San Pedro-Pellado

Geography & Climate

San Pedro-Pellado is located in Chile, within the Southern Andean Volcanic Arc of the broader South America Volcanic Regions. Situated at 35.99° S, 70.85° W in the Southern Hemisphere, the volcano lies within a temperate climate zone. Standing at 3,621 meters above sea level, San Pedro-Pellado towers above the alpine zone, where vegetation gives way to bare rock, snow, and ice for much of the year. The high elevation means the upper slopes experience significantly colder temperatures than surrounding lowlands. The volcanic landform is characterized as a composite, which describes the physical shape and structure of the volcanic edifice as observed from the surface.

Geological Context

San Pedro-Pellado sits in a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, creating intense heat and pressure that generates magma. Subduction zones are responsible for many of the world's most explosive volcanoes and deadliest eruptions. For communities in Chile near San Pedro-Pellado, this tectonic setting means the volcano is capable of producing powerful explosive eruptions, pyroclastic flows, and lahars that can threaten populated areas within tens of kilometers of the summit. The dominant rock type is andesite / basaltic andesite, a dark, fine-grained volcanic rock that forms from rapidly cooling, low-viscosity lava. Basaltic eruptions tend to be less explosive and produce fluid lava flows that can travel long distances. While less immediately dangerous than explosive eruptions, basaltic lava flows can destroy structures and infrastructure in their path, and volcanic gases released during these eruptions can affect air quality over a wide area.

GVP Reference Summary

The San Pedro-Pellado volcanic complex (also known as San Pedro-Tatara) has been active from the Pliocene to the Holocene. The Tatara-San Pedro edifice overlies the deeply eroded Pellado stratovolcano; both were constructed within the 6 x 12 km Río Colorado caldera, which formed during an eruption about 0.5 million years ago. The Tatara basaltic andesite shield volcano at the western end of the complex contains stacked sequences of up to 100 or more lava flows forming up to 1500 m of relief. The glacier-filled summit crater of the 3621-m-high dominantly andesitic San Pedro stratovolcano, which overlies the Tatara edifice, contains a young scoria cone that was the site of the most recent eruptions. A major Holocene E-flank debris avalanche filled the Río de la Puente valley to the south and was followed by eruptions originating within the avalanche scarp low on the east flank that produced lava flows down the Estero Pellado drainage. No historical eruptions have been recorded, but fumaroles are found SE of Pellado.

— Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program