VOLCANIC MAZES OF CATAMARCA´S HIGHLANDS
The Puna Catamarqueña is a great open-air museum for geologists, volcanologists and other interested visitors. One of the biggest attractions is certainly the large pumice stone field of about 30 km2 near the small town of El Peñon which holds labyrinths of astonishing random shapes.
Embedded between amazing volcanic cones and sand dunes we explore the pumice field, locally known as “Campo de Piedra Pómez”.
Formed by boiling hot volcanic ashes this surreal environment was sculpted by wind and weather into capricious figures and silhouettes that allows us to take a look into the history of Andean volcanism and geology.
Pumice is created when a volcano or side crater collapses, releasing a glow avalanche with red-hot stone and gases and rushing down the volcanic slope as a pyroclastic flow at speeds of up to 1000 km / h. Depending on the violence of the eruption, these glowing clouds can spread a hundred or more kilometers, destroying everything on their way.
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***Photographic material provided by:
Kurt Fischbacher, María Victoria de Mattey.
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