Izalco

Izalco stands within Cerro Verde National Park in western El Salvador, on the southern flank of the older Santa Ana Volcano, reaching an elevation of about 1,950 meters. It is a stratovolcano built from andesite and basaltic andesite, formed by an eruption in 1770 after preceding fumarolic activity in 1658, and it earned the nickname Lighthouse of the Pacific for erupting nearly continuously from its formation until 1958, its glow long serving as a landmark for ships off the Salvadoran coast. A 1926 eruption buried the village of Matazano and killed 56 people, and after a final flank eruption in 1966 the volcano fell quiet, though it remains classified as active rather than extinct. This entity documents Izalco specifically as a geological formation, a young Salvadoran stratovolcano known as the Lighthouse of the Pacific for nearly two centuries of near-continuous eruption.