Villarrica Volcano
Volcán Villarrica
Interesting facts
- The Spanish founded the city of Villarrica in 1552 near today's Pucón; it was later moved west, possibly after lahars buried the gold placers that made it rich.
- An eruption in 1562 scattered thin layers of ash as far as about 200 kilometres from the volcano.
- The volcano has an estimated volume of about 250 cubic kilometres and contains volcanic caves as well as its many scoria cones.
- Constant degassing from the lava lake makes the magma more viscous, which in turn raises the volcano's potential for explosive eruptions.
- Villarrica, Quetrupillán and Lanín line up along an ancient crustal fracture, an alignment unusual because it cuts across the main north-south fault of the region.
- A thin dusting of ash speeds up the melting of Villarrica's glaciers, but a layer thicker than about 5 centimetres insulates the ice and slows it down.
- During the 1964 eruption, lahars rushing north destroyed bridges between Villarrica and Pucón and raised the level of Lake Villarrica, flooding low pastures.
- In the 1971 eruption, sulphurous gases made the air unbreathable in the towns of Villarrica and Pucón.
- About 3,700 years ago a partial collapse of the upper cone produced the Pucón Ignimbrite, one of two great pyroclastic layers visible around the volcano.
- Villarrica is one of nine volcanoes chosen by the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project to measure how much carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide volcanoes release.
Why it is worth it
Villarrica is one of the most perfectly shaped volcanoes in the southern Andes: a snow- and ice-covered cone of 2,847 metres (some sources give 2,860) that rises directly above Lake Villarrica and the town of Pucón, frequently trailing a thin plume of gas from its summit. It is also one of the very few volcanoes in the world known to hold an active lava lake within its crater, which is about 200 metres wide.
The Mapuche call the mountain Ruka Pillañ, the house of the pillán, a powerful spirit of the volcanoes. Geologically it is a basaltic-andesitic stratovolcano of the upper Pleistocene or younger, built inside the remains of two older calderas that collapsed about 100,000 and 13,700 years ago; around 26 scoria cones dot its flanks, and the whole edifice covers some 400 km². Villarrica is the westernmost of three volcanoes aligned towards the Argentine border, followed by Quetrupillán and Lanín, and it straddles the boundary between the Araucanía and Los Ríos regions, between Lake Villarrica to the north and Lake Calafquén to the south.
Its history is one of frequent eruptions. Significant twentieth-century episodes took place in 1948–49, 1963–64, 1971 and 1984–85; during the 1963–64 eruption lahars killed 27 people at Coñaripe, and the eruption of 1971 claimed at least 15 lives. A short eruption on 3 March 2015 led to the evacuation of more than 3,000 people. Glaciers cover about 40 km² of the cone, the largest being Pichillancahue-Turbio on the south-eastern flank, though they lost about a quarter of their area between 1961 and 2003. The volcano lies within Villarrica National Park.
Getting there
The volcano rises above the resort town of Pucón, about 15 km from the summit, on the eastern shore of Lake Villarrica in southern Chile. The nearest airport is La Araucanía International Airport (ZCO) near Temuco, about 83 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Termas Geométricas 10.6 km · thermal-bath
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Villarrica is one of Chile's most active volcanoes, rising above the lake and town of the same name, 750 km (470 mi) south of Santiago. It is also known as Rucapillán, a Mapuche word meaning "great spirit's house" or " the demon's house". It is the westernmost of three large stratovolcanoes that trend northwest to southeast obliquely perpendicular to the Andean chain along the Mocha-Villarrica Fault Zone, and along with Quetrupillán and the Chilean portion of Lanín, are protected within Villarrica National Park. Guided ascents are popular during summer months.
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