Ayarza Volcano

Updated: May 20, 2024 17:55 GMT - refresh

Caldera(s) 1409 m / 4623 ft
Guatemala, 14.42°N / -90.12°W
Current status: (probably) extinct (0 out of 5)

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Typical eruption style: unspecified
Ayarza volcano eruptions: None during the past 10,000 years
Less than few million years ago (Pleistocene)

Latest nearby earthquakes

Time	Mag. / Depth	Distance / Location
May 14, 03:23 am (Guatemala)	1.7 60 km	23 km (15 mi) to the SE	11 Km al oeste de Jutiapa, Guatemala	Info
Friday, May 10, 2024 GMT (1 quake)
May 10, 12:46 pm (Guatemala)	2.1 7 km	19 km (12 mi) to the W	15 Km al norte de Cuilapa, Guatemala	Info

View recent quakes

Background

Ayarza is a double caldera that lies about 40 km NE of the active Guatemalan volcanic front. The 5 x 7 km wide figure-8-shaped caldera is filled by the scenic Laguna de Ayarza, which is about 4 km wide in the western caldera and 2 km wide in the eastern caldera. Both calderas, whose steep walls rise nearly 600 m above the lake surface, were formed within several thousand years of each other during major rhyolitic explosive eruptions in the late Pleistocene. The older eastern caldera was associated with eruption of the Mixta pumice fall and ashflow, which were radiocarbon dated at about 27,000 +/- 1600 years before present (BP). The larger western caldera was formed during eruption of the Pinos Altos airfall pumice and Tapalapa ashflows radiocarbon dated at 23,100 +/- 500 years BP. Formation of the double caldera appears to be the last volcanic activity at Ayarza; bathymetry of the lake floor does not show evidence for post-caldera eruptions.
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Source: Smithsonian / GVP volcano information