Chile’s Puyehue volcano explodes
Posted by feww on June 5, 2011
Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle erupted ejecting a 10-km high plume of ash into the air
“The Cordon Caulle has entered an eruptive process, with an explosion resulting in a 10-kilometer-high gas column,” state emergency office ONEMI reported.
The authorities were forced to evacuate at least 3,500 people from areas near the volcano.
A large cloud of ash was reported over the Patagonian ski resort town of Bariloche in the neighboring Argentina, about 160 km east of the volcano, forcing the local airport to close.
“We’re trying to stop car traffic and ask that people stay at home and close their doors and windows to prevent the volcanic ash from coming in. The city’s airport was also closed,” an eyewitness told the local TV station.
“Ash was dumped like a snowstorm… The city is covered in grey ash.”
“Eyewitness Juli Kessler told the BBC she saw ‘big black clouds hanging over the Andes’ and ash dust lying on the road.”
Map of Chile’s volcanoes with the approximate location of Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle volcano marked by FIRE-EARTH.
The governor of Chile’s Los Rios region was reported as saying that fire was seen in the volcano’s crater as a large plume of smoke billowed out.
“You can see the fire (in the volcano) and a plume of smoke, and there’s a strong smell of sulfur,” he told reporters.
The volcano is located about 840 km (522 miles) south of Santiago, the national capital. Its last major eruption occurred in 1960, after a magnitude 9.5 earthquake struck Chile about 260km directly north of the volcano.
Chile is home to about 2,000 volcanoes (world’s 2nd largest volcanic chain after Indonesia), of which 500 of are classified as active, with about 55 of them having erupted historically. Llaima and Chaiten, two other Chilean volcanoes, have erupted in the past few years.
Puyehue-Cordón Caulle
Location: Central Chile
Last Known Eruption: 1990
Summit Elevation: 2,236m 7,336 feet
Latitude: 40.590°S
Longitude: 72.117°W
Source: GVP
The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex (PCCVC) is a large NW-SE-trending late-Pleistocene to Holocene basaltic-to-rhyolitic transverse volcanic chain SE of Lago Ranco. The 1799-m-high Pleistocene Cordillera Nevada caldera lies at the NW end, separated from Puyehue stratovolcano at the SE end by the Cordón Caulle fissure complex. The Pleistocene Mencheca volcano with Holocene flank cones lies NE of Puyehue. The basaltic-to-rhyolitic Puyehue volcano is the most geochemically diverse of the PCCVC. The flat-topped, 2236-m-high Puyehue volcano was constructed above a 5-km-wide caldera and is capped by a 2.4-km-wide summit caldera of Holocene age. Lava flows and domes of mostly rhyolitic composition are found on the eastern flank of Puyehue. Historical eruptions originally attributed to Puyehue, including major eruptions in 1921-22 and 1960, are now known to be from the Cordón Caulle rift zone. The Cordón Caulle geothermal area, occupying a 6 x 13 km wide volcano-tectonic depression, is the largest active geothermal area of the southern Andes volcanic zone. Photo by Klaus Dorsch, 2001 (University of Munich); caption: GVP
Inches of volcanic ash 100 miles away
Argentine resort city of San Carlos de Bariloche, about 160 km (100 miles) east of Chile’s Puyehue, seen covered by volcanic ash from the June 4 eruption. Photo Credit: Reuters/Trilce Reyes. Image may be subject to copyright. More images…
Fire Earth 
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