Cerro Prieto () is a

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

located approximately 29 km (18 mi) SSE of

Mexicali Mexicali (; ) is the capital city of the States of Mexico, Mexican state of Baja California. The city, which is the seat of the Mexicali Municipality, has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the Calexico–Mexicali, Cale ...

in the Mexican state of

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

. The volcano lies astride a spreading center associated with the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise (EPR) is a mid-ocean rise (usually termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), at a divergent tectonic plate bound ...

. This spreading center is also responsible for a large geothermal field, which has been harnessed to generate electric power by the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Power Station. The Cerro Prieto spreading center intersects the southern end of the Imperial Fault and the northern end of the Cerro Prieto Fault.Fuis, Gary S. and Walter D. Mooney
''Salton Trough'' Lithospheric Structure and Tectonics from Seismic-Refraction and Other Data'' in USGS Professional Paper 1515
/ref> Both of these are

transform fault A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault (geology), fault along a plate boundary where the motion (physics), motion is predominantly Horizontal plane, horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either an ...

s in the northern leg of the East Pacific Rise system that runs the length of the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

and is steadily rifting the Baja California peninsula away from the mainland of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

References

External links

Geology of the Salton Trough, David L. Alles ed., 2007
* Volcanoes of Baja California Geothermal areas in Mexico Landforms of Baja California Salton Trough {{volcanology-stub