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Panajachel GCA - Lago de Atitlan with Volcán Tolimán and Volcán San Pedro 04

The lake is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous caldera formed in an eruption 84000 years ago. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and Aldous Huxley famously wrote of it: "Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing".

 

Tolimán is a stratovolcano in Guatemala, on the southern shores of Lago de Atitlán. The volcano has an elevation of 3,158 m (10,361 ft) and was formed near the southern margin of the Pleistocene Atitlán III caldera. The top of the volcano has a shallow crater and its flanks are covered with the thick remains of ancient lavas flows that emerged from vents in the volcano's flanks. A parasitic lava dome, known as Cerro de Oro, was formed on the volcano's northern flank, which may have erupted a few thousand years ago.

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Uploaded on May 7, 2013
Taken on November 20, 2012