Cerro Tujle | |
Other Name: | Cerro Tucle, Cerro Tugle |
Elevation M: | 3550 |
Age: | Holocene |
Region: | Antofagasta |
Range: | Altiplano, Andes |
Map: | Chile Antofagasta |
Volcanic Belt: | Central Volcanic Zone |
Orogeny: | Andean |
Type: | Maar |
Cerro Tujle (also known as Cerro Tucle or Cerro Tugle) is a mafic volcanic centre in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, Chile. It forms a deep maar that may have formed half a million years ago. Its eruption products are aphyric. Previously in 1977, this crater has been identified as a meteor crater with diameters of 300x.
The crater lies between the Salar de Atacama and the Western Cordillera at an elevation of on the Cordón de Tujle ridge, south-east of Peine. The crater is wide, elliptical and surrounded by volcanic deposits. The crater appears to have formed, after an initial lava flow eruption turned phreatomagmatic. It is embedded in the Tucúcaro Ignimbrite, which overlies an Ordovician basement and Paleozoic-Mesozoic volcanic and Neozoic mixed sediments. There are other volcanic systems in the vicinity, forming an extended area of monogenetic volcanoes.