Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58stratovolcano north of the
Salar de Coposa
Salar may refer to:
Places
*Salar, Spain, a municipality in Granada
*Salar, Murshidabad, a census town in West Bengal, India
**Salar railway station
*Salar, Uzbekistan, a town in Tashkent District
*Kampong Salar, a village in Mukim Mentiri, Brunei ...
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 ...
.
The wide volcano rises about above its surrounding terrain and has a partially preserved summit crater. Part of its slopes are covered with pyroclastics;
radiometric dating
Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...
has yielded ages of 11.9 ± 0.6, 9.99 ± 0.1 and 1.38 million years ago. In the past the volcano was
glaciated
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 over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...
, with glaciers descending to elevations of . This low elevation probably relates to the easterly position of the volcano and likely correlates to lake highstands in Salar de Coposa, Salar de Empexa and Salar de Huasco.