Example of Ash and Cinder volcano; Paricutin, Mexico

PARICUTIN: The volcano born in a Mexico cornfield



History:
- The Paricutin eruption took place between February 1943 and February 1952.
- The Paricutin volcano grew out of a cornfield.
- The worst of Paricutin's volcanic activity, took place in 1943, with its lava rising to about 50 feet below the crater's rim.
- The Paricutin volcano now stands at exactly 1,345 feet above the ground and 9,210 feet above sea level.
- It hardened lava is covers about 10 square miles, its volcanic sand (unconsolidated fragments of volcanic material) covers about 20 square miles
- The type of eruption which happened at Paricutin is called a Strombolian eruption, which means it gushed basaltic lava, and exploded from a single vent.
- Nearly 1000 people died following one of its last major eruptions in 1949.
- Paricutin is situated about 200 miles west of Mexico City, in the state of Michoacán, Mexico.
- Ashes from the volcano fell as far as Mexico City.
- The Paricutin is part of the Volcanic Axis, a.k.a., "The Transversal", a 700 mile line of volcanoes that extends across southern Mexico in an east-west direction.
- It is the only one of several hundred cones in the area to have erupted in historic times.
- The Paricutin is a Monogenetic cone, meaning it stems from a single point of eruption.
- The man who first Witnessed the eruption in 1943, was Dominic Pulido, a Tarascan Indian farmer.


Paricutin spewing ash