This is a list of inactive and potentially active volcanoes in metropolitan France.
The Chaîne des Puys, the largest volcanic ensemble in Europe, is located in metropolitan France. [1]
Name | Elevation | Location | Last eruption | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
m | ft | Coordinates | ||||
Chaîne des Puys | ||||||
La Durande | - | - | 45°01′32″N3°23′09″E / 45.0256°N 3.3858°E | - | ||
Puy de Côme | 1252 | 4108 | 45°28′29″N2°33′49″E / 45.4747°N 2.5636°E | 5760 BC | ||
Puy de Dôme | 1464 | 4803 | 45°46′30″N2°58′12″E / 45.775°N 2.97°E | 8700 BC | ||
Puy de Lassolas | 1183 | 3881 | 45°25′26″N2°34′23″E / 45.4238°N 2.5730°E | 6200 BC | ||
Other | ||||||
Bas-Vivarais volcanic field [2] | - | - | - | 19,000 YA | ||
Cantal stratovolcano | 1855 | 6086 | 45°03′32″N2°45′40″E / 45.059°N 2.761°E | 2 MYA | ||
Ile Julia (sovereignty disputed) | -8 | -26 | 37°06′N12°26′E / 37.10°N 12.43°E | 1863 AD | ||
Massif de l'Esterel | 618 | 2028 | 43°18′N6°29′E / 43.30°N 6.49°E | - | ||
Massif du Devès | 1417 | 4649 | 45°01′N3°23′E / 45.02°N 3.38°E | 600,000 YA | ||
Mont Gerbier de Jonc | 1551 | 5089 | 44°50′40″N4°13′12″E / 44.84444°N 4.22000°E | - | ||
Puy de Sancy/Monts Dore | 1886 | 6188 | 45°31′42″N2°48′51″E / 45.52833°N 2.81417°E | 200,000 YA | ||
Le Puy-en-Velay [3] | 744 | 2441 | 45°01′26″N3°31′48″E / 45.024°N 3.53°E | 2.5 MYA | ||
San Peyre [4] | 133 | 436 | 43°18′36″N6°33′40″E / 43.31°N 6.561°E | - | ||
Réunion, officially Department of Réunion, is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. Part of the Mascarene Islands, it is located approximately 679 km (422 mi) east of the island of Madagascar and 175 km (109 mi) southwest of the island of Mauritius. As of January 2023, it had a population of 873,102. Its capital and largest city is Saint-Denis.
Mount Etna, or simply Etna, is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina and Catania. It lies above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe, and the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height of 3,357 m (11,014 ft), though this varies with summit eruptions. Over a six-month period in 2021, Etna erupted so much volcanic material that its height increased by approximately 100 ft (30 m), and the southeastern crater is now the tallest part of the volcano.
A pyroclastic flow is a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of 100 km/h (30 m/s)(~62 mph) but is capable of reaching speeds up to 700 km/h (190 m/s)(~435 mph). The gases and tephra can reach temperatures of about 1,000 °C (1,800 °F).
Mount Pelée or Mont Pelée is an active volcano at the northern end of Martinique, an island and French overseas department in the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc of the Caribbean. Its volcanic cone is composed of stratified layers of hardened ash and solidified lava. Its most recent eruption was in 1932.
Nevado del Ruiz, also known as La Mesa de Herveo is a volcano on the border of the departments of Caldas and Tolima in Colombia, about 129 km (80 mi) west of the capital city Bogotá. It is a stratovolcano composed of many layers of lava alternating with hardened volcanic ash and other pyroclastic rocks. Volcanic activity at Nevado del Ruiz began about two million years ago, since the Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene, with three major eruptive periods. The current volcanic cone formed during the present eruptive period, which began 150,000 years ago.
Puy de Dôme is a lava dome and one of the youngest volcanoes in the Chaîne des Puys region of Massif Central in central France. This chain of volcanoes including numerous cinder cones, lava domes and maars is far from the edge of any tectonic plate. Puy de Dôme was created by a Peléan eruption, some 10,700 years ago. Puy de Dôme is approximately 10 km from Clermont-Ferrand. The Puy-de-Dôme département is named after the volcano.
The Massif Central is a highland region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaus. It covers about 15% of mainland France.
São Miguel Island, nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. The island covers 760 km2 (290 sq mi) and has around 140,000 inhabitants, with 45,000 people residing in Ponta Delgada, the archipelago's largest city.
Catherine Joséphine "Katia" Krafft and her husband, Maurice Paul Krafft were French volcanologists and filmmakers who died in a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen, Japan, on 3 June 1991. The Kraffts became well known as pioneers in the filming, photographing, and recording of volcanoes, often coming within feet of lava flows. Their obituary appeared in the Bulletin of Volcanology. Since their deaths, their work has been featured in two documentary films by Werner Herzog, Into the Inferno (2016) and The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022), and a further film, Fire of Love (2022), depicted their lives, relationship and careers using their archived footage.
Piton de la Fournaise is a shield volcano on the eastern side of Réunion island in the Indian Ocean. It is currently one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along with Kīlauea in the Hawaiian Islands, Stromboli and Etna in Italy and Mount Erebus in Antarctica. A previous eruption began in August 2006 and ended in January 2007. The volcano erupted again in February 2007, on 21 September 2008, on 9 December 2010, which lasted for two days, and on 1 August 2015. The most recent eruption began on 7 December 2020. The volcano is located within Réunion National Park, a World Heritage Site.
La Soufrière or Soufrière Saint Vincent is an active stratovolcano on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is the highest peak in Saint Vincent, and has had five recorded explosive eruptions since 1718. The latest eruptive activity began on 27 December 2020 with the slow extrusion of a dome of lava, and culminated in a series of explosive events between 9 and 22 April 2021.
The Armero tragedy occurred following the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, on November 13, 1985. The volcano's eruption after 69 years of dormancy caught nearby towns unaware, even though volcanological organizations had warned the government to evacuate the area after they detected volcanic activity two months earlier.
The Cascade Volcanoes are a number of volcanoes in a volcanic arc in western North America, extending from southwestern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California, a distance of well over 700 miles (1,100 km). The arc formed due to subduction along the Cascadia subduction zone. Although taking its name from the Cascade Range, this term is a geologic grouping rather than a geographic one, and the Cascade Volcanoes extend north into the Coast Mountains, past the Fraser River which is the northward limit of the Cascade Range proper.
The Chaîne des Puys is a north-south oriented chain of cinder cones, lava domes, and maars in the Massif Central of France. The chain is about 40 km (25 mi) long, and the identified volcanic features, which constitute a volcanic field, include 48 cinder cones, eight lava domes, and 15 maars and explosion craters. Its highest point is the lava dome of Puy de Dôme, located near the middle of the chain, which is 1,465 m (4,806 ft) high. The name of the range comes from a French term, puy, which refers to a volcanic mountain with a rounded profile. A date of 4040 BC is usually given for the last eruption of a Chaîne des Puys volcano.
Sabancaya is an active 5,976-metre-high (19,606 ft) stratovolcano in the Andes of southern Peru, about 70 kilometres (43 mi) 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.
Ubinas is an active stratovolcano in the Moquegua Region of southern Peru, approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) east of the city of Arequipa. Part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, it rises 5,672 metres (18,609 ft) above sea level. The volcano's summit is cut by a 1.4-kilometre-wide (0.87 mi) and 150-metre-deep (490 ft) caldera, which itself contains a smaller crater. Below the summit, Ubinas has the shape of an upwards-steepening cone with a prominent notch on the southern side. The gently sloping lower part of the volcano is also known as Ubinas I and the steeper upper part as Ubinas II; they represent different stages in the volcano's geological history.
Claude Jaupart is a French geophysicist and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.