The volcano, which is considered active because it is under 5,000 years old, is located on the Liquiñe-Ofqui fault.
Authorities announced on Tuesday (April 6, 2021) that geologists from the Universidad de Chile had discovered a new active volcano in Chilean Patagonia, which they baptized “Gran Mate.” The name comes from the shape of its caldera, 5 kilometers in diameter, similar to the gourd-shaped container used to drink yerba mate, a traditional South American infusion.
The volcano, which is considered active because it is under 5,000 years old, is located on the Liquiñe-Ofqui fault, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of the city of Coyhaique in the Aysén Region, some 1,600 kilometers (995 miles) south of Santiago.
“The Aysén Region experiences significant volcanic activity, because it is the meeting point of the Antarctic and Nazca plates with the South American plate. The Liquiñe-Ofqui fault controls the location of southern Chile’s volcanoes on the surface. Mate Grande is in the middle of the fault,” explained Gregory De Pascale, author of the publication that appears in the journal Nature and academic at the Universidad de Chile.
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