Chaîne des Puys
View of the Chaîne des Puys from Puy-de-Dôme.
Elevation	max. 1,464 m (4,803 ft) at Puy-de-Dôme
Location	Auvergne, France
Range	Massif Central
Coordinates	45°30′N 2°48′E / 45.5°N 2.8°E / 45.5; 2.8
Type	cinder cones, lava domes, and maars
Age of rock	< 95,000 years
Last eruption	ca. 4040 BC

The Chaîne des Puys is a north-south chain of cinder cones, lava domes, and maars in the Massif Central of France. The chain is about 40 km (25 mi) long, and the identified volcanic features include 48 cinder cones, eight lava domes, and 15 maars and explosion craters. Its highest point is the lava dome of Puy-de-Dôme, located near the middle of the chain. The name of the range comes from a French term, puy, that refers to a volcanic mountain with a rounded profile.

View of Puy-de-Dôme from the west.

The chain is famous in the history of volcanology, as it was the subject of the pioneering research of English geologist George Julius Poulett Scrope starting in the 1820s. In 1827 he published his classic Memoir on the Geology of Central France, including the Volcanic formations of Auvergne, the Velay and the Vivarais, which was later re-published in a revised and somewhat more popular form in The Geology and extinct Volcanos of Central France in 1858. These books were the first widely published descriptions of the Chaîne des Puys, and the analysis therein laid the foundation for many of the basic principles of volcanology.

[edit] References

Gour de Tazenat, a maar in the Chaîne des Puys.

• Scrope, George Poulett (1858). The Geology and extinct Volcanos of Central France. J. Murray, London. pp. 258 pp. ISBN 0405104596.  (reprinted in 1978 by Arno Press)
• Scarth, Alwyn; Tanguy, Jean-Claude (2001). Volcanoes of Europe. Oxford University Press. pp. 243 pp. ISBN 0-19-521754-3. 
• Cattermole, Peter (2001). Auvergne (Classic Geology in Europe 2). Terra Publishing. pp. 176 pp. ISBN 1-903544-05-X. 
• "Chaîne des Puys". Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0100-02-. 
• "Chaîne des Puys - Synonyms & Subfeatures". Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0100-02-&volpage=synsub. 

Panorama of the Chaîne des Puys from Puy-de-Dôme in winter.

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