Blanco, Cerro Volcano — Argentina

The Cerro Blanco volcanic complex contains the 5-km-diameter Cerro Blanco (or Robledo) caldera in NW Argentina, 80 km SW of the Cerro Galán caldera. Cerro Blanco was the site of the largest known Holocene eruption in the Central Andes about 4,200 years BP (Fernandez-Turiel et al., 2013). The rhyolitic Plinian eruption produced ashfall over about 110 km3 and widespread ignimbrite deposits. The large Cerro Blanco del Robledo lava dome overgrew the SW rim of the caldera and is surrounded by extensive rhyolitic pumice-fall deposits. Satellite geodetic surveys in the central Andes (Pritchard and Simons, 2002) showed subsidence of the caldera in the 1990s.