An explosive eruption on Mount Shiveluch on the Kamchatka Peninsula threw ash cloud to an altitude of 9000 m on the morning of Monday 10 June 2013, according to the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The initial eruption has been followed by an ongoing eruption sustaining an ash column averaging 6.9 km. This is a large eruption, but is unlikely to cause any problems for anyone, since few people choose to like close to the more-or-less constantly active volcano.
An ash column produced by Mount Shiveluch in 2000. Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team.
The volcano has been producing lava flows throughout May, and last produced an ash column in April - something it typically does several times a year. Ash from Shiveluch last reached the closest settlement, Ust-Kamchatsk, 85 km to the southeast, in October 2010, when an explosive eruption also destroyed much of a lava dome that had formed on the volcano, forming a new crater at the summit.
Shiveluch is the northernmost of 30 active volcanoes on the Kamchatka peninsula, fueled by the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Okhotsk Plate, upon which the Kamchatka Peninsula is located. As the Pacific Plate sinks into the Earth it is partially melted by the heat and pressure of the planet's interior. Some of the melted material then rises through the overlying Okhotsk Plate, fueling the volcanoes of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The location of Mount Shiveluch. Google Maps.
See also Eruption on Mount Kizimen, Volcanic activity on Mount Alaid, Volcanism on Mount Kliuchevskoi, Eruption on Mount Bezymianny and Eruption on Ivan Grozny.
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