastic eruptions.[11] The harm from the eruption primarily afflicted v towns in ii municipalities, San Juan Parangaricutiro and Los Reyes. In addition to the 2 towns that were obliterated, Zacan (pop. 876), Angahuan (pop. i,098) and Zirosto (popular. 1,314) were too heavily affected.[half-dozen] The main result on the people of the area was the disruption of their lives and livelihood, particularly during the starting time 2 years. The surface area well-nigh affected by the eruption had a population of 5,910,[seven] and hundreds amidst these were permanently evacuated.[ix] Before leaving his home for the last fourth dimension, Dionisio Pulido placed a sign on the cornfield that read in Castilian: "This volcano is endemic and operated by Dionisio Pulido."[nine] The populations of the 2 destroyed towns were initially moved to camps on either side of the city of Uruapan.[7] The population of the other three towns more often than not stayed in place, just made adaptations to survive during the eruption.[vii] People of Angahuan and Zacan mostly stayed where they were.[7] The population of Zirosto divided into three: those that stayed in the original location, now known as Zirosto Viejo, those who moved a few miles away to a ranch which is at present is officially chosen Zirosto Nuevo but locally called Barranca Seca, and a 3rd grouping who founded a completely new settlement called Miguel Silva almost Ario de Rosales.[7]

The town of San Juan Parangaricutiro was the seat of the municipality of the same proper noun, and its destruction prompted a political reorganization and a new seat at Parangaricutiro (today generally chosen San Juan Nuevo), where much of the population of the old seat had been relocated, with some going to Angahuan.[5] [6] [seven]

The economy of the surface area was and so and is now mostly agronomical, with a more often than not Purépecha population, rural and poor.[6] [viii] However, the eruption did cause a number of changes both social and economic to the affected areas, both to adapt to the changed landscape merely as well because the fame of the eruption has brought greater contact from the rest of Mexico and across.[7]

The volcano has go a tourist allure, with the master admission in Angahuan, from which the volcano is clearly visible.[nine] The town offers guides and horses, both to visit the ruins of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church as well as to climb the volcano itself.[v] The volcano is function of the Pico de Tancítaro National Park and is by and large accessible on horseback, with only the last few hundred, very steep, meters to be climbed on foot.[13] The expedition requires a guide even if horses are non used, equally the path is not well-marked and passes through woods, agave fields and avocado groves. Many just visit the ruins of the church building, which are easier to access and still a pilgrimage site, the onetime altar regularly adorned with fresh candles and flowers. Nearby is a group of stands selling local nutrient and souvenirs.[xiii]

The story of the formation of Parícutin is the subject of the children's volume Loma of Fire past Thomas P. Lewis, published in 1983.[16] The book was featured in an episode of Reading Rainbow in 1985.[17]

See also [edit]

  • List of volcanoes in Mexico
  • Shōwa-shinzan

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Elevaciones principales – Michoacán de Ocampo" (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. 2005. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
  2. ^ SRTM data
  3. ^ Alonso, Nathalie. "7 Natural Wonders of the World Today". USA Today Travel Tips . Retrieved Apr xiii, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d due east f grand h i j k "Parícutin: The Birth of a Volcano". Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved April eight, 2015.
  5. ^ a b c "Tips viajero Volcán Paricutín (Michoacán)". Mexico City: United mexican states Desconocio magazine. Retrieved April viii, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c d eastward f 1000 h i j k l thou n "Volcanes Nombre del volcán: Paricutín". Instituto Latinoamericano de Comunicación Educativo. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  7. ^ a b c d eastward f g h i j one thousand Nolan, Mary Lee (1972). The towns of the volcano: A written report of the human consequences of the eruption of Parícutin Volcano (PhD). Texas A&M University. OCLC 7312281.
  8. ^ a b c d e Juan Guillermo Ordóñez (February 3, 2013). "Desafío Extremo / Aventura inolvidable en el Paricutín". El Norte. Monterrey. p. ii.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j thou fifty chiliad n o p "Paricutin: The Volcano in a Cornfield". The Museum of Unnatural History. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  10. ^ a b c d east Gardine, Matt; W, Michael Due east.; Cox, Tiffany (March 2011). "Dike emplacement most Paricutin volcano, United mexican states in 2006". Bulletin of Volcanology. 73 (2): 123–132. doi:10.1007/s00445-010-0437-9. S2CID 54179928.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j m l m n o p "The eruption of Parícutin (1943–1952)". How Volcanos Work. San Diego State Academy. Retrieved Apr 8, 2015.
  12. ^ a b Antimio Cruz (February 20, 2003). "Niegan en Paricutin una nueva erupcion". Reforma. Mexico Urban center. p. four.
  13. ^ a b c d e "Volcán Paricutín". Alone Planet guides. Retrieved April 8, 2015.
  14. ^ a b Adán García (Dec 5, 1998). "Chocan versiones sobre El Paricutin". Mural. Guadalajara. p. 10.
  15. ^ Antimio Cruz (February 20, 2003). "'Multiplican' al Paricutin". Landscape. Guadalajara. p. 5.
  16. ^ "Hill of Burn down by Thomas P. Lewis | Scholastic". www.scholastic.com . Retrieved February twenty, 2017.
  17. ^ Burton, LeVar; Escandon, Fernando (July three, 1985), Loma of Burn , retrieved Feb xx, 2017

External links [edit]

  • Video documentary (eng/spa) Volcano Parícutin (4min)
  • Parícutin at Peakbagger.com
  • 1943–1952 The eruption of Parícutin

boucicaulthato1970.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par%C3%ADcutin