What Would Happen if the Volcano of Paricutin Erupt Again

THE ERUPTION OF PARICUTIN (1943-1952)

OVERVIEW

The eruption of the Paricutin scoria cone from 1943 to 1952 marks the first fourth dimension scientists were able to find the consummate life wheel of a volcano, from nascence to extinction. Geologists from many parts of the world came to study this extraordinary volcanic consequence. The knowledge gained by these scientists profoundly expanded our agreement of volcanism in general, and of scoria-cone formation in particular. The well-nigh recent, detailed clarification of this archetype eruption is in the book "Paricutin: the volcano born in a Mexican cornfield" published in 1993 and edited past Jim Luhr and Tom Simkin of the Smithsonian Institution.

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LOCATION

Paricutin is located about 200 miles west of United mexican states City. Information technology is the youngest of 1,400 volcanic vents in the Michoacan-Guanajuato volcanic field, a basalt plateau dominated by scoria cones, but also containing small shield volcanoes , maars , tuff rings , and lava domes .

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Precursor EVENTS

Three weeks before the eruption, the people nigh Paricutin hamlet heard the rumbling noises that resembled thunder, yet they were confused considering the skies were clear of clouds. The noises were associated with earthquakes at depth near Paricutin. On Feb 20, 1943 a farmer, Dionisio Pulido, and his married woman Paula were burning shrubbery in their cornfield when they observed the earth in front end of them swell upward and crevice to form a fissure two-2.5 m across. They heard hissing sounds and later described the ascension of "fume" from the crevice, which had the repugnant smell of rotten eggs. The "rotten egg" odor is a hallmark of H 2 South gas, and the crack that opened in front of them would, within hours, develop into a pocket-sized volcano. In Dioniso Pulido'due south own words:

 " 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 fix about to ignite the branches once again when I felt a thunder, the copse trembled, and I turned to speak to Paula; and it was then I saw how, in the pigsty, the ground swelled and raised itself 2 or ii.5 meters high, and a kind of smoke or fine dust -- grey, like ashes -- began to rise upward in a portion of the fissure that I had not previously seen . . . Immediately more smoke began to rise with a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous; and there was a odour of sulfur."

"I then became profoundly frightened and I tried to assistance unyoke ane of the ox teams. I was so stunned I hardly knew what to exercise . . . or what to think . . . and I couldn't notice my wife, or my son, or my animals. At last I came to my senses and I remembered the sacred Lord of the Miracles. I shouted out 'Blessed Lord of the Miracles, you lot brought me into this globe -- now save me!' . . . . I looked into the fissure where the smoke was rising and my fear disappeared for the first time. I ran to see if I could relieve my family, my companions and my oxen, only I could non see them and I idea that they must have taken the oxen to the spring for water. I saw that at that place was no h2o in the jump . . . and I thought the water had gone because of the fissure. I was very frightened, and I mounted my mare and galloped to Paricutin where I establish my wife and son and friends waiting for me. They were afraid that I was expressionless and that they would never see me over again."

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THE 1943-1952 ERUPTION

Strombolian pyroclastic activity began at the crack on the day it was discovered by Dionisio Pulido. Within 24 hours the eruption had generated a 50-m-loftier scoria cone. Inside a calendar week, it had grown to a top of 100 m from the accumulation of bombs and lapilli, and finer fragments of ash were raining down on the village of Paricutin. The eruption became more powerful in March, generating eruptive columns several kilometers high. Occassionally, the volcano would exhibit vulcanian-type activeness, with big catechism-like explosions separated past short periods of silence. On June 12, a lobe of lava began to advance toward Paricutin hamlet and people began to evacuate the hamlet the following day. The larger hamlet of San Juan Parangaricutiro was evacuated a few months later on. By August 1944, near of the villages of Paricutin and San Juan were covered in lava and ash. All that remained of San Juan were two church towers that stood above a sea of rugged lava.

Paricutin 1946	Paricutin 1944

The Paricutin eruption was unusually long for a strombolian eruption, with several eruptive phases occurring over a 9-twelvemonth period. Later on almost two years of more often than not pyroclastic activity the pyroclastic phase began to wane, and the outpouring of lava from the base of operations of the cone became the ascendant mode of eruption over the next 7 years. Although no people died directly from the eruption, three people died after being struck by lightning generated past the pyroclastic eruptions. The eruption ceased in 1952. The final height of the scoria cone was 424 g.

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Source: http://sci.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Paricutin.html

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