San Vicente (also known as Chichontepec or Las Chiches) is a
stratovolcano
A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...
in central
El Salvador
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...
. It is located next to the town of
San Vicente (hence the name) and is the second highest volcano in El Salvador. In the indigenous language
Nahuat
Nawat (academically Pipil, also known as Nahuat) is a Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan family. Before Spanish colonization it was spoken in several parts of present-day Central ...
, Chichontepec means ''the mountain of the two breasts'', because its
double summit
Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Multiplication by 2
* Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length
* A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1
* A ...
resembles a woman's
bosom. The volcano has two
crater
A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...
s, one located in each summit, although not exactly at the top. A dense jungle covers both summits. Numerous
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...
s and
fumarole
A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or another rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...
s are found on the northern and western flanks of the volcano. To the northeast, at 820 metres in a ravine of 180 metres longitude, there are fumaroles—fountains of clear and muddy water or small volcanoes of mud.
The last significant eruption occurred more than 1,700 years ago. The volcano may have had a very long history of repeated, and sometimes violent, eruptions, and at least once a large section of the volcano collapsed in a massive
landslide
Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...
.
On August 9, 1995,
Aviateca Flight 901 crashed at the volcano, killing all 65 people on board.
[ ]
See also
*
List of volcanoes in El Salvador
This is a list of active and extinct volcanoes in El Salvador.
Volcanoes
See also
* Central America Volcanic Arc
* List of volcanoes in Guatemala
* List of volcanoes in Honduras
* List of volcanoes in Nicaragua
References
{{Cent ...
*
List of stratovolcanoes
A list of stratovolcanoes follows below.
Africa
Cameroon
* Mount Manengouba, Eboga stratovolcano
* Little Mount Cameroon
* Mount Cameroon
* Mount Oku
Democratic Republic of Congo
* Mount Nyiragongo, Goma; designated as a Decade Volcano
...
*
Breast-shaped hill
Some breast-shaped hills are named "wikt:pap#Etymology 2, pap", an archaic word for the breast or nipple of a woman, particularly those with a small hilltop protuberance. Such anthropomorphic geographic features are found in different parts of t ...
References
Mountains of El Salvador
Stratovolcanoes of El Salvador
North American 2000 m summits
{{ElSalvador-geo-stub