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 322 kilometers (200 mi) 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 424-meter-high (1,391 ft) cone and significantly damaged an area of more than 233 square kilometers (90 mi2) 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
Parícutin is located in the Mexican municipality of Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, 29 kilometers (18 mi) west of the city of Uruapan and about 322 km west of Mexico City. It lies on the northern flank of Pico de Tancítaro, which itself lies on top of an old shield volcano and extends 3,170 meters (10,400 ft) above sea level and 424 meters (1,391 ft) above the Valley of Quitzocho-Cuiyusuru. 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.
The volcano lies on, and is a product of, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which runs 900 kilometers (560 mi) 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 1.8 kilometers (1.1 mi) 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 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 mi2) 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.
By 2013, the crater of the volcano was about 200 meters (660 ft) across, and it was possible to both climb the volcano and walk around the entire perimeter. Although classified as extinct by scientists, Parícutin is still hot, and seeping rainwater reacts with this heat so that the cone still emits steam in various streams. 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. There were also some reports of rumbling in 1995, and of black steam and rumbling in 1998. In the summer of 2006, there was another major volcanic earthquake swarm, with over 300 located near the volcano, indicating magma movement, but with no eruption at Parícutin or elsewhere.
Formation
Parícutin erupted from 1943 to 1952, unusually long for this type of volcano, and with several eruptive phases. 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 caused by the movement of magma. A later study indicated that the eruption was preceded by 21 earthquakes over 3.2 in magnitude starting five weeks before the eruption. One week prior to the eruption, newspapers reported 25–30 per day. The day before the eruption, the number was estimated at 300. The eruption began on 20 February 1943, at about 4:00 pm 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. Suddenly the ground nearby swelled upward and formed a fissure between 2 and 2.5 meters across. They reported that they heard hissing sounds, and saw smoke which smelled like rotten eggs, indicating the presence of hydrogen sulfide. Within hours, the fissure would develop into a small crater. Pulido reported:
At 4 p.m., I left my wife to set fire to a pile of branches when I noticed that a crack, which was situated on one of the knolls of my farm, had opened . . . and I saw that it was a kind of fissure that had a depth of only half a meter. I set about to ignite the branches again when I felt a thunder, the trees trembled, and I turned to speak to Paula; and it was then I saw how, in the hole, the ground swelled and raised itself 2 or 2.5 meters high, and a kind of smoke or fine dust – grey, like ashes – began to rise up 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 smell of sulfur. He tried to find his family and oxen but they had disappeared; so he rode his horse to town where he found his family and friends, happy to see him alive. The volcano grew fast and furiously after this. Celedonio Gutiérrez, who witnessed the eruption on the first night, reported:
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