Mexico

1. Pinacate
2. Tres Virgenes
3. La Reforma
4. Barcena
5. Socorro
6. Sanganguey
7. Ceboruco
 8. La Primavera
9. Colima
10. Paricutin
11. El Jorullo
12. Amealco
13. Jocotitlan
14. Toluca
 15. Chichinautzin
16. Popocateptl
17. La Malinche
18. Los Humeros
19. Pico de Orizaba
20. San Martin
21. El Chichon
22. Tacana

Our NAFTA neighbors to the south have a large number of volcanoes. Most of them occur in a roughly east-west band that has been named the "Trans-Mexican Volcanic belt," but you can see that there are some outside this group as well. There are all kinds of volcanoes in Mexico. Most of them are pretty typical stratovolcanoes (the yellow triangles). There are also some large rhyolite caldera complexes (the pink circles). Finally, there are a number of monogenetic fields (the gray-lined pattern), within which there are many many small cinder cones, maars, tuff rings, small lava shields, etc. Some of the individual vents within the monogenetic fields are famous enough to have their own names (the orange triangles).
The plate tectonic setting in Mexico is complex. In this map (which was adapted from maps drawn by other researchers), you can see that there is quite a complicated mixture of spreading ridges (red), transform faults (dark blue), and subduction trenches (light blue). Most of the volcanoes (6,7,9-11,13-22) are probably associated with the subduction of various small tectonic plates under the North American plate. Other volcanoes (2-5) are possibly associated with "leaky" transform faults, and the rest are unclear.
You can click on any of the triangles or circles to find out more about that particular volcano.


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