Pali-Aike Volcanic Field - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pali-Aike Volcanic Field (also spelled Palei-Aike) is a Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

-to-Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...

volcanic field

Volcanic field

A volcanic field is an area of the Earth's crust that is prone to localized volcanic activity. They usually contain 10 to 100 volcanoes, such as cinder cones and are usually in clusters. Lava flows may also occur...

in Patagonia

Patagonia

Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

on the Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

–Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

border, located north of the Straits of Magellan about 150 km northeast of Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas is a commune and the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena. The city was officially renamed Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to Punta Arenas...

. The volcanic field contains lake-filled maar

Maar

A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater that is caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption, an explosion caused by groundwater coming into contact with hot lava or magma. A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake. The name comes from the local Moselle...

s, along with basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

ic scoria cones and spatter cones with fresh-looking lava flows. It is the southernmost basaltic volcanic field in Patagonia. A notable crater within this volcanic field is the Pali Aike Crater

Pali Aike Crater

The Pali Aike Crater is an extinct volcano cone within a series of such craters in the Pali-Aike National Park. The locale of this crater is a semi-desert. This crater within the Pali-Aike Volcanic Field has an extant lava tube which has yielded archaeological traces termed by C...

See also