Sabancaya
Sabancaya is an active stratovolcano in the Andes of southern Peru, about northwest of Arequipa. It is considered part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, one of the three distinct volcanic belts of the Andes. The Central Volcanic Zone includes a number of volcanoes, some of which, like Huaynaputina, have had large eruptions, and others, such as Sabancaya and Ubinas, have been active in historical time. Sabancaya forms a volcanic complex together with Hualca Hualca to the north and Ampato to the south and has erupted andesite and dacite. It is covered by a small ice cap, which leads to a risk of lahars during eruptions.
Sabancaya has generated numerous long lava flows, especially during the early Holocene, while activity in the later Holocene has been more explosive. Historical reports indicate eruptions during the 18th century. The volcano returned to activity in 1986, culminating in a large eruption in 1990. Since then, it has been continuously active with the emission of ash and gas.
Name origin and first ascent
The name "Sabancaya" is Quechua and means tongue of fire or spitting volcano, likely a reference to the eruptive activity. Another version is Sahuancqueya. The name is attested from 1595, implying that volcanic activity was observed since that date. The summit was first ascended in 1966, with the first ascent of all three summits in 1972.Geography and geomorphology
Sabancaya lies about northwest of Arequipa and southwest of Chivay, in the Caylloma Province of the Arequipa Department. The Rio Colca valley is located north of the Sabancaya-Hualca Hualca-Ampato volcano complex. The main economic activities in the area are agriculture, animal husbandry and tourism. Access to the volcano is through the Chivay-Arequipa road, from which a dirt road departs at Patapampa that leads to the volcano. Two other routes pass Achoma and Hornillos, and via Huambo.Regional
The subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate in the Peru-Chile Trench leads to volcanic activity in the Andes. This volcanic activity presently occurs in three segments, the Northern Volcanic Zone, the Central Volcanic Zone and the Southern Volcanic Zone. There is an additional volcanic belt south of the Southern Volcanic Zone, the Austral Volcanic Zone, associated with the subduction of the Antarctic Plate. Sabancaya is located in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, which extends through southern Peru. Many volcanoes in the Central Volcanic Zone are poorly known, owing to their remote locations and adverse conditions such as high altitude.Sabancaya is part of a series of volcanoes that line the southwestern coast of Peru at a distance of roughly from the shore. Of these volcanoes, Andagua volcanic field, Sabancaya, El Misti, Ubinas, Huaynaputina, Ticsani, Tutupaca and Yucamane have been active during historical time, erupting forty-five times during the past six centuries. Further volcanoes in the area with Pliocene-Quaternary activity are Sara Sara, Auquihuato, Solimana, Coropuna, Huambo volcanic field, Quimsachata, Chachani, Purupuruni, Casiri and Tacora. All these volcanoes are considered part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, and lie east of the Peru-Chile Trench. Notable among them are Ampato and Coropuna for exceeding a height of, Huaynaputina and El Misti for their large eruptions, and Ubinas and Sabancaya for their recent activity.
These volcanoes are found in places where strike-slip faults, which delimit the volcanic arc and strike along its length, intersect additional faults formed by extensional tectonics. Such faults, mainly normal faults, occur around Sabancaya as well and include the Huambo-Cabanaconde, the Huanca, the Ichupampa, the Pampa Sepina, Sepina, Solarpampa and Trigal faults; the volcanoes Ampato and Sabancaya are aligned on the Sepina fault, which may thus be responsible for their existence. These fault systems are still active and experience occasional earthquakes and deformation, and their activity appears to be in part triggered by underground magma movements at Sabancaya. Large fractures opened up in the ground during the 1990s eruptions. Geological scale fractures in the crust formed by pulling-apart motion may be the ultimate source of volcanism at Sabancaya.
Local
Sabancaya is, or high and rises above the surrounding terrain. It forms a group of volcanoes with the northern Hualca Hualca and the southern Ampato in the Cordillera Occidental, which tower above the Colca Canyon in the north and the Siguas Valley in the southwest. Ampato and the more heavily eroded Hualca Hualca are the dominant volcanoes of this group, with Sabancaya forming a northeastward extension of the former away from Ampato's summit. There is evidence of age progression from the oldest, Hualca Hualca, over Ampato, to the youngest volcano, Sabancaya. Laguna Mucurca and the Huambo volcanic field are on the western side of Sabancaya.Sabancaya consists of two separate centres that are formed by neighbouring domes, Sabancaya I North/Sabancaya-1 and Sabancaya II South/Sabancaya-2. The wide summit crater at the top of the volcano lies, depending on the source, either on the northern dome or between these two domes, with traces of an additional crater just northeast. A lava dome-flow complex forms the southern summit. Despite the presence of an ice cap, lava flows are recognizable in the summit area. Ongoing activity causes changes in the appearance of the summit region; for example, the 1990 eruption widened the crater and produced large fractures. The volcano has a volume of about. The upper slopes of the volcano are steep, and become gentler at its foot. A parasitic vent east of the summit has been the source of lava flows, and a small dome lies at the same distance northwest from the summit.
A set of over 42 Holocene lava flows emanate from the volcano, and cover a surface area of about, with individual lava flows extending up to east and west from between its two neighbours. The lava flows at larger distances are older than the ones close to the vent. These flows are blocky, have lobe structures and reach thicknesses of ; the total thickness of this pile of lava flows is about. Their diverse structures have been studied. Mudflow deposits have been found around Ampato and Sabancaya. Pyroclastic flow deposits are also found, but they might originate from Ampato rather than Sabancaya.
Sabancaya, like its two neighbours, is covered by an ice cap which in 1988 extended to distances of from the summit. In 1997, a surface area of was reported. The maximum thickness was in the summit area, decreasing to on steeper slopes. Penitents rise from the ice in some places. In 1998, the snowline was at altitude, varying from to the northwest to to the northeast. It lies above the freezing level height, as the climate is dry and impedes glacier development. Between 1986 and 2016 the mountain lost over three quarters of its ice cap, and the remaining ice field broke up into several ice bodies. Moraines at elevations of above sea level testify to the occurrence of more extensive glaciation during the last ice age between 25,000 and 17,000 years before present, when ice covered an area of on the three volcanoes; these moraines have diverted some lava flows. In turn, younger lava flows were emplaced on glacial valleys. Younger moraines are found at higher altitudes, above sea level, and may have formed between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, shortly after the beginning of the Holocene. Most of Sabancaya post-dates the last ice age and is thus relatively unaffected by glaciation.
The magma chamber of Sabancaya is located beneath Hualca Hualca and Pampa Sepina northeast of Sabancaya about away from the summit. Between 1992 and 1996, this area inflated at a depth of below sea level, indicating that the magma supply system of Sabancaya may not be centered directly below the volcano. A phase of ground uplift at Hualca Hualca volcano and earthquake swarms in 1990 and later seismic activity under Hualca Hualca indicate that the magma chamber of Sabancaya is actually under the neighbouring volcano, a not uncommon phenomenon at volcanoes. Uplift was also observed between 2013 and 2019. Electrical techniques like magnetotelluric analysis and spontaneous potential analysis have found a potential hydrothermal system under Sabancaya and traces of an old caldera. Deeper below the volcano, low seismic velocity anomalies in the crust may be associated with volcanism at Sabancaya.
Geology
The tectonic conditions in the region have not been constant over time; at various times the plates approached each other at higher speed, and this led to a compressional tectonic regimen. In the Western Cordillera however, tensional faulting facilitated the occurrence of voluminous volcanism. This faulting is still underway and produces earthquakes in the area.The basement of the volcano is formed by Precambrian rocks of the "Arequipa Massif", which are up to 1.9 billion years old. They are overlaid by various sediments and volcanic formations of Mesozoic and Cenozoic age. Especially during the Neogene, the supply of volcanic material was high and dominated the region, forming a volcanic "foot"; the present volcanoes are constructed on this volcanic "foot" formed by the Tacaza and Barroso sequences. This "foot" is made out of an ignimbrite plateau that drops down south. The "foot" beneath Ampato, Hualca Hualca and Sabancaya has been dated 2.2 ±0.15 million years ago, while a lava flow beneath the first and the last of these is about 0.8 ±0.04 million years old. Sometimes the volcanoes are classified within the Barroso sequence.
Composition
Fresh volcanites of Sabancaya consist of porphyritic andesite and dacite, with andesite about twice as common as dacite. They form a potassium-rich calc-alkaline suite similar to other volcanoes in southern Peru; the andesites occasionally appear as fine-grained enclaves. The rocks are not very vesicular and contain a moderate amount of phenocrysts. Minerals encountered in both phenocrysts and groundmass are amphibole, biotite, hornblende, iron oxide, plagioclase, pyroxene and titanium oxide; degraded olivine is also found. The rocks erupted by Sabancaya, Ampato and Hualca Hualca have similar compositions.The magmas formed at temperatures of with uncertainties of ; the highest temperatures are associated with the 1992 eruption products. Fluids from the downgoing slab chemically alter the overlying mantle, which eventually melts to produce a primitive magma. In various magma chambers, magma genesis involved processes of magma mixing which formed at least part of the andesites and fractional crystallization which gave rise to the dacites. Partial crystallization and flow events within the magma chamber caused the formation of the andesite enclaves. The total magma production rate of Sabancaya without accounting for repose periods is about and is stored in a magma chamber under Hualca Hualca, horizontal distance from Sabancaya, at depth.
Sabancaya is a source of volcanic gases such as and. The amount of water emitted by Sabancaya is noticeably large for a volcano ; the source of this water might be an evaporating hydrothermal system in the volcano. Together with Ubinas Sabancaya is among the main emitters of, and in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes and among the top fifteen volcanic emitters on Earth. Sulfur dioxide is transported by winds on to the Pacific Ocean, where it affects the low stratocumulus clouds, but also to Arequipa where it contributes to air pollution. Much of the gas is derived from magma that does not ascend to the surface. The volcano also produces aerosols. The various emissions of Sabancaya have been recorded at research stations and ice cores.