Paricutin

Paricutin is a cinder cone volcano in Michoacan state, Mexico, about 29 kilometers west of Uruapan, part of the Michoacan-Guanajuato volcanic field within the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, built from basaltic andesite lava and reaching 2,800 meters above sea level, with its cone rising 424 meters above the surrounding valley floor. It is famous for having been born on February 20, 1943, when it burst suddenly out of a cornfield belonging to farmer Dionisio Pulido, building a scoria cone 50 meters high within its first 24 hours through strombolian pyroclastic activity. The eruption continued for nine years, an unusually long lifespan for a cinder cone, unfolding across four distinct phases before ending in 1952. Because scientists were able to observe and document its entire life cycle from birth to dormancy, Paricutin became the first volcano of its kind ever fully documented in this way, and it remains geothermally active today with residual steam emissions and seismicity. This entity documents Paricutin specifically as a geological formation, a cinder cone volcano whose complete nine-year life cycle from birth in a cornfield was the first ever fully documented.