Cotacachi (volcano)

Cotacachi
	A snowy Cotacachi at the beginning of the rainy season
height	4935 m
location	Ecuador
Mountains	To the
Coordinates	0 ° 29 ′ 0 ″ N , 78 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ W Coordinates: 0 ° 29 ′ 0 ″ N , 78 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ W.
Type	extinct stratovolcano
Age of the rock	Pleistocene

Sunset at Cotacachi

The volcano Cotacachi is part of the Cordillera Occidental and is located in the province of Imbabura in Ecuador , northwest of the volcanoes Imbabura and Cayambe . It is a long extinct and heavily eroded stratovolcano with a height of 4935 m . The volcano is part of the Cotacachi Cayapas Nature Reserve . At the foot of the mountain is the Cuicocha volcanic lake . The first ascent was made by Edward Whymper and the brothers Jean-Antoine and Louis Carrel .

Due to global warming and the associated melting of the glaciers , the Cotacachi was one of the first mountains in the Andes to have completely lost its glacier over the last 50 years .

In one of the Quechua folk tales , Mama Cotacachi was a beautiful girl who owned a lot of land. Father Imbabura, exhausted from the hunt for the women Cayambe and Tungurahua , decided to live with Cotacachi. From this connection a smaller volcano emerged, the Yana Urcu. When the Imbabura fell ill, he covered his head with a white cloth, which is why he only wears snow in winter, while Cotacachi does it all year round. Another tradition has it that Cotacachi is covered in snow early in the morning if she had a visit from her lover Imbabura that night. In the context of this popular belief , the elderly local population in particular sees the loss of the glacier as a punishment for Mama Cotacachi, while the younger see it as a consequence of global warming. Overall, this event was received with consternation by the population, especially since it affects the water supply in the area. The older Quechua in particular tried to appease Mama Cotacachi with religious ceremonies.

Web links

Commons : Cotacachi (volcano) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Robert E. Rhoades, Xavier Zapata Rios and Jenny Aragundi Ochoa: Mama Cotacachi: History, local perceptions, and social impacts of climate change and glacier retreat in the ecuadorian Andes . In Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, and Brian H. Luckman (Eds.): Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society . University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25305-6 , pp. 216-224

Individual evidence

^ Robert E. Rhoades, Xavier Zapata Rios and Jenny Aragundi Ochoa: Mama Cotacachi: History, local perceptions, and social impacts of climate change and glacier retreat in the Ecuadorian Andes . In Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, Brian H. Luckman (Eds.): Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society . University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25305-6 , pp. 216-224, here: p. 216
^ Robert E. Rhoades, Xavier Zapata Rios and Jenny Aragundi Ochoa: Mama Cotacachi: History, local perceptions, and social impacts of climate change and glacier retreat in the Ecuadorian Andes . In Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, Brian H. Luckman (Eds.): Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society . University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25305-6 , pp. 216-224, here: pp. 220, 221 .
↑ Axel Borsdorf , Christoph Stadel : The Andes: A geographical portrait . Springer, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8274-2457-0 , pp. 82, 83 .

[1] Robert E. Rhoades, Xavier Zapata Rios and Jenny Aragundi Ochoa: Mama Cotacachi: History, local perceptions, and social impacts of climate change and glacier retreat in the Ecuadorian Andes . In Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, Brian H. Luckman (Eds.): Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society . University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25305-6 , pp. 216-224, here: p. 216

[2] Robert E. Rhoades, Xavier Zapata Rios and Jenny Aragundi Ochoa: Mama Cotacachi: History, local perceptions, and social impacts of climate change and glacier retreat in the Ecuadorian Andes . In Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt, Brian H. Luckman (Eds.): Darkening Peaks: Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society . University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25305-6 , pp. 216-224, here: pp. 220, 221 .

[3] Axel Borsdorf , Christoph Stadel : The Andes: A geographical portrait . Springer, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8274-2457-0 , pp. 82, 83 .