Nuevo Mundo volcano

Nuevo Mundo volcano
Elevation 5,438 m (17,841 ft)[1]
Prominence 738 m (2,421 ft)
Location
Location Bolivia
Range Cordillera Oriental
Coordinates 19°46′27″S 66°28′42″W / 19.77417°S 66.47833°W
Geology
Type Stratovolcano
Age of rock Holocene
Last eruption c. 1400

The Nuevo Mundo volcano (Jatun Mundo Quri Warani) is a stratovolcano, lava dome and a lava flow complex between Potosí and Uyuni, Bolivia, in the Andes rising to a peak at 5,438 metres (17,841 ft).[2] It is located in the Potosí Department, Antonio Quijarro Province, Tomave Municipality.[3] It lies north-east of the mountains Uyuni and Kuntur Chukuña, north of the mountain Chuqi Warani (Choque Huarani) and south of the Sirk'i.

Name

Jatun Mundo Quri Warani is a combination of Spanish, Quechua and possibly Aymara. Jatun (hatun) means "big" in Quechua while mundo is Spanish for "world". Quri means gold (precious metal) in both Aymara and Quechua, while wara is the Aymara word for scepter. The -ni suffix indicates ownership, so warani means "the one with a scepter" in Aymarya, while in Quechua warani means "constellation".[4][5] With hispanicized spellings, the name is also rendered as Jatun Mundo Khori Huarani or Jatun Mundo Khorihuarani.[2]

History

The first mountaineering in the area was before 1903, by a Frenchman, Georges Courty, whose notes led to the mysterious entry in the 1987 book Mountaineering in the Andes by Jill Neate, “Nuevo Mundo, 6020 m, location uncertain.”[6]

The German geologist Frederic Ahlfeld, an avid mountaineer, moved to Bolivia in 1924. He began exploring the mountains in Potosí Department after World War II, climbing a number of the peaks. In a letter to the historian and mountaineer Evelio Echevarría in 1962, Ahlfeld stated that because of the supposed height of Nuevo Mundo one of the two Cerro Lípez peaks might be a possible candidate for Monsieur Courty’s mysterious mountain.[7] However, in 1969, in Ahlfeld's book Geografia Fisica de Bolivia,[8] Ahlfeld presented a drawing[9] of a Nuevo Mundo (5438 m.) with its description,[10] and at a location southwest of Potosí and just north of the small village Potoco, far away from Cerro Lípez.

At the end of the 1990s, Toto Aramayo, Yossi Brain and Dakin Cook undertook the search for Nuevo Mundo, and they found Ahlfeld’s Nuevo Mundo at Latitude:19°47'0"S, Longitude: 66°29'0"W.[7] The Bolivian government and the USGS recognize this as the correct identification of Nuevo Mundo, although some maps[11] still as of 2013 labeled Cerro Lípez as Nuevo Mundo.

Geology

Nuevo Mundo is a complex eruption center on the edge of the Los Frailes Plateau with a stratovolcano which is capped by cinder cones (mostly of ash and pumice).[12] At the base level there are two lava flows (of a viscous dacite) that erupted along a north-south fault. Apparently at the same time there were block-and-ash flows to the east.[1] Later a highly explosive Plinian eruption produced an ash fall that extended over 200 km to the east, as far as Potosí. This eruption was quite recent, but it predated the arrival of the Spanish in 1533. While earlier eruption centers, such as the Khari Khari caldera, Wila Qullu, Kuntur Nasa, Cerro Villacolo, Cerro Wanapa Pampa created the Los Frailes Plateau, Nuevo Mundo overlaid those Los Frailes plateau deposits in the Holocene with huge ignimbrite deposits, which are mostly pyroclastic dacite and andesite.[13][14]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Nuevo Mundo". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Río Mulato, Bolivia, Sheet SE 19-16 (topographic map, scale 1:250,000), Series 1501 Air, United States Defense Mapping Agency, March 1995
  3. ↑ Tomave Municipality: population data and map
  4. ↑ www.katari.org Quechua-Spanish dictionary: jatun (adj.) - Grande, superior, principal; quri (s.). - Metal precioso, oro; wara (adj.) - Cetro, bastón de mando.
  5. ↑ Teofilo Laime Ajacopa, Diccionario Bilingüe Iskay simipi yuyayk'ancha, La Paz, 2007 (Quechua-Spanish dictionary): quri - s. Oro; warani - s. Constelación, Grupo de estrellas.
  6. ↑ Neate, Jill (1987) Mountaineering in the Andes: a sourcebook for climbers Expedition Advisory Centre, London, England, ISBN 0-907649-33-5
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Brain, Y. (1999) "Climbs and Expeditions: Bolivia" American Alpine Journal p.323
  8. ↑ Ahlfeld, Federico E. (1969) Geografía de Bolivia: geografía física Editorial Los Amigos del Libro, La Paz, OCLC 2903813
  9. ↑ Ahlfeld Geografia Fisica de Bolivia p.158
  10. ↑ Ahlfeld Geografia Fisica de Bolivia p. 156-157
  11. ↑ MSN Encarta Map accessed 11 March 2006 and 11 March 2007 and 12 May 2013
  12. ↑ "Nuevo Mundo" from the University of North Dakota Volcanology WebSite
  13. ↑ Los Frailes Plateau Info from the University of North Dakota Volcanology WebSite
  14. ↑ Frailes Plateau, Volcano World