The Kamtchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team reported a thermal anomaly beneath Mount Bezymianny, a 2882 m stratovolcano (cone shaped volcano made up of
layers of ash and lava) on the central part of the Kamchatka Peninsula, seen in satellite images between 12 and 15 March 2019, accompanied by intense gas-end-steam emissions from the volcano's crater and avalanches of hot ash on its flanks observed by webcams located around the site. This was followed by a series of eruptions on 15-16 March, which produced ash columns up to 15 km high and drifted to the east and northeast, with ashfalls being reported by communities up to 120 km away.
Thermal image of an eruption on Mount Bezymianny on 15 March 2019. Bright white area represents fragments of hot rock collapsed onto the lava dome and flanks of the volcano. KVERT.
Mount Bezymianny was thought to be extinct until 1955, when it began a
volcanic cycle
that ended in 1956 with an explosive eruption caused the summit to
collapse and created a large horseshoe-shaped crater. This has
subsequently been filled in by further eruptive episodes on Bezymianny.
The current summit is 2882 m high, but it is overshadowed by the nearby
Kamen and Kluchevskaya volcanoes at 4579 m and 4750 m respectively.
Bezymianny is thought to have formed about 4700 years ago, on the
remains on an older, Pleistocene, volcano active between 11 000 and 7000
years ago. It has undergone three periods of intense activity since its
formation, but was apparently inactive for about a thousand years prior
to its 1955 reactivation.
Infrared satellite images of a spreading ash plume from an eruption on Mount Bezymianny starting at 4.10 pm GMT on 16 March 2019. KVERT/VolSatView.
Mount Bezymianny is part of the Klyuchevskoi Volcano Group in
the Ust-Kamchatka (East Kamchatka) District, along with mounts
Klyuchevskoi and Kamen. The Kamchatka Peninsula lies on the eastern
edge of the Okhotsk Plate, close to its margin with the Pacific and
North American Plates. The Pacific Plate is being subducted along the
margin, and as it does so it passes under the southern part of the
Kamchatka Peninsula, and as it does so is partially melted by the
friction and the heat of the Earth's interior. Some of the melted
material then rises through the overlying Okhotsk Plate as magma and
fuelling the volcanoes of southern Kamchatka.
Simple
diagram showing the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Okhotsk
Plate along the Kuril Kamchatka Trench. The Kamchatka Peninsula is at
the top of the diagram. Auburn University.
See also...
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