HOW A VOLCANO IS CREATED? THE HISTORY OF PARICUTÍN

As in a fairy tale, the roar of the magma made the sound vibrate, awakening the call from within, the earth opened up and from the fissures emerged a blast of sand that gave way to a small mountain.

In February 1946 the Paricutín volcano was born, located in the west of Mexico, in Michoacán. It is the youngest volcano in the world. 

The spectacle was witnessed by a farmer Dionisio Pulido, the only one in the world who witnessed this phenomenon, indicating that the earth gave way to fire before his eyes. Read his story here

In a document from the Parangricutiro Town Hall, it was recorded how two farmers felt earth movements a week before their birth. They say that “long tongues of fire rose up with strong smoke and rumbles” that they had never heard before.

Nine years after its creation, and leaving aside the poetry, the volcano ceased its activity and behind it there remained a beautiful and regular scoria cone (Paricutín), a parasitic crater (Zapichu) and an immense lava field that covered the municipalities of Paricutín and San Juan Viejo Parangaricutiro.

The Paricutín cone has the typical characteristics of these monogenetic volcanic edifices (they are generated from a single eruptive period). It currently reaches an altitude of approximately 2820 m.a.s.l. and about 300 metres above the base level.