Sillar is a whitish volcanic stone from which many colonial buildings in the city of Arequipa

Arequipa

Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, are made. A fine example are the Arcs of the "Mirador of Yanahuara" in Arequipa, from which the entire city can be appreciated.

The stone, a vapour-phase crystallized tuff

Tuff

Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...

 produced by the now-extinct Chachani

Chachani

Nevado Chachani is the highest of the mountains near the city of Arequipa in southern Peru. Its name means “skirt” in Quechua, and a female character is normally attributed to the mountain in local legends....

 volcano during the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 era, was named by the geologist Clarence Fenner in 1948.

See also

• Santa Catalina Monastery
  Santa Catalina Monastery
  The Monastery of Saint Catherine is a monastery of nuns of the Domincan Second Order, located in Arequipa, Peru. It was built in 1580 and was enlarged in the 17th century. The over 20,000-square-meter monastery was built predominantly in the Mudéjar style, and is characterized by its vividly...
  
  
• Casa del Moral
  Casa del Moral
  The "Casa del Moral" is a large ancestral house built around 1730 in Arequipa, Peru. Favored by tourists, it is one of the best and well-preserved samples of baroque-mestizo civil architecture in Peru...
  
  
• Goyeneche Palace
• El Misti
  El Misti
  El Misti, also known as Guagua-Putinais a stratovolcano located in southern Peru near the city of Arequipa. With its seasonally snow-capped, symmetrical cone, El Misti stands at above sea level and lies between the mountain Chachani and the volcano Pichu-Pichu . Its last eruption was in...
  
  
• Arequipa
  Arequipa
  Arequipa is the capital city of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. With a population of 836,859 it is the second most populous city of the country...
  
  
• Peru
  Peru
  Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....