San Vicente (also known as Chichontepec or Las Chiches) is a
stratovolcano in central
El Salvador. It is located next to the town of
San Vicente (hence the name) and is the second highest volcano in El Salvador. In the indigenous language
Nahuat
Nawat (academically Pipil, also known as Nicarao) is a Nahuan languages, Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan languages, Uto-Aztecan family. It was spoken in several parts of present-d ...
, Chichontepec means ''the mountain of the two breasts'', because its
double summit resembles a woman's
bosom. The volcano has two
craters, one located in each summit, although not exactly at the top. Dense vegetation covers both summits. Numerous
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by c ...
s and
fumarole
A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...
s are found on the northern and western flanks of the volcano. To the northeast, at 820 metres in a ravine of 180 metres longitude, there are fumaroles—fountains of clear and muddy water or small volcanoes of mud.
The last significant eruption occurred more than 1,700 years ago. The volcano may have had a very long history of repeated, and sometimes violent, eruptions, and at least once a large section of the volcano collapsed in a massive landslide.
On August 9, 1995,
Aviateca Flight 901
Aviateca Flight 901 was a Boeing 737-200 (registration N125GU) that crashed into the San Vicente (volcano), San Vicente volcano in El Salvador on approach to the airport on 9 August 1995. The accident killed all 65 passengers and crew on boar ...
crashed at the volcano, killing all 65 people on board.
[ ]
See also
*
List of volcanoes in El Salvador
This is a list of active and extinct volcanoes in El Salvador.
Volcanoes
See also
* Central America Volcanic Arc
* List of volcanoes in Guatemala
* List of volcanoes in Honduras
* List of volcanoes in Nicaragua
References
{{Centr ...
*
List of stratovolcanoes
A list of stratovolcanoes follows below.
Africa
Cameroon
* Mount Cameroon
Democratic Republic of Congo
* Mount Nyiragongo, Goma; designated as a Decade Volcano
** It contains an active lava lake inside its crater which overflowed due t ...
*
Breast-shaped hill
References
Mountains of El Salvador
Stratovolcanoes of El Salvador
{{ElSalvador-geo-stub