Scenic Lago de Coatepeque fills the 7 x 10 km Coatepeque caldera in western El Salvador. The caldera was formed during two major eruptions in the late Pleistocene. Post-caldera eruptions produced a series of lava domes such as the one seen at the left, forming a small peninsula extending into the lake. A chain of cinder cones that erupted along caldera ring faults dot the southern caldera rim in the background.

Photo by Giuseppina Kysar, 1999 (Smithsonian Institution).

Coatepeque Caldera