Negro, Cerro (Nicaragua)

Status Unknown Eruption 1999 728m
Pyroclastic cone(s) (Subduction zone / Continental crust (> 25 km))

Negro, Cerro

Central America's youngest volcano, Cerro Negro, was born in April 1850 and has since been one of the most active volcanoes in Nicaragua. Cerro Negro is the largest, southernmost, and most recent of a group of four youthful cinder cones constructed along a NNW-SSE-trending line in the central Marrabios Range 5 km NW of Las Pilas volcano. Strombolian-to-subplinian eruptions at Cerro Negro at intervals of a few years to several decades have constructed a roughly 250-m-high basaltic cone and an associated lava field that is constrained by topography to extend primarily to the NE and SW. Cone and crater morphology at Cerro Negro have varied significantly during its eruptive history. Although Cerro Negro lies in a relatively unpopulated area, its occasional heavy ashfalls have caused damage to crops and buildings in populated regions of the Nicaraguan depression.

Cerro Negro, the largest and youngest of a group of four cinder cones that were constructed along a N-S line, is Central America's youngest volcano. Since its formation in 1850, Cerro Negro has produced frequent explosive eruptions, building a 250-m-high cinder cone surrounded by a fresh lava field. This 1995 photo from the southernmost of the older cones to the NNE shows flow levees and lava flows at the left side of Cerro Negro that were produced during the 1995 eruption. The vegetated peak in the background is part of the Las Pilas complex.

Photo by Britt Hill, 1995 (Southwest Research Institute).

Last updated 2019-08-23 01:30:02

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