
Alvarado Induni GuillermoUniversity of Costa Rica | UCR · Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Geológicas
Alvarado Induni Guillermo
Ph.D. in Geology
Volcanology, Quaternary geology, mineralogy and vertebrate stratigraphy.
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Introduction
Unidad de Investigación y Análisis del Riesgo
Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias (CNE), San José, Costa Rica
Profesor de Maestría en Gestión del Riesgo, Universidad de Costa Rica
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Publications
Publications (388)
Anthropogenic geomorphology examines the impact of human activities on the physical landscape. This chapter focuses on the ways in which different human actions have shaped the terrain in the country, creating landforms and modifying the pace of external geodynamic process since Pre-Columbian time (≥ 4.5 ka ago). Developing countries, including Cos...
The high biological diversity and endemicity for Costa Rica are aspects that have always intrigued naturalists in the past and today. Lamentably, not very much is known about the possible processes that have been active in the past. To understand the highly complex problem of Costa Rica’s biodiversity and endemicity and its feasible generation mech...
Costa Rica, a small tropical country with an area of 51,179 km2, has an extensive network of diverse streams controlled by varied environmental and geological conditions. Rugged terrain, active volcanism, and tectonic activity, along with intense precipitation, result in a dynamic drainage system characterized by a wide array of erosive and deposit...
Costa Rica has two active volcanic ranges (< 1 Ma) and several volcanically inactive ranges (1.0–29 Ma), where isolated eroded volcanic foci can be recognized. Large features are described and exemplified (i.e., calderas, andesitic shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, volcanic domes, and pyroclastic cones), including their constructive basic elements...
Costa Rica is a small territory but with a complex geological structure. The continental territory (51,179.92 km2) is predominantly made up of volcanic rocks, followed by low-grade metamorphic rocks and intrusive rocks. The oldest rocks date back about 200 million years (Ma). The maritime territory (589,683 km2) is much larger and is made up of vol...
The continental territory in Costa Rica is composed in 50% of Cretaceous to Quaternary volcanic rocks. However, volcanic caves sensu strictu (formed only by volcanic processes) are very rare due to the geotectonic conditions of the Pre-Oligocene submarine volcanism, and rheological conditions of Neogene-Quaternary subalkaline lava flow in a subduct...
Arenal is a small Holocene twin stratovolcano (~33 km2, ~ 9 km3, 1684 m a.s.l., ≥ 7 ka), almost symmetrical but with some slope irregularities because it is composed of overlapping lava fields (lava armour) in the central area, with a medium to distal zone comprised of tephra, and hyperconcentrated flow deposits on its flanks (tephra and epi-volcan...
The Caribbean coastal plains of northern Costa Rica have drawn little attention from geomorphologists even though this region possesses singular landforms resulting from exogenous and endogenous processes that shape the Costa Rican landscape. The Quaternary plain is the surface of a back-arc sedimentary basin called North Limón Basin that is fed by...
Active volcanic catchments within low-latitude tropical humid climates constitute some of the most dynamic and sediment-rich fluvial systems globally. The combination of factors such as active explosive vulcanism, frequent high-magnitude earthquakes, dense biodiverse vegetation, and intense rainfall leads to very high sediment supply and very activ...
Irazú is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in Costa Rica. We present the tephro-chronostratigraphy of the last 2.6 ka of the Irazú volcano based on detailed field work and C¹⁴ radiometric dating, as well as a revision of the geological and historical records. In the stratigraphic record we identified at least 30 tephra units. Eight of th...
Central America is a seismically active region where six tectonic plates (North America, Caribbean, Cocos, Nazca, Panama, and South America) interact in a subduction zone with transform faults and two triple points. This complex tectonic setting makes the maximum magnitude-M max-estimation a challenging task, with the crustal fault earthquakes bein...
In Costa Rica, all the large volcanoes have been converted into national parks, which has limited human occupation and productive activities in its closest areas. The country has been promoted worldwide as an important tourist destination due to its biodiversity and commitment to conservation, increasing tourism and people's exposure to different v...
El presente informe actualiza la amenaza volcánica sobre el complejo hidroeléctrico Arenal- Miguel Dengo-Sandillal (ARDESA), dando énfasis a la planta Arenal y sus principales instalaciones (casa de máquinas, subestación eléctrica, toma de aguas y, particularmente, la presa Sangregado), así como los alrededores de La Fortuna por su cercanía al volc...
ABSTRACT
Costa Rica is located at the boundary of four tectonic plates where the regularity of destructive earthquakes highlights the necessity of seismic hazard estimations. This study contains the most recent Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) for Costa Rica, calculated with the largest and the most updated earthquake database from bo...
El Rincón de la Vieja (9°58’36.16’’N y 83°51’11.27’’W) es el único volcán activo de la cordillera de Guanacaste con una elevación 1916 m s. n. m. y una altura de 1500 m. Constituye un macizo estratovolcánico complejo con una docena de cráteres y conos cuspidales, así como una caldera de avalancha. Su edificio volcánico cubre un área de 400 km2 para...
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones") in geosciences is growing rapidly and is significantly contributing to the geomorphological analysis of diverse landforms and their dynamics in a variety of environments around the world. Specifically, UAVs in geomorphology have proved to be a robust and versatile tool due to their ability to a...
Megafans are ever-evolving landforms and sedimentary bodies produced by rivers that regularly change their courses through avulsions, in which the processes that cause the avulsions and their rates are tightly linked to the formation and evolution of the fans. The commonly cited condition required for the formation of megafans is a highly variable...
On the flanks of the dormant Miravalles volcano, systematic fieldwork and radiocarbon dating of buried humus-rich soils (paleosols) and wood fragments, augmented by mineralogical and geochemical analysis, reveal extensive and previously undocumented Holocene activity. Phase 1 consisted of a ~ 6300 BCE (8.3 ka) volcanic debris avalanche and thick la...
The fossil vertebrates of Guatemala are almost exclusively fossils of mammals and are of late Miocene (Hemphillian) and mostly late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) age. The only lower vertebrates are the crocodile fossil Crocodilus moreletti collected in the Río La Pasión area, a turtle from El Trifinio and fishes from Río Carboneras. The late Miocene...
Se aplicó el modelo hidráulico Flo-2D a varios eventos de lahares (simulando diferentes volúmenes) disparados desde la cuenca alta del río Platanar, que nace cerca del cráter del volcán homónimo, los cuales eventualmente podrían afectar a ciudad Quesada. Los resultados fueron sobrepuestos con información oficial de población e infraestructura y map...
Costa Rica alberga diez complejos volcánicos y presenta una elevada actividad sísmica debido a su ubicación dentro de un marco tectónico complejo, donde interactúan las placas del Cocos, Nazca, Caribe y la microplaca de Panamá. Tres de los cinco volcanes históricamente activos han tenido frecuentes erupciones durante el 2019. Los institutos
que vig...
Costa Rica hosts ten volcanic complexes and is highly tectonically active due to its location at the interaction between the Cocos, Nazca, and Caribbean plates and the Panama microplate. Three of the five historically active volcanoes had frequent eruptions in 2019. The institutions in charge of monitoring the volcanoes of Costa Rica are the Observ...
Introducción: El estudio interdisciplinario de los patrones de ocupación y desarrollo de la sociedad humana en tiempos prehispánicos es tenue en la zona del volcán Orosí. El contexto ambiental es usualmente descrito para ilustrar patrones de subsistencia, sin mayor propósito de establecer formas de relación con los cambios que se vislumbran en la c...
The fossil vertebrates of Guatemala are almost exclusively fossils of mammals and are of late Miocene (Hemphillian) and late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) age. The only lower vertebrates are the crocodile fossil Crocodilus moreletti collected in the Río La Pasión area, a turtle from El Trifinio and fishes from Río Carboneras. The late Miocene mammals...
Introducción:
El estudio interdisciplinario de los patrones de ocupación y desarrollo de la sociedad humana en tiempos prehispánicos es tenue en la zona del volcán Orosí. El contexto ambiental es usualmente descrito para ilustrar patrones de subsistencia, sin mayor propósito de establecer formas de relación con los cambios que se vislumbran en la c...
Resumen: Por primera vez se le asigna una ubicación más precisa y contexto geoarqueológico moderno al sitio Retes (C-378 Re), localizado a una altitud de 2683 m s.n.m. y asociado a la fase Cartago (800-1500 d. C.) de la secuencia cultural del Valle Central, cuyo único resultado de radiocarbono convencional disponible hasta el momento proviene de un...
On the flanks of the dormant Miravalles volcano, systematic fieldwork and radiocarbon dating of buried humus-rich soils (paleosols) and wood fragments, augmented by mineralogical and geochemical analysis, reveal extensive and previously undocumented Holocene activity. Phase 1 consisted of 8.3 ka (~6300 BCE) volcanic debris avalanche and thick lapil...
RESUMEN: La literatura vulcanológica internacional cita la actividad eruptiva del Turrialba restringida mayoritariamente a los años 1864-1866. Sin embargo, con base en una reinterpretación de los documentos históricos y el aporte de las dataciones de ra-diocarbono junto con las secciones estratigráficas, se evidenció que el Turrialba presentó al me...
Costa Rica is known worldwide as a tourist mecca. As of 1955, almost all the major volcanoes began to be declared national parks, stopping the human expansion and exploitation in those areas, while several parks have been exposed to the eruptive activity of the five historically active volcanoes. Parks are subject to tourism and thus to the danger...
Linea Sismica 39
Linea Sismica 29
Linea Sismica 44E
Linea Sismica 39E
Linea Sismica 44
Linea Sismica 43
Mapa Geomorfológico del Altiplano de Grano de Oro. Forma parte del artículo "El altiplano de Grano de Oro (Moravia, Chirripó): una cuenca reciente de represamiento tectónico en Alta Talamanca, Costa Rica"
El altiplano de Grano de Oro posee una altitud media de 1100 m s.n.m. y un área de ⁓5.5 km2, es una anomalía morfológica en la cordillera de Talamanca, con características morfoestructurales y de sedimentología fluvial particulares. Consiste en una cuenca exorreica en la cual predomina una llanura de inundación con geoformas y litofacies típicas. S...
Nicaragua's tectonic depression extends from El Salvador to the plains in northern Costa Rica and is limited by strike-slip faults with a normal component. Based on a set of unpublished seismic lines (see supplementary resources), geology of the area, drilling data and surface seismicity, an analysis and interpretation of tectonic events in the SE...
The recent and growing development and availability of unmanned aerial vehicles/systems (UAV, UAS, or “drones”) in volcanology has promoted a significant advance in volcanic surveillance of active volcanoes and in the characterization of volcanic landforms and hazards. However, in the tropics with heavy rainfall, deep volcanic soils and high relief...
El altiplano de Grano de Oro ha sido poco estudiado hasta el presente trabajo, en el que se hace una descripción detallada de la geomorfología y geología. Parece corresponder con una cuenca de represamiento tectónico ubicada entre los ríos Pacuare y Chirripó (Talamanca) con una altitud media de 1100 m s.n.m. y un área de aproximadamente 5.4 km2 con...
The Rincón de la Vieja volcano the only volcano in the Guanacaste mountain range that has historical activity and is one of the few in the World that has a hot and acid lake in its crater. The present work shows new radiometric dates from the Middle Holocene to the Upper Holocene (last 6000 years), fundamental information for volcanic hazards studi...
El 5 de enero de 2010, el volcán Turrialba inició su periodo eruptivo asociado a la caída de ceniza, actividad que se mantiene hasta el presente (mayo de 2019), destacando las erupciones del 29 de octubre de 2014, del 12 de marzo de 2015 y del 19 de setiembre de 2016, que afectaron las actividades productivas de las comunidades localizadas en el fl...
From April 12 until April 22 2017 Poás volcano experienced a new explosive phase with ballistic fragments reaching up to ~2,2 km. At its final phase non juvenile bocks predominated, product both of a 1953 lava body destruction and a lacustrine floor, followed by an increment of juvenile fragments (glassy bread crust blocks, scoriaceous bombs and, r...
RESUMEN: Se realizó un análisis histórico de los principales deslizamientos grandes que han ocurrido en las faldas del volcán Barva, los cuales se han transformado en flujos de escombros volcánicos (lahares no eruptivos). El primer registro se asocia con el terremoto acaecido el 15 de febrero de 1772, el cual produjo grandes movimientos en masa des...
RESUMEN: El volcán Turrialba posee en su cima un graben complejo con rumbo aproximado N50°E, de 3,5 km de longitud y un ancho máximo de 2,8 km, limitado por un sistema complejo de fallas sinestrales con componente normal, varios cráteres orientados N45°E y una caldera de avalancha desportillada hacia el NE, de 6 km de longitud y 2,5 km (en promedio...
Historical research was performed analyzing the morphologic and temporary evolution of the craters and small eruptive vents (lateral craters, intracraters, some as pit craters and small craters or “mouths”) of the volcanoes Irazú, Arenal, Turrialba and Poás. The establishment of the small intracrateric eruptive mouths was preceded by fumarolic acti...
Geologic map of the Miravalles Quadrangle (Northwestern Costa Rica), scale 1:50 000.
The map also depicts the stratigraphy from Paleogene? up to recent, tectonics, neotectonics, a DEM, geologic profiles, and the geographic framework.
Two new endemic species of scarab beetles are described from Costa Rica, Onthophagus humboldtisp. nov . and Uroxys bonplandisp. nov.Onthophagus humboldtisp. nov. is also the tenth brachypterous Onthophagus species to be described worldwide, representing also a case of extreme brachyptery in Onthophagini. Illustrations for both new species, as well...
Geologic map of the Upala Quadrangle (Northwestern Costa Rica), scale 1:50 000.
The map also depicts the stratigraphy from Paleogene? up to recent, tectonics, neotectonics, a DEM, geologic profiles, and the geographic framework.
Geologic map of the Cairo Quadrangle (Northwestern Costa Rica), scale 1:50 000.
The map also depicts the stratigraphy from Pliocene? up to recent, tectonics, neotectonics, a DEM, geologic profiles, and the geographic framework.
After a century of quiescence, Turrialba, a Quaternary stratovolcano in the Costa Rican Volcanic Front, started a neweruptive cycle in 2010 that is ongoing to this date (July 3rd, 2019). Violent eruptions began in 2014, producing columns of ash that reached 4 km above the summit of the volcano. Here we provide new major and trace element data from...
Costa Rica had an important, high quality pearl industry at international level. Additionally, there was intense exploitation of the nacre shell (mother of pearl) during the XIX century. The fame of these pearls as well as their trade significantly decreased during the first quarter of the XX century, it all but ended possibly due to overexploitati...
The El Güegüecho dome, located in the central part of El Salvador, is a monogenetic volcano located 3.5 km North of the caldera rim of Ilopango, which is a supervolcano that in its history has had about a dozen explosive eruptions. Approximately, 40 monogenetic volcanoes have been located around and in the interior of the caldera. The emergence of...
This study main aim was to analyse the spatio-temporal trend in seismicity recorded in the proximity of the Pirrís Reservoir (central Costa Rica), where impoundment for the purposes of filling the reservoir to its total volume (3,6 * 107 m3) started in 2011. We differentiated between the events that occurred before, during and after this filling op...
In this chapter the stratigraphy of Poás volcano by using geological, petrographical, geochronological and geochemical analyses on the volcanic products erupted during the last 600 ka is defined. The northern flank of Poás consists of the following Units and Members: Río Sarapiquí, La Paz, Puente de Mulas Member (possibly from another source, thoug...
During the period 2000–2003 four soil CO2 efflux surveys were carried out at Poás volcano (Costa Rica) to investigate the spatial distribution and evaluate the diffuse CO2 emission as well as its associated thermal energy. Inspection of soil CO2 efflux maps showed that the highest values were always identified inside the Main Crater of Poás, being...
A landslide susceptibility model for Poás volcano was created in response to the most recent event that triggered landslides in the area (the Mw 6.2 Cinchona earthquake, which occurred on the 8th of January, 2009). This earthquake was the sixth event related to destructive landslides in the last 250 yr in this area and it severely affected importan...
“Testudo” costarricensis was described as a basal tortoise from the Oligocene or lower Miocene of Costa Rica and considered as evidence of a migration of tortoises from North America to South America to provide an ancestor to the modern genus Chelonoides. However, this was based on an incorrect reconstruction of the holotype carapace and plastron o...
The Turrialba volcano began its eruptive period at the beginning of 2010 (area with reports of ash: 624 km2), which has been maintained until the present (August 2018). The highest activity occurred at the end of October 2014, gradually increasing until reaching a maximum in 2016 (12,887 km2) that is, in six years the impact area due to ash fall in...
The caves of the Irazú volcano (Costa Rica), became accessible after the partial collapse of the NW sector of the Irazú volcano in 1994, offering the opportunity to investigate active minerogenetic processes in volcanic cave environments. We performed a detailed mineralogical and geochemical study of speleothems in the caves Cueva los Minerales and...
El trabajo presentado es el resultado de una colaboración iniciada entre el Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) y la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) para la investigación de la sismicidad inducida por causas antrópicas. El estudio que aquí se presenta se centra en el análisis de l...