Parícutin (or Volcán de Parícutin, also accented Paricutín) is a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, near the city of Uruapan and about west of Mexico City. The volcano surged suddenly from the cornfield of local farmer Dionisio Pulido in 1943, attracting both popular and scientific attention.

Parícutin presented the first occasion for modern science to document the full life cycle of an eruption of this type. During the volcano's nine years of activity, scientists sketched and mapped it and took thousands of samples and photographs. By 1952, the eruption had left a cone and significantly damaged an area of more than with the ejection of stone, volcanic ash and lava. Three people were killed, two towns were completely evacuated and buried by lava, and three others were heavily affected. 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 become a tourist attraction, with people climbing the volcano and visiting the hardened lava-covered ruins of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church.

In 1997, CNN named Parícutin one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The same year, the disaster film Volcano mentioned it as a precedent for the film's fictional events.

Description

thumb|left|Parícutin in 1997

Parícutin is located in the Mexican municipality of Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, west of the city of Uruapan and about 322 km west of Mexico City. These structures are wedged against old volcanic mountain chains and surrounded by small volcanic cones, with the intervening valleys occupied by small fields and orchards or small settlements, from groups of a few houses to those the size of towns.

thumb|right|Parícutin from Las Cabañas

The volcano lies on, and is a product of, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which runs west-to-east across central Mexico. It includes the Sierra Nevada mountain range (a set of extinct volcanoes) as well as thousands of cinder cones and volcanic vents. Volcanic activity here has created the Central Mexican Plateau and rock deposits up to deep. It has also created fertile soils by the widespread deposition of ash and thereby some of Mexico's most productive farmland. The volcanic activity here is a result of the subduction of the Rivera and Cocos plates along the Middle America Trench. More specifically, the volcano is the youngest of the approximately 1,400 volcanic vents of the Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field, a basalt plateau filled with scoria cones like Parícutin, along with small shield volcanoes, maars, tuff rings and lava domes. Scoria cones are the most common type of volcano in Mexico, appearing suddenly and building a cone-shaped mountain with steep slopes before becoming extinct. Parícutin's immediate predecessor was El Jorullo, also in Michoacán, which erupted in 1759.

thumb|left|View of the volcano from the town of Angahuan

By 2013, the crater of the volcano was about across, and it was possible to both climb the volcano and walk around the entire perimeter. 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 movement, with five above 3.9 on the moment magnitude scale. at about 4:00pm local time. The center of the activity was a cornfield owned by Dionisio Pulido, near the town of Parícutin. During that day, he and his family had been working their land, clearing it to prepare for spring planting.

The eruptions ended in 1952, leaving a final scoria cone with a height of 424 meters from the valley floor. The book was featured in an episode of Reading Rainbow in 1985.

See also

  • List of volcanoes in Mexico
  • Shōwa-shinzan

References

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