Scientists Confirm the Existence of a Large Previously Unknown Volcano in San Carlos, Costa Rica.

The crater is similar to Irazú volcano and eight times bigger than Turrialba. Discovered by a NASA in 2005 it was known as Cerro El Porvenir and it has been dormant for more than a century.

This volcano has been covered by the dense clouds of the virgin jungle of San Carlos in an inaccessible area.

This has been confirmed to La Nación by Wilfredo Rojas, from the Red Sismológica Nacional (RSN/ UCR/ ICE).

This colossus, also known as El Porvenir Mountain, is a dormant volcano with a conic shape.

It is located between San Carlos and Alfaro Ruiz, in the heart of Parque Nacional del Agua Juan Castro Blanco, in San Carlos. It is nearly unknown even to the locals.

This volcano has an altitude of 2,000mt and its crater is 200mt diameter and 60mt deep. The lagoon inside is 200 square meters.

How did they find it? There was no register of this huge volcano’s existence. Neither reports of its activities. Therefore last Thursday (March, 6th 2008), the Scientist had to walk on foot for about eight hours to confirm its existence.

Everything started one and a half year ago, when the experts saw the infrared pictures taken by the airplane WB-57 from NASA in 2005 as part of the Mission called CARTA.

This mission photographed the entire country from the air in order to have a better knowledge of our geography.

“Studying the two active geological faults of the area on the pictures taken, we found that there was a hole or crater on the top of the El Porvenir Mountain. We then of course wanted to visit the area by land, to confirm our suspicions”, said the Geologist Rojas, 48 years old and 28 years of experience in the field.

They contacted local people to guide them inside the national park. This is the best time of the year because of the climatic conditions of the area. There is better visibility now in the dry season. It is usually heavily clouded in the area the rest of the year.

Since they knew the frame of references thanks to the air photos from NASA (497,158 latitude and 250,592 longitude), they used a GPS (Global Positioning System) to guide themselves directly to the crater of the volcano.

The trip on foot started in San José de la Montaña and the reward was finding the crater and the lagoon after the risky descent of an enormous 200mt rock.

“Because it is a volcano, we can not discard the fact that some risk of activity can exist. However, we can not determine that at this moment. We just know, scientifically speaking, that there has not been any activity for a long time”, said geologist Rojas.

“We are starting”. Now, what will follow is to calculate the age and the extension of the hardened lava beds that were found on the area. This analysis will be made with carbon 14 tests, which studies the rests of organic matter in the rocks.

They will also try to analyze the composition of the elements inside the crater (where there is magma in viscose state) and the geological chemistry of the lake in the crater.

“It is really amazing to find a volcano crater of that size in the XXI century. This is just the beginning”, said Rojas.

Between faults. This is the last volcano of the Central Volcanic Mountain Range. It is located between two of the country’s very active geological faults, called the Congo Fault (to its left) and the El Porvenir Fault (to its right). A geological fault is a crack in the surface of the earth.

The Porvenir volcano has several layers of soil that shows its age and activities.

“Even though the vegetation around this volcano shows us that it has not been active for hundreds of years, we know that it is a colossus by the size of its crater, the multiple evidence of lava eruptions, and the considerable magnitude of the rock and gas explosions”, emphasised Rojas.

According to the type of rocks and sediments discovered, these eruptions are from the geological Oleoceno period, which happened 11.000 years ago during the end of the ice age.

Rojas said that the volcano was formed two million years ago at the same time as other volcanoes in the range, as a consequence of this plate being pressed under the Cocos plate in the Costa Rican territory.

Our thanks to our friends at La Nación – Costa Rica’s largest Spanish circulation newspaper for their permission use this article.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.