There are estimated to be over 1,300 active volcanoes in the world today.

Almost all of them have one thing in common.

They were around well before there were humans to record their creation.

In fact, their creation might have taken thousands of years.

However, there is one volcano we know quite a bit about because we were around when it was born and we have everything on film.

Learn more about Paracotin, the volcano that we witnessed being born on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. volcanoes are things that happen very slowly and then sometimes all at once.

For example, Maniloa on the Big Island of Hawaii is estimated to have erupted for about 700,000 years. It may go decades with absolutely nothing happening on the surface and then suddenly it'll engage in spasms of activity.

When the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii, all the volcanoes were already there. They learned to live with them, but they weren't there to witness their creation.

The same story is true all over the world. Pick your volcano and it was there before people were around to document its

creation. This is what makes the subject of this episode so interesting.

Parocoutine is the world's youngest volcano.

The story starts in Mexico in 1943, near the village of Paracutin in the state of

Michoacan, located about 320 kilometers west of Mexico City.

In particular, it starts with a single farmer by the name of Dionysio

Pulido.

Pulido grew corn and on his land there was a hole in the ground. It wasn't that big and he

never thought much of it. It was about 15 feet

wide and 3 feet deep, or 5 meters wide and 1 meter deep.

Polito just sort of assumed that it might have been the entrance to an old abandoned Spanish mine. He sort of used the hole as a garbage

dump. He would often throw dirt or brush into it, or he might store the yoke for his ox in the hole

rather than bringing it in from the field. But there was something odd about the whole, however.

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