Pompeii-Like Eruption Preserved a 22-Million-Year-Old Landscape

Researchers reconstructed a landscape buried beneath volcanic deposits of Chile's Lauca Caldera after an eruption 21.9 million years ago. They estimate Andean rock uplifted no faster than 0.26 km per million years, about 2.5 cm per century, supporting slow, steady mountain growth.

• Ignimbrite covered an area six times larger than Santiago and reached 1 km thick in places
• Rock uplift rate estimated at no more than 0.26 km per million years
• Findings rest on simulations of hundreds of possible ancient landscapes
• Results match mineral temperature records spanning 50 million years