Parícutin

Parícutin (or Volcán de Parícutin, also accented Paricutín) is a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, near the city of Uruapan and about west of Mexico City. The volcano surged suddenly from the cornfield of local farmer Dionisio Pulido in 1943, attracting both popular and scientific attention. Paricutín presented the first occasion for modern science to document the full life cycle of an eruption of this type. During the volcano's nine years of activity, scientists sketched and mapped it and took thousands of samples and photographs. By 1952, the eruption had left a cone and significantly damaged an area of more than with the ejection of stone, volcanic ash and lava. Three people were killed, two towns were completely evacuated and buried by lava, and three others were heavily affected. Hundreds of people had to permanently relocate, and two new towns were created to accommodate their migration. Although the larger region still remains highly active volcanically, Parícutin is now dormant and has become a tourist attraction, with people climbing the volcano and visiting the hardened lava-covered ruins of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church. In 1997, CNN named Parícutin one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The same year, the disaster film Volcano mentioned it as a precedent for the film's fictional events. Parícutin is located in the Mexican municipality of Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, west of the city of Uruapan and about 322 km west of Mexico City. It lies on the northern flank of Pico de Tancítaro, which itself lies on top of an old shield volcano and extends above sea level and above the Valley of Quitzocho-Cuiyusuru. These structures are wedged against old volcanic mountain chains and surrounded by small volcanic cones, with the intervening valleys occupied by small fields and orchards or small settlements, from groups of a few houses to those the size of towns. The volcano lies on, and is a product of, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, which runs west-to-east across central Mexico.