Parícutin

Parícutin is a Mexican cinder cone volcano that was the first to be observed by human beings during its short lifespan outside of a village of the same name now buried beneath igneous rock. Three weeks before it first appeared, rumbles resembling thunder were heard throughout the village, which were actually deep earthquakes. It appeared on February 20, 1943 as fissure in a cornfield. In a week it was five stories tall, in a month it was able to be seen from afar. When it finished erupting in 1952, it had killed three people by lightning, reached 1,391 feet above the landscape, and two villages lay covered beneath lava and ash. Since most cinder cones are monogenetic, any more eruptions will most likely be in a new location.

       
Church in San Juan Parangaricutiro, one of the two villages destroyed.              Dormant, barren Parícutin in 1994.