Chingo is a small stratovolcano straddling the Guatemala / El Salvador border. It is surrounded by several other small stratovolcanoes, cinder cones and lava flows. The lava flows are the youngest features of the field, which appears to be controlled by a N – S trending fault in the vicinity of Laguna Atescatempo.
The region immediately surrounding the volcano is not heavily populated, though there are 331,000 within 10 km of Volcan Chingo, nearly 870,000 within 30 km and 7.2 million within 100 km, mostly toward the SE in Santa Ana and San Salvador in El Salvador.
There are major highways running generally NNW – SSE a few kilometers either side of the volcanoes and multiple smaller roads lacing the countryside mostly to the N of Chingo and crossing the volcanic field.
The closest two towns are Atescatempa (population 18,000), 7 km to the N and San Cristobal 10 km to the NE. Volcan Las Viboras, the largest physical volcano in the field is another 4 km mostly N of Atescatempa with San Cristobal another 7 km SE. Laguna de Atescatempa, the largest local lake is located between the two towns. It was created by lava dams across local drainages. While it is much closer to Las Viboras than Chingo, lava flows from Chingo have been described as the culprit. Those flows may have also issued from satellite scoria cones.
The political region to the E of Chingo in El Salvador is called Canton La Magdalena. It is not a normal tourist destination with its primary economy driven by agriculture, sugar cane farming. The area is relatively isolated and undeveloped. The region has been long populated, and it is not uncommon to come across pottery, obsidian fragments, and the occasional arrowhead or clay doll head after heavy rains.
Climate in the region is generally tropical, with significant rainfall over the course of the year. The heat is generally mitigated by altitude, with the higher elevations tending to be a bit cooler. Overall elevation is typically 600 – 700 m in the valley floors, meaning average temperatures range 21 – 27° C over the course of the year.
There is no active monitoring of this volcanic field and no local webcams. However, its proximity to closely monitored volcanoes in El Salvador means there are at least some instruments within 30 – 50 km available should anything exciting take place. For instance, Chingo is 31 km NNW of the NW rim of the Coatepeque caldera and is prominent on the horizon. It is about the same distance NNE from Santa Ana, and also visible on the horizon. It is around 30 km N from the Apeneca Range in southern El Salvador.
One word of warning: Try not to translate the name ‘Chingo’ online, as it is Not Safe For Work.
Region
The Chingo volcanic field is located in a Central American region called the Western Chortis highlands. It is situated a bit behind the main volcanic front. Volcanic activity in the immediate region appears to be controlled by multiple faults and shear zones associated with the generally N – S oriented extensional Ipala Graben. There are multiple volcanoes within 50 km, mostly to the N and NE. A second volcanic field, Metapan, is located around 30 km NE of Volcan Chingo and also appears to be associated with the Ipala Graben.
The Metapan Volcanic Field generally includes small, scattered cinder cones and lava flows in a N – S alignment between Lakes Guija and Metapan in El Salvador. This alignment is decidedly not parallel with that of the main volcanic front to the S. The field is subdivided into four zones based on age and location. The oldest is the El Cobano shield volcano, followed by the northernmost El Shiste zone, the Ostua zone to the W, and the youngest San Diego zone to the SE.
The San Diego formation fills the tectonic valley of the San Diego fault with older weathered basaltic lavas and scoria covered with younger basaltic lavas. Volcanic forms include cinder cones, tuff rings and maars, spatter cones and lava flows. These erupted from multiple local vents. Most of these products were dusted by ashfall products from the Tierrra Blanca Joven produced by the most recent major eruption from Ilopango 430 AD some 95 km SE.
Eruptions from the Ostua zone created a lava plateau covering 16 km2 mostly on the El Salvador side of the border. The northernmost zone is El Shiste, some 17 km NW from Metapan. These are also generally basaltic lavas and scorias. Neighboring volcanoes to this field include the Suchitan volcano some 25 km W of Metapan and 30 km generally N of Chingo. Ipala volcano is some 25 km NE of Suchitan and NW of Metapan.
Chingo Volcanic Field
Like Metapan, the Chingo volcanic field is oriented generally along a N – S line with Chingo to the south and Las Viboras 10 km to the north. There are at least four volcanoes associated with the field. Activity in the field built multiple cones, the largest of which are the Las Viboras basaltic shield and the Chingo stratovolcano. More recent activity has been basaltic, with multiple cinder cones and flank lava flows.
Chingo tops out at 1,775 m and erupts primarily andesites, basaltic andesites and basalts, like other members of this field. It has a shallow summit-shaped crater breached to the west. Recent lava flows have come from vents on the western flank of Chingo and the northern flank of Las Viboras. The volcano also produces lahars and landslides from the steep flanks.
Las Viboras is a small shield volcano located on the Guatemala side of the border. It is capped with a cinder cone. It is largest volcanic feature along a fault extending N from Chingo. There are a number of Holocene lava flows erupted from the same fault as it extends through the northern flank of Las Viboras. The volcano’s name is translated as The Vipers, due to an abundance of snakes in the area.
Loma Los Siete Cerros is a satellite vent complex. It is made of multiple overlapping cinder cones on the Salvador side of Chingo. The youngest of these vents produced lava flows on the NW side of the volcano in Guatemala. A chain of cones extending N – S along the fault line either side of the summit produced lava flows. Cerro Laguneta small, rounded cinder cone N of Cingo. Cerro de Olla is across the border to the S, the southernmost of the chain of volcanic vents associated with the Chingo volcanic field. It appears to be a moderately eroded monogenetic vent.
The first documented western scientist visit to Chingo was by German geographer Karl Sapper, who made multiple trips through southern Mexico and Central America 1889 – 1900. He reportedly climbed Chingo in 1892. Sapper was a prolific mapmaker and scholar, with 466 items in his bibliography. He was also the first and most important observer of geology in Central America.
Sapper describes four volcanoes associated with Chingo. It is unclear precisely what the Volcanoes actually are, though an educated guess would be to include Chingo, Las Viboras, Cerro Laguneta and Cerro de Olla on that list.
While the eruptive products are visually very fresh in places, they are for the most part undated. A historical background of Atescatempa by Jorge Garcia published in 2004, notes that the town was originally settled by local natives on the slopes of Las Viboras volcano, on the shore of the Atescatempa lagoon. Atescatempa is derived from native words Atescatl and Tentil, shore and pond respectively.
An eruption of fire and lava from Las Viboras volcano “… made the town disappear.” It was moved 4 km from the original location to a place called El Jabillal where it remained for some time. Activity from Chingo (eruption, lahar or landslide) destroyed that location, forcing the move to the final location on the shore of Atescatempa lagoon. This activity took place before the Spanish arrived 1524 – 1570. The Garcia history of Atescatempa also notes that neither Chingo nor Las Viboras has erupted for 72 years. It is unclear what that date is measured from, though it may very well be sometime in the 14th – 15th Centuries. Chingo erupted at least twice before Atescatempa’s final location on the shore of the lake. Those eruptions are undated, as are the eruptions producing lava flows that dammed local drainage creating the lake which must have happened before the initial move off Las Viboras.
Granyia was able to research Twitter and found multiple mentions and complaints about Chingo, mostly about lahars and landslides from its slopes. There were reports about “rumblings and strange sounds” from the volcano, the last being Dec 2020 with appear to be associated with earthquake swarms from the Ipala Graben. The most recent large quake in the vicinity as a M 5.2 in Aug 2016, 5 km NE Chingo at a depth of 1 – 15 km. There were at least 35 aftershocks and the quake was particularly hard on local buildings constructed of masonry and mud bricks.
Tectonics
Tectonic activity in this portion of Central America is driven by the continuing eastward movement of the Caribbean Plate. This part of Guatemala and El Salvador is a bit south of the Motagua – Polochic Fault zone. It is also located NE of the main subduction zone of the Cocos Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate, the Middle American Trench, which provides magma for the main volcanic arc on the SW side of Central America. Chingo sits to the N of the main volcanic arc. The entire region is also subject to massive megathrust quakes on the Pacific side of Central America.
There is a faulting zone called the Ipala Graben in NW El Salvador and SE Guatemala. It is generally oriented N-S at right angles to the volcanic front. Land between the two main faults has been subsiding over time. The extensional region opened faults that allowed magma to reach to surface, creating the (mostly) basaltic Chingo and Metapan volcanic fields. Opening of this graben has also created a region that is seismically active, with more shallow quakes generally not larger than M 5.5. Interestingly, seismic swarms take place from time to time along the graben. These appear to be tectonic and last from hours to weeks, with hundreds or thousands of earthquakes. Most of them are very small making them difficult to locate. The most recent swarm took place Jan 15 – 20, 2008, with 166 measured quakes. The most significant measured swarm took pace Apr 7 – 13, 2005, with 183 quakes. 24 of these were felt.
Conclusions
The Chingo volcanic field is an example of an intercontinental extension-related volcanic system, where local faults along a graben structure allow juvenile basalts to reach the surface. Due to its rural location, there is little monitoring and even less scientific analysis. The area is tectonically active, subject to the occasional tectonic swarm, and has ample evidence of recent (last 1,000 years) volcanic activity.
A personal note: This has been one of the more frustrating posts to pursue, as published material on the field is very thin. On the other hand, there are a lot of photos of Chingo as it is a prominent, picturesque volcano with a near perfectly shaped cone.
Additional information
Chingo – Climbing, Hiking & Mountaineering information, mountain-forecast.com
Cava, southern Guatemala, plate-dectonic.narod.ru
Chingo (Guatemala – El Salvador), volcanoyt
Volcan Chingo – Guatemala, Summit Post
The Earthquake and Volcanic Eruption in Guatemala in 1902, G Eisen, 1903
Geology of Metapan volcanic field, NW El Salvador, Rapprich, et al, Nov 2006
The Volcanoes of Guatemala, T Anderson, The Geographical Journal, May 1908
agimarc
Spica
Granyia
volcanohotspot.wordpress.com 
As a Spanish speaker I never cease to be amazed at the choice of word to describe this geological phenomenon. I caution people to be careful when traveling in Spanish-speaking countries to familiarize
Themselves with local colloquial speech.
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Good point. Scratched my head about the choice of that particular name for the volcano. Finally decided it was intended to be funny, which makes me smile a bit as it may demonstrate a local sense of humor.
Timely reminder about local colloquial speech. Even in the same basic language, local regional differences in accents and which words are used how are striking and occasionally problematic. Thanks for taking the time to read the post. Cheers –
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I never fail to read these posts. They are well researched and informative. From my work in Spanish-speaking communities I learned very early how words are OK in one culture and not in another. Just up the street from a clinic I was working in was a Club whose name was La Concha. One of my colleagues who was from the Dominican republic was quick to tell me that one could not use that word in normal conversation where she came from. Having wintered in the city of Puerto Vallarta Mexico for several years I can tell you that there is a locally available list of colloquial words common to that part of the state of Jalisco. Tourists are advised to read it carefully. Keep up the good work.
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Thank you for your kind words.
Here in the US, we get similar variations state by state, and an ever-growing list of things to say and not to say. Being within a common border, we are somewhat (or a lot) less deferential to one another’s local differences and demands. As usual, your mileage will vary.
Cast the net a bit farther into the English speaking world and you quickly get to George Bernard Shaw’s note that the US & Great Britain were two nations divided by a common language. Start tossing in the rest of the former British Empire (Oz and NZ) and language differences get wild.
Nice to see that Espanol has the same regional problem that English does, mostly because it appears to be a human rather than a nationality issue, which once again makes me smile. If we’re all doing about the same stuff to one another for about the same reasons regardless of locale, that is something to celebrate rather than be shocked by. Best to you and yours.
Thanks again for your interest in VH. Cheers –
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