Paricutín

For a long time, I was just a feeling deep underground. I was a rumble beneath the rich soil of a quiet cornfield in a place called Michoacán, in Mexico. Above me, the sun warmed the green stalks of corn, and a farmer worked his land every day. His name was Dionisio Pulido, and he had no idea I was waiting just beneath his feet. On the afternoon of February 20th, 1943, something changed. Dionisio was in the field with his family when the ground began to tremble, not like a big earthquake, but like a deep, steady shudder. He saw a crack, a fissure, open in the earth where he had been plowing. From this crack came a strange hissing sound and a smell like rotten eggs, the smell of sulfur. A thin column of smoke and gray ash began to puff out, rising into the clear blue sky. The farmer was frightened and amazed. He had just witnessed the birth of something new and powerful. I am Parícutin, the volcano that was born in a farmer's field.

My beginning was fast and loud. That first puff of smoke was just the start. Within hours, the small fissure was a roaring vent, throwing hot stones and ash high into the air. By the next morning, where there had once been a flat cornfield, there was a cone of black rock and ash as tall as a five-story building. I was growing up fast. The ground shook with my constant rumbling, and at night, I lit up the sky as I tossed glowing red rocks, called scoria, from my peak. Soon, I was over 100 meters tall, and that was just in my first week. Rivers of glowing red lava began to seep from my base, moving slowly but unstoppably across the land. It was a spectacular and slightly scary sight. News of my birth traveled quickly, and soon, scientists and curious people from all over the world came to Mexico. They wanted to watch a volcano be born and grow up right before their eyes. For the first time in modern history, scientists could study the entire life of a volcano from its very first breath.

As I grew, the world around me changed forever. The fine, gray ash I puffed into the sky fell like snow, covering everything for miles. It blanketed the green fields, the trees, and the roofs of nearby homes. My slow-moving rivers of lava were even more powerful. They crept forward, swallowing everything in their path. Two villages lay in my way. The first was Parícutin, the village I was named after. Then came the larger town of San Juan Parangaricutiro. The people who lived there were resilient. They knew they could not stop me, so they bravely packed their belongings and moved to a new, safer place to rebuild their lives. My eruption continued for nine long years. By the time I finally grew quiet in 1952, the town of San Juan Parangaricutiro was almost completely buried under a sea of hardened black rock. All that remained sticking out of the lava was the top of the old stone church tower, a lonely monument to the town that once thrived there.

Today, I am no longer a fiery, rumbling mountain. I am a quiet giant. My slopes are covered in black sand and dark, jagged rock. The sky above me is clear of smoke and ash. My eruption ended long ago, but my story did not. I am now what scientists call a dormant volcano, which means I am resting. Slowly, life is returning to me. Small shrubs and hardy trees have begun to push their roots into my rocky sides, adding bits of green to my dark cone. People are no longer afraid of me. Instead, they come to visit. Brave hikers climb my steep slopes to look into my quiet crater, and visitors walk across the hardened lava field to see the famous church tower. I stand as a reminder of the incredible power of our planet. I show how Earth is always changing, and how even from a destructive event, a new and amazing wonder can be born for people to explore and learn from for years to come.