Monte Pissis is an extinct

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

on the border of the

La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...

and Catamarca

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

in Argentina, to the east of the Chilean

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

and about north of

Aconcagua Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in both the Western Hemisphere and the ...

. The mountain is the second-tallest volcano in the world and the third-highest mountain in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

. Monte Pissis is named after Pedro José Amadeo Pissis, a French geologist who worked for the Chilean government. Due to its location in the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...

, the mountain has very dry conditions but features an extensive

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

, with

crevasse A crevasse is a deep crack that forms in a glacier or ice sheet. Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the shear stress generated when two semi-rigid pieces above a plastic substrate have different rate ...

s, which is unique in the region. The peak is the highest summit on Earth without a permanent glacier.

Elevation

A 1994 Argentine expedition claimed —using

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

technology available at the time— that the elevation of Monte Pissis was , higher than

Ojos del Salado Nevado Ojos del Salado is a Dormant volcano, dormant complex volcano in the Andes on the Argentina–Chile border. It is the highest volcano on Earth and the highest peak in Chile. The upper reaches of Ojos del Salado consist of several overlapp ...

. Ten years later, with the use of higher precision systems, several other surveys proved that those measurements were inaccurate: in 2005, an Austrian team performed a DGPS survey of Pissis' summit and found the elevation to be . In 2006 an international expedition surveyed the height on the summit, and found results in agreement with an elevation around . This was later confirmed by a 2007 Chilean-Argentine-European expedition, which surveyed both Ojos del Salado and Monte Pissis and provisionally found the former to be and the latter .

Geology

Monte Pissis is a large

andesitic Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

dacitic Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...

volcanic centre. It was formed between 6.6 and 6.2 million years ago. Like Cerro Bonete Chico it is one of the large volcanic complexes formed at that time over a deforming

Nazca Nazca (; sometimes spelled Nasca; possibly from ) is a city and system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru. The city of Nazca is the largest in the Nazca Province. The name is derived from the Nazca culture, which flourished in the area be ...

slab Slab or SLAB may refer to: Physical materials * Concrete slab, a flat concrete plate used in construction * Stone slab, a flat stone used in construction * Slab (casting), a length of metal * Slab (geology), that portion of a tectonic plate that ...

Volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism, volcanicity, or volcanic activity is the phenomenon where solids, liquids, gases, and their mixtures erupt to the surface of a solid-surface astronomical body such as a planet or a moon. It is caused by the presence of a he ...

in the area ceased about 2 million years ago. Monte Pissis, Cerro Bonete Chico and Incapillo form a large volcanic complex that is among the highest in the world. Incapillo formed after Monte Pissis had ceased erupting, and

hydrothermal Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...

activity at Incapillo may continue to this day.

Climbing

Until recently, this mountain had received very little attention. The first successful recorded ascent was made in 1937 by Polish climbers Stefan Osiecki and Jan Alfred Szczepański of the Second Polish Andean Expedition. The mountain was not climbed again until 1985. The advent of mining in the area has resulted in the construction of basic roads in the last 15 years. This has helped tourism to develop in the Atacama Desert, and now more people ascend the mountain, usually with a previous stop in Fiambalá to organise the climb. Approaching it from neighbouring Chile is also possible but involves a longer route. As the mountain is very high and remote, a long approach is required but the ascent is easy and does not require any specific climbing skill. Nevertheless, warm clothing and good shoes are essential, as the temperature during the night can drop as low as and winds can be very strong. Usually most teams ascend the peak during December to March, the warmest period of the year. The peak is one of the most heavily glaciated peaks in the Atacama Desert, although the glaciated area starts only at , and the size of the glacier is small compared to the overall surface of the mountain. From the base of the mountain at , several days of hiking are required. The summit is usually reached directly from a high camp at at the edge of the glacier.

References

Bibliography

Notes

External links

Pissis in Andeshandbook

Pissis on Summitpost

Pissis Jan-2008 climb on Distantpeak
{{Seven Third Summits Pissis Mountains of Catamarca Province Mountains of La Rioja Province, Argentina Volcanoes of La Rioja Province, Argentina Pissis Pissis Seven Third Summits Six-thousanders of the Andes Miocene stratovolcanoes