Ojos del Salado Spanish, comes from the enormous deposits of salt that, in the form of lagoons or “eyes”, appear in its glaciers. An international highway between Chile and Argentina runs north of the mountain. Ojos del Salado along with several other high volcanoes such as El Muerto, El Solo, Nevado Incahuasi and Nevado Tres Cruces lies at the southern end of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes. Volcanic activity in the region commenced 26 million years ago in the Cordillera Claudio Gay, at the same time as the neighbouring Maricunga Belt volcanoes were active. Starting 18 million years ago, local subduction
Ojos del Salado of Ojos del Salado was , but that was "simply [...] based on the altitude of the final camp, and the hours of ascent to the summit." In 1956, the first Chilean expedition led by the retired lieutenant René Gajardo measured the height of Ojos del Salado as with a pocket pressure altimeter. Apart from being an inexact method, the height shown by the altimeter was far too high as air pressure is generally lower in the afternoon, the time at which the team reached the summit. An expedition to the area in the 1990s claimed that nearby Monte Pissis