Prehistoric to Historic Volcanic Activity at Copahue Volcano

AGUSTO M; VELEZ ML; VASELLI O; CASELLI A; LICCIOLI C

Copahue Volcano

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Año: 2016; p. 49 - 59

Copahue is one of the most active volcanic centers in Argentina. Despite therelatively intense volcanic activity its prehistoric events are poorly known. Inthis work, after a brief introduction on the geological and structural controlon this volcanic complex, we have summarized the events that have led to theconstruction of the current volcanic edifice and its historical eruptiveactivity. Prehistoric events were divided into three main stages: pre-, sin- andpost-glacial based on the stratigraphic relations observed in the field byprevious authors. At least 13 eruptions were recorded during the last260 years. Although the scarce detailed historical information, the eruptivestyle outlined by the available reports and data seems to indicate a generalphreatic and phreato-magmatic character over the last two centuries,whereas the most recent (2000 and 2012) eruptive events, characterized bythe occurrence of magmatic pulses, have a strombolian character.