Three major Quaternary volcanic complexes are visible in this Landsat satellite image of Baja California. The N-S-trending Las Vírgenes volcanic complex to the left consists of three stratovolcanoes that are progressively younger towards the south. The 10-km-wide La Reforma caldera along the Gulf of California coast to the right displays darker andesite flanks and a resurgent dome in the center. The extensively eroded El Aguajito caldera has indistinct margins but the large resurgent dome forms the roughly circular eroded hills west of La Reforma.

NASA Landsat image (processed by Brian Hausback, UC Sacramento).

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

Keywords: caldera

El Aguajito

Tres Vírgenes

La Reforma