What's the Quilotoa

Quilotoa is some kind of lake, but it's not any kind of lake. It is inside a volcano. That's one thing you won't see everywhere, but Ecuador's got such a place. That's one more reason to love this country, full of so many natural wonders, isn't it? The Quilotoa is a water-filled caldera and the westernmost volcano in the Ecuadorian Andes. The 3 kilometres wide caldera was formed by the collapse of this dacite volcano following a catastrophic VEI-6 eruption about 800 years ago, which produced pyroclastic flows and lahars that reached the Pacific Ocean, and spread an airborne deposit of volcanic ash throughout the northern Andes. more info about the Quilotoa at the wikipedia October 17th, 2008 / Tags: volcanoes, lakes, ecuador / Trackback