In my last post, I included a map of the Southern Volcanic Zone that extends south from the capital city of Santiago: https://landscapes-revealed.net/santiagos-geologic-hazards/. Flying south from Santiago to Punta Arenas on Monday, we were fortunate to have clear skies as we flew along the Andes. We made sure to get seats on the east side of the plane so that we could see the mountains.
Here are some of the views we had along the way.
This view is just south of Santiago. The Andes are very wide here, but they are narrower, and shorter, to the south. There are ridges of deformed rocks in the foreground and an active volcano on the skyline near the left end of the photo. I’m not sure which volcano this is, but it could be Volcano San José or Volcano Maipo, both of which are located at the northern end of the Southern Volcanic Zone and that could potentially impact Santiago.This is a photo of Volcano Descabezado, meaning decapitated volcano because it blew off its top. This is a very special volcano for us because we saw it close up in 2008 when we took students on a circum-Andean tour. Notice the flat strip of land on the other side of the volcano. In 2008, we camped in an adjacent valley and then hiked up to that flat plateau and had a stunning view across the valley to Descabezado and adjacent volcanoes. In my first post for this trip, I included a photo of two students sitting on that plateau looking east at the volcanoes: https://landscapes-revealed.net/back-to-chile-a-geologic-wonderland/.Volcano Lanín is on the border between Chile and Argentina. We saw this volcano on the ground in 2008 when we took a bus from Pucon (in Chile) to San Martín de los Andes (in Argentina). It is a perfect cone-shaped stratovolcano.Farther south, the active volcanoes were west of our plane’s path, and we were looking at eroded granite from an older cycle of subduction-related volcanoes. The ~100-million-year-old volcanoes have been uplifted and eroded away, and the underlying granite, that cooled at great depths, has been exposed at the surface. Twenty years ago we were traveling in this location and read that there was a Yosemite-like valley in California that could be visited. We found a company that took us there on horseback and, sure enough, it looks much like Yosemite (see photo below). Like Yosemite, U-shaped valleys carved by glaciers are bounded by sheer granite cliffs.Here is a photo of the Yosemite-like valley we visited in 2006. The only road was an ancient route that could only be traversed by foot or on horseback. It is in the Cochamó District, made famous by the American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who frequented this area more than a century ago while hiding from United States authorities on South American cattle ranches. Unforunantely, as we continued south, the view was obscured by clouds and we could not see the Patagonian Ice Field. When we did this flight in 2006, we had clearer skies and could see the ice field. In the bottom of the photo is the permanently snow-covered ice field. To the east (higher up in the photo) glaciers are flowing out from the ice field. In the middle valleys, a lake has formed because of melting as the glacier has receded. As is happening with glaciers around the world, the Patagonian glaciers and their Ice Field are shrinking.
We are now in Punta Arenas. Tomorrow we will complete preparations for our journey to Antarctica and, if all goes as planned, we will fly there on February 19.
Thank you so much for sharing the photos and your adventures. Charisse
Thanks for reading Charisse!