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The 4095-m-high main edifice of Aragats is dissected by glaciers and is of Pliocene-to-Pleistocene age. However, parasitic cones and fissures are located on all sides of the volcano and were the source of large lava flows that descended its lower flanks. Several of these were considered to be of Holocene age, but later Potassium-Argon dating indicated mid- to late-Pleistocene ages. The youngest lower-flank flows have not been precisely dated, but are constrained as occurring between the end of the late-Pleistocene and 3000 BC (Kharakanian et al., 2003). A 13-km-long, WSW-ENE-trending line of craters and pyroclastic cones cuts across the northern crater rim and is the source of young lava flows and lahars; the latter were considered to be characteristic of Holocene summit eruptions. |
