Laguna de Ayarza () is a crater lake in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. The lake is a

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

that was created some 20,000 years ago by a catastrophic eruption that destroyed a twinned volcano and blanketed the entire region with a layer of pumice. The lake has a surface area of 14 km² and a maximum depth of 230 m. The lake has a surface elevation of 1409 m.

References

External links

* Ayarza Ayarza Ayarza Geography of the Santa Rosa Department, Guatemala Pleistocene calderas Volcanoes of Guatemala {{Guatemala-geo-stub