Chaine des Puys

The Chaine des Puys is a volcanic field about 40 kilometers long running north to south through France's Massif Central, made up of 48 cinder cones, eight lava domes and 15 maars and explosion craters. Its highest point, Puy de Dome, reaches 1,465 meters, and the chain's name comes from a regional French word for a rounded volcanic hill. The field was active from roughly 95,000 years ago until about 10,000 years ago, with its most recent eruption dated to around 4040 BC. In 2018 UNESCO recognized the Chaine des Puys, together with the Limagne fault, as a World Heritage Site for its clear evidence of continental rifting and plate tectonics, and although quiet for millennia, future volcanic activity there remains theoretically possible.