Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Parícutin: The World's Youngest Volcano

Starting point is 00:00:00 There are estimated to be over 1,300 active volcanoes in the world today. Almost all of them have one thing in common. They were around well before there were humans to record their creation. In fact, their creation might have taken thousands of years. However, there is one volcano we know quite a bit about, because we were around when it was born, and we have everything on film. Learn more about Parakutin, the volcano that we witnessed being born on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:44 ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Volcanoes are things that happen very slowly and then sometimes all at once. For example, monoloa on the Big Island of Hawaii is estimated to have erupted for about 700,000 years. It may go decades with absolutely nothing happening on the surface, and then suddenly it'll engage in spasms of activity. When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, all the volcanoes were already there.

Starting point is 00:01:29 They learned to live with them, but they weren't there to witness their creation. The same story is true all over the world. Pick your volcano, and it was there before people were around to document its creation. This is what makes the subject of this episode so interesting. Paracutin is the world's youngest volcano. The story starts in Mexico in 1943, near the village of Paracutin, in the state of Michoacan, located about 320 kilometers west of Mexico City. In particular, it starts with a single farmer by the name of Dionysio Pulido.

Starting point is 00:02:01 Polito grew corn, and on his land, there was a hole in the ground. It wasn't that big, and he never thought much of it. It was about 15 feet wide and three feet deep, or five meters wide and one meter deep. Polito just sort of assumed that it might have been the entrance to an old abandoned Spanish mine. He sort of used the hole as a garbage dump. He would often throw dirt or brush into it, or he might store the yolk for his ox in the hole rather than bringing it in from the field. But there was something odd about the hole, however.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Children from the village would often play around it and said that it gave off heat, made funny sounds, and sometimes smelled really bad. The other odd thing that Pulito noticed after a while was that despite throwing stuff into the hole, it never seemed to fill up. The day the mystery hole revealed itself was on February 20th, 1943. It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon when he and his family were clearing brush in preparation for the spring corn planting. In the weeks leading up to February 20th, there had been rumblings that had been heard all over the village. No one was really sure where the noises came from because there were no thunder clouds in the sky. But on February 20th, all the noises went silent. When Pulito went to his field, he noticed that the hole had changed, dramatically.

Starting point is 00:03:12 It was no longer a short, shallow hole in the ground. It was now a 150 feet long and six feet deep. When later asked about what he found, he was reported to have said, quote, Here's something new and strange. Given his rather understated reaction to the new giant hole in his farm field, he, his wife and his son, went to work clearing brush. However, things kept happening. He said, quote,

Starting point is 00:03:36 In the hole, the ground swelled and raised itself, and a kind of smoke or fine dust, gray-like ashes began to rise up in a portion of the crack. With a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous, there was a smell of sulfur, end quote. The bottom of the hole began heaving up and down. Smoke and ash began to emanate from the hole, and a nearby grove of pine trees burst into flame.

Starting point is 00:03:57 As smoke continued to billow out of the hole, the Pulido family was split up and couldn't see each other. His wife, Paula, and his son, not able to find Dionysio, headed to the village. Dionysio, also unable to find his wife and son, or ox, mounted his horse and also went to the village in hopes that they would already be there, which they all were. Later that night, the village priest organized a party to go out and examine the rupture and saw the glowing rocks were being spat out of the ground. The volcanic activity was so heavy that most of the people in the village fled for their safety, which was a good idea. Just 24 hours after the activity began, where there was previously just a cornfield, there was now a cinder cone 50 meters or 150 feet high.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And by the end of the first week, it was around 150 meters or 500 feet high. By this time, the entire valley that the village was in was covered in ash, and everyone who hadn't evacuated already now had no choice but to leave. The volcano also began to attract a crowd who came to see the glowing bombs being thrown out, especially at night. The volcano, now dubbed the Pericoutine volcano after the village, kept ejecting material and growing. By June, the cinder cone had reached a height of 200 meters, and in October it was 365 meters. On October 18th, the volcano entered a new phase, where lateral vents began to open on the side of the cone,

Starting point is 00:05:20 which began to threaten the nearby town of San Juan Parangari Kutrio. The citizens of San Juan Parangari Kutrio, with a few weeks' lead time, managed to move most of their possessions, including the contents of the local church. San Juan Parangarikutrii Kutri and Parakutin were both eventually totally covered in lava and ash. The volcano kept erupting, and it captured the attention of the world. Magazines and New Israel crews came to see the volcano to report about it, despite the fact that this was in the middle of World War II. Pan Am Airlines rerouted their flights to Mexico City so that passengers could see the volcano from the air.

Starting point is 00:05:55 In 1947, Hollywood shot a film on location called The Captain from Castile, which used the smoking volcano as a backdrop, and they also hired locals as extras. Artists from Mexico flooded to the region to paint the volcano, and it became a common theme for a whole generation of Mexican artists. The volcano continued to erupt for nine years and didn't come to rest until 1952. This was a huge deal for volcanologists and geologists because it was the first and only time they were able to observe a volcano's entire life cycle from the very beginning. The two researchers who spent years at the site studying the volcano were William Foshag of the Smithsonian Institute and Dr. Hennaro Gonzalez-Rena of the Mexican government. Between 1943 and 1948, over 50 scientific papers were written about the volcano, which was largely responsible for the biggest increase in our understanding of how voluminolcano. As for Dionysio Pulido, even after the volcano erupted, he technically owned the land, and so he owned the volcano. Despite losing his farm and income, he had a sense of humor about everything.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Before having to leave his home for the last time, he posted a sign which read, quote, This volcano is owned and operated by Dionysio Pulido. Pulido eventually sold the land to the Mexican painter Harardo Mario Coronado, who went by the name Dr. Atal. He wrote a book in 1950 titled How a Volcano is Born and Grows, Paracutin. He actually lost his leg observing the volcano during one of his expeditions. You can actually visit the Paracutin volcano today. It's actually a major tourist attraction. To visit, you have to make it to the village of Angawan.

Starting point is 00:07:35 From there, you can travel on horseback to the volcano and visit the ruins of the church at San Juan Parangari Kutrio. The only thing of the church that can be seen are its towers that stick out of the hardened lava that covered it. So what exactly happened? How did a farm field become a volcano so quickly? Padocutin lies on what's known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. It's a region that runs from the Atlantic to the Pacific across southern central Mexico. Patrocutine was located in a particularly thin spot on the crust where the lava was able to break through its surface. It was the geological equivalent of opening up a pressurized container. These sort of events probably happen frequently in geologic time, but just a

Starting point is 00:08:16 don't frequently happen in terms of human time. It's highly unlikely that we will ever witness anything like this again anytime soon. So if you're tired of the same old boring geology with rocks that are millions or billions of years old and are looking for something a bit more fresh, check out the Paracoutin volcano, the youngest, hippest volcano in the entire world. Everything Everywhere Daily is an airwave media podcast. The executive producer is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over at Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head on over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place

Starting point is 00:08:59 where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about show episodes, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes. In Western Mexico, a new volcano comes to life. Huge columns of smoke, below skyward, as ripping explosions within the fiery crater are heard for more than 100 miles. Moulton lava pouring from the subterranean inferno buried a village of 600 people. The cone, after three days of activity, is 1,200 feet high. By night, the flaming lava presents an awe-inspiring spectacle. Explosions 30 times a minute.

Starting point is 00:10:12 Amazing scenes of a phenomenon of nature.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Parícutin: The World's Youngest Volcano

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