The San Pedro Volcano with the La Poruna Cone and lava flow in the foreground. Dark material in the closer foreground is from a debris avalanche caused when the older edifice collapsed leaving the horseshoe shaped crater we see today.
The San Pedro Volcano is a composite volcano and one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. As we drove up, it was clearly puffing away from a fumerole at the top and continued to do so the entire time we were in view. (Perhaps a puff around every minute or so)
The San Pedro Volcano at Sunset, taken from our camp in the La Poruna lava's (seen in the foreground).
The lava flows at San Pedro are significantly larger than the flows across the street at La Poruna. (Note the tractor trailer in the foreground with the lava front just behind.)
Additional Sources
- Smithsonian Institute / USGS Global Volcanism Program. San Pedro Volcano Description.
- de Silva and Francis. 1991. Volcanoes of the Central Andes Springer Publishing. ISBN:0387537066
- Francis, P.W. et al. 1974. The San Pedro and San Pablo volcanoes of northern Chile and their hot avalanche deposits. Geologische Rundschau 63, 357-388.
- O'Callaghan, L.J., and Francis, P.W., 1986. Volcanological and petrological evolution of San Pedro volcano, Provincia El Loa, North Chile. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 143, 275-286
- Peckyno, R, S de Silva. R M Lopes. D Pieri. "LAMDA - The Lava Morphology Database: First Results and Interpretations" (POSTER) AGU Annual Meeting. December 2009, San Francisco, CA.
- Peckyno, R. Lava Lobation and Margin Analysis. 2010, Oregon State University Masters Thesis.