Arintica is a

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and per ...

located in

Arica y Parinacota Region The Arica y Parinacota Region ( es, link=no, Región de Arica y Parinacota ) is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It comprises two provinces, Arica and Parinacota. It borders Peru's Department of Tacna to the north, Bolivi ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, near the border with

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. It lies north of the Salar de Surire. The volcano has a main summit in the north, a slightly shorter southern summit and a

subsidiary peak A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a ...

in the west. A

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

valley lies between the summits. The height of the snowline is . Stage II

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

s found on Arintica have altitudes ranging from on the southern flank to on the eastern flank. On the western flank they reach altitudes of . In total, five glaciers surrounded Arintica and drained into the Salar de Surire. Presently,

rock glacier Rock glaciers are distinctive geomorphological landforms, consisting either of angular rock debris frozen in interstitial ice, former "true" glaciers overlain by a layer of talus, or something in-between. Rock glaciers are normally found at high ...

s are active on the mountain. Potassium-argon dating has yielded an age of years on rocks from Arintica. The volcano was constructed in two phases and postglacial lava flows have been found by

Landsat The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. It is a joint NASA / USGS program. On 23 July 1972, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Lan ...

imagery, but they are unsampled. A previously identified southeastern lava flow has been later identified as a debris avalanche, and other lava flows in the crater are actually rock glaciers. A

dacitic Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite ...

lava dome In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions on ...

is found southwest of the volcano and is named Calajata. In a 2011 hazard map Arintica was considered a potentially dangerous volcano of Chile. Whether the volcano was active in the Holocene is contentious and there is no indication of historical eruptions. Renewed activity would probably be of small magnitude and only have local impacts. A belt of ''

Polylepis ''Polylepis'' is a genus comprising 28 recognised shrub and tree species, that are endemic to the mid- and high-elevation regions of the tropical Andes. This group is unique in the rose family in that it is predominantly wind-pollinated. They are ...

'' woods surrounds the volcano.

References

Volcanoes of Arica y Parinacota Region Mountains of Chile Stratovolcanoes of Chile Pleistocene stratovolcanoes {{AricaParinacota-geo-stub

See also

References