Apaneca Range (Cuyanausul Range) is a group of E-W trending stratovolcanoes and geothermal areas located in western El Salvador, between the Santa Ana complex and the Guatemala border, about 6 km SE of Ahuachapin town. The volcanoes are basaltic-to-andesitic and Pleistocene and Holocene in age.
The Apaneca Range starts to the west at the Concepción de Ataco caldera, a dacitic-rhyolitic, 5x3.5 km wide caldera occupied by late-Pleistocene to Holocene post-caldera andesitic-dacitic lava domes and stratovolcanoes. The most prominent of these is the Cerro el Aguila cone (at 2036 m the highest peak of the complex).
Other important features of the range include:
Cerro los Naranjos stratovolcano at the eastern end of the chain, probably Holocene in age.
Las Ninfas, a stratovolcano with a 500 x 300 m wide lake-filled crater at the western end of the Apaneca volcanic range.
Laguna Verde, a basaltic stratovolcano with craters that could be less than 10,000 years old.
Ahuachapán geothermal field at the northern end of the range contains numerous fumarole fields and has been producing energy since 1975. Several small hydrothermal explosions have occurred in historical time, including one in October 1990 at the Agua Shuca thermal area in which 26 persons were killed.