Following minor eruptions on September 14 and 15, 1986, a strong explosive eruption from Láscar volcano on September 16 deposited ash 350 km away at Salta, Argentina. The eruption cloud, seen here at about 7:30 a.m. from Toconao, 33 km to the NW, rose to 15 km altitude (about 9 km above the vent), producing an ash column that dispersed to the SE. The plume was traced on satellite imagery to about 400 km downwind and covered an area of more than 112,000 km². The brief eruption ended on the 16th.

Photo by Paul King, MINSAL Corporation, 1986 (courtesy of Peter Francis, Open University).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Láscar