Licancabur
Encyclopedia
Licancabur is a highly symmetrical stratovolcano
Stratovolcano
A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a tall, conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions...

 on the southernmost part of the border between Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

. It is located just southwest of Laguna Verde in Bolivia. The volcano dominates the landscape of the Salar de Atacama
Salar de Atacama
Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile. It is located south of San Pedro de Atacama, is surrounded by mountains and has no drainage outlets. To the east is enclosed by the main chain of the Andes, while to the west lies a secondary mountain range of the Andes called Cordillera de Domeyko...

 area. The lower two thirds of the northeastern slope of the volcano belong to Bolivia, 5400 m (17,717 ft) from the foot at 4360 m (14,304 ft), while the rest and biggest part, including the higher third of the northeastern slope, the crater and summit, belong to Chile..

The summit and the crater are located entirely in Chile, slightly over 1 km (3,281 ft) to the south west of the international borders, it is about 400 m (1,312 ft) wide and contains a 70 m (230 ft) by 90 m (295 ft) crater lake
Crater lake
A crater lake is a lake that forms in a volcanic crater or caldera, such as a maar; less commonly and with lower association to the term a lake may form in an impact crater caused by a meteorite. Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not...

, Licancabur Lake, which is ice-covered most of the year. This is one of the highest lakes in the world, and despite air temperatures which can drop to -30 °C, it contains plankton
Plankton
Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...

ic fauna.

Licancabur's most recent volcanic activity produced extensive lava
Lava
Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...

 flows which extend 6 km down the northwest and southwest flanks, with older lava flows reaching 15 km (9 mi) and pyroclastic flow
Pyroclastic flow
A pyroclastic flow is a fast-moving current of superheated gas and rock , which reaches speeds moving away from a volcano of up to 700 km/h . The flows normally hug the ground and travel downhill, or spread laterally under gravity...

 deposits as far as 12 km (7 mi) from the peak. Extensive Inca ruins, located on the summit, provide proof of pre-Columbian ascents as well as evidence for the absence of major eruptions over the past 500-1.000 years.

Naming

The word Licancabur is the Castilianization of a Kunza
Kunza
Kunza Cunza, also known as Likanantaí, Lipe, Ulipe, or Atacameño, is an extinct, unclassified language spoken in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Perú by the Lickan-antay people, who have since shifted to Spanish.The last Kunza speaker was found in 1949, although some have...

 name used by the Atacameño
Atacameño
The Atacameños are a Native American people who inhabited the Andean portion of the Atacama Desert, mainly in what is today Chile's Antofagasta Region. Their language is known as Kunza....

 Likan-antay people to refer to the volcano: lican - people, cabur - mountain, thus meaning "Mountain of the People."

See also

  • List of volcanoes in Bolivia
  • List of volcanoes in Chile
  • Juriques
    Juriques
    Juriques is a stratovolcano on the border between Bolivia and Chile. It is located immediately southeast of Licancabur volcano and has a summit crater 1.5 km in its longest diameter. Laguna Verde lies at the foot of this volcano....

  • Laguna Verde (Bolivia)
  • Sairecabur
    Sairecabur
    The Sairécabur volcanic group is a volcanic chain directly south of the Putana Volcano, on the border between Bolivia and Chile. It contains at least 10 postglacial centers, the highest of which is Cerro Sairécabur at...

  • Purico Complex
    Purico Complex
    The Purico Complex is a pyroclastic shield located in the eastern part of the Atacama desert in Chile's II Region , approximately south of the Bolivia - Chile border...

  • Llano de Chajnantor Observatory
    Llano de Chajnantor Observatory
    Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at an altitude of 5,104 m in the Chilean Atacama desert, 50 kilometers to the east of San Pedro de Atacama. It is a very dry site - inhospitable to humans - but an excellent site for submillimetre astronomy...

  • Licancabur Lake (Chile)

External links

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