Paricutin Volcano, Mexico

Photo of a 1946 eruption of Paricutín.

The Pariutcin Volcano began as a small fissure in a cornfield owned by farmer Dionisio Pulido on February 20, 1943. Pulido and his family all witnessed the initial eruption of ash and stones as they plowed the field. A large percentage of the volcano's growth occurred during that first year, while it was still in the explosive pyroclastic phase. The nearby village of Paricutin (after which the volcano was named) was buried in lava and ash; the residents were forced to relocate.

At the end of this pyroclastic phase (about one year) the volcano had grown height of 1100 feet. For the next eight years the volcano would continue erupting, although this was mostly quiet eruptions of lava that would burn the surrounding land. The volcano's activity would slowly decline during this period until the last six months of the eruption, during which violent and explosive activity was often seen. In 1952, the eruption ended and Paricutin, now at a final height of 1400 feet, was finally dead. Like almost all cinder cones, Paricutin is a monogenetic volcano, which means that it is extinct, and will never erupt again.

The locals had no real folk legends in regards to volcanic eruptions in the region. But when Paricutín burst onto the scene, they past events that supposedly foretold the disaster. The initial event was a sacrilege: the removal of a huge wooden cross on a hillside in 1941. The second such event, in 1942, was one that whiffed of biblical retribution in the form of a plague of locusts. Thirdly, in 1943, a series of earthquakes rocked the region.

On February 19, 1943, the day before the Paricutin began to erupt, about 300 earthquakes hit the area. Then on February 22, with the new cone rising, the first of several geologists who would monitor and map Paricutin's behavior over the next nine years arrived on site. From then on, Paricutin was under almost constant observation: It yielded a vast amount of information that would be studied for years to come.

In the summer of 1943, during the volcano's most violent period, the cone stretched skyward to 1,100 feet, about 80% of its final height, with lava rising to about 50 feet below the crater's rim. Frequent explosions carried ash as faraway Mexico City; and virtually all of the vegetation for miles around the growing crater were destroyed.

Over the next several years, flows of lava spewed with only short periods of interruption. However in February of 1952, almost exactly nine years after Paricutin sprung to life, the volcano experienced its last major gasp of activity. By then, villages and farms were a mere memory, and the local people who worked the area land had relocated with help of the Mexican government.

On the afternoon of February 20, 1943, Dionisio Pulido, a farmer in the Mexican state of Michoacán, was readying his fields for spring sowing when the ground nearby opened in a fissure about 150 feet long. "I then felt a thunder," he recalled later, "the trees trembled, and is was then I saw how, in the hole, the ground swelled and raised it self 2 or 21/2 meters high, and a kind of smoke or fine dust-gray, like ashes-began to rise, with a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous; and there was a smell of sulphur. I then became greatly frightened and tried to help unyoke one of the ox teams."

Virtually under the farmer's feet, a volcano was being born. Pulido and the handful of other witnesses fled. By the next morning, when he returned, the cone had grown to a height of 30 feet and was "hurling out rocks with great violence." During the day, the come grew another....(read more at Wikipedia)

Climbing Paricutin is a popular year-round activity for tourists. To learn more about acending Paricutin click here.