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WONDERS OF NATURE
Volcano Popocatepetl. Nature miracle
The territory of Mexico is occupied by the Mexican Highlands, which looks like a giant bowl. In its center lies the volcanic plateau of Mesa (in Spanish, its name means "table"), bordered on both sides by the steep rocky ridges of the Western and Eastern Sierra Madre. And along the southern outskirts of the plateau from west to east stretches the Transverse Volcanic Sierra - a giant mountain barrier formed by volcanic cones merged into a majestic wall. This is one of the most grandiose volcanic systems of the Earth, which can only be compared with the Eastern Range of Kamchatka with its dozens of active volcanoes or the famous Alley of Volcanoes in Ecuador. It is here that the highest peak of Mexico and the second highest mountain of North America, the Orizaba volcano, is located. Its regular cone rises three kilometers above the plateau, and the total height of Orizaba above sea level exceeds the height of Elbrus. However, Orizaba has not erupted for three hundred years, so the Mexicans do not perceive it as a volcano. Another thing - located to the west of Popocatepetl, familiar to every inhabitant of the country's capital - Mexico City, as the Japanese in Tokyo - the snow-white silhouette of Fujiyama. Its very name (translated from the language of the Aztecs - the ancient inhabitants of Mexico - "Smoking Mountain") speaks of its restless temper. And besides the “Mexican Fujiyama”, a dozen more active volcanoes smoke, growl and spew stones in this fire-breathing mountain range, not counting those that have temporarily or permanently “fallen asleep”, like Popocatepetl’s graceful neighbor, Mount Istaxihuatl.
The Aztecs worshiped these two adjacent mountains, considering them gods who give rain. Every year, sacrifices were made to them, asking that the clouds that had gathered at their peaks turn into rain clouds and spill onto the fields with fertile heavenly moisture. The Aztec legend says that in ancient times, the young man Popocatepetl, in love with the beautiful Istaxiuatl, did not want to leave her when the gods turned the unfortunate woman into a mountain for a serious offense. He prayed to the gods, and they granted his request. Since then, he has been standing next to his beloved over the valley of Mexico City. Among the Aztecs, a volcano could be both a mountain, a deity and a person, and many of the formidable mountains were revered by the locals and were objects of worship. But only Popocatepetl evoked unanimous sacred awe and love among all the Indians. And today, having long mingled with the Spaniards, they have retained a loving attitude towards their "El Popo", as it is called by the people. Of course, not all the fire-breathing mountains of the Transverse Volcanic Sierra rise more than five kilometers and sparkle with eternal snows, like Orizaba and El Popo. Among them, very small black cones of young volcanic structures rise, many of which cause considerable concern to the inhabitants of nearby villages. Volcanoes arise here even today. So, the Horullo volcano appeared in the XNUMXth century. Having repeatedly erupted, it has now grown to a thousand three hundred meters and is not going to calm down on this. The Paricutin Volcano was born in 1943. Its eruption began quite unexpectedly. Peasants sowing corn noticed that a crack had formed in the middle of the field, from which suffocating gas began to be released. Soon, the lava that poured out of the crack formed a cone, which continued to grow, soon reaching a height of three hundred meters. A stream of molten basalt rushed towards the village of Parangarikutiro, which lay six kilometers away, and destroyed it. Several thousand hectares of fields and forests in the vicinity were burned and covered with ashes. The volcano erupted almost continuously for nine years, during which time its cone rose to two thousand eight hundred meters. Popocatepetl does not give the surrounding residents such trouble as Paricutin. Its last major eruption was in 820. Since then, for twelve centuries now, it only occasionally throws out clouds of volcanic gases, ash and red-hot pieces of lava. And then the inhabitants of Mexico City, located fifty kilometers from the volcano, say: "El Popo is angry." Such a burst of activity was at Popocatepetl in 1923, and then repeated seventy years later. The danger in this case is not fiery lava rivers, but powerful mud flows formed from the melting of glaciers on the slopes of a revived volcano. The water of the melted glaciers, mixed with ash and fragments of lava covers, rushes down the gorges like a frantic mud-stone avalanche, sweeping away everything in its path. Fortunately, the 1993 eruption did not affect the northern slopes of El Popo, so that the inhabitants of the outskirts of the Mexican capital were not affected. Volcanoes, as you know, bring people not only grief and suffering. Everywhere in the vicinity of fire-breathing mountains, whether on the island of Java or in the Philippines, in Japan or in Sicily, on the most fertile volcanic soils, the peasants gather rich harvests. In such places, wild vegetation is also violently reaching for the sky, which sometimes leads to the appearance of real giants of the "green world". Mexico is no exception in this regard. It is here, on the southern slope of the Transverse Volcanic Sierra, near the town of Thule, that one of the largest and most ancient trees of our planet grows. The mighty yew, called the Tule Tree, has been declared a natural monument in Mexico. Its age, according to some scientists, exceeds four thousand years. Others, more skeptical, believe it is "only" two thousand years old. But even if the "Thule Tree" was not a contemporary of the Egyptian pharaohs, its dimensions command respect. The height of the gigantic yew exceeds forty meters, that is, the height of a thirteen-story building, and the circumference of the trunk is thirty-eight meters. This means that only thirty adult men will be able to clasp the tree. The shadow from the crown of the green giant covers an area of XNUMX square meters, and the weight of a huge trunk is about five hundred and fifty tons! If the yew were cut down, it would take fifty railway platforms to transport its timber. According to legend, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, Cortes, camped five centuries ago under the "Tule Tree". Later, under it, the Spaniards built a Catholic church, which seems like a toy next to a gigantic tree. Cortes, by the way, laid the foundation for the economic use of Mexican volcanoes. It was he who sent a detachment of his warriors to the top of Popocatepetl, so that they would extract more sulfur from the crater to make gunpowder. Volcanic sulfur deposits in the vicinity of Mexican volcanoes are still being developed. In terms of the reserves of this mineral, Mexico ranks first in the world. And "sulfur factories" continue to work. Volcanic eruptions occur in the country almost every year. The seismic activity of this region is also associated with them. It is believed that a tenth of all earthquakes occurring on the planet are recorded in Mexico and off its coast. Nevertheless, Mexicans love their volcanoes. Either jokingly or seriously, they continue to assert that the snow-covered giants still retain their divine power and, as before, it depends on them whether to collect the clouds into clouds swollen with rain or scatter them without a trace. Just as the Japanese worship Fujiyama, the Nepalese worship Chomolungma, and the Maasai Negroes of Tanzania worship Mount Kilimanjaro, the inhabitants of twenty millionth Mexico City lovingly honor their "El Popo", in any weather, clearly visible both from the windows of skyscrapers and from the courtyards of poor outlying shacks of a giant metropolis. Author: B.Wagner
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