Tres Vírgenes


Tres Vírgenes is a complex of volcanoes located Mulegé Municipality in the state of Baja California Sur, on the Baja California Peninsula in northwestern Mexico. It is composed of three volcanoes, aligned northeast-southwest, with El Viejo, the oldest, to the northeast, El Azufre in the middle, and the youngest, El Vírgen, to the southwest.
El Vírgen, being by far the most conspicuous of the three, is commonly known as "Las Tres Vírgenes".

Eruption history

The last eruption of the volcanoes in the complex was of El Vírgen, but the date is disputed. A map drawn by the Croatian Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Konščak contains a reference to an eruption in 1746. Radiometric datings, however, do not agree with this. A charcoal fragment found in a volcanic deposit was dated at approximately 6515 years before present. A basaltic lava flow, which must be younger than the actual eruption, was dated at approximately 24 thousand years B.P., which agrees with a dating of tephra fragments from El Vírgen that yielded an age of approximately 36 thousand years B.P. for the eruption.