Volcano of the Week #18 - Puyehue-Cordon Caulle

For the second time in the long history of this feature the volcano of the week is more accurately comprised of multiple volcanoes- in this case four or two (depending on how accurate you are being, all kinds of stratovolcanoes and fissure vents). There is a fault along the Andes which causes all of this volcanism. As this Chilean volcano has been erupting for a while now it's probably high time that I covered it. This eruption started on 3rd June and has caused flight chaos across the southern hemisphere (this definitely happens a lot these days) and the ash cloud has reached Cape Town, Buenos Aires and Melbourne. The eruption has been accompanied by many earthquakes which is characteristic of the plates here, the eruption has also been accompanied by violent storms. Around 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area however as many people have had to leave their livestock in the area this was not well received. The threat to livestock is large and Argentina have declared a state of emergency for farmers which is likely to be the biggest and longest lasting implication of this eruption. This has been seen in many previous eruptions such as Tambora and Laki which have caused loss of crop and famine. Another notable eruption of Puyehue-Cordon Caulle was in 1960 after the largest earthquake ever recorded showing again the unstable plate tectonics in Chile. My favourite thing about this volcano is probably the flora as the volcano is located in a temperature rainforest and then turns in tundra and desert which must be pretty spectacular.