The Hainan Volcanic Field is a

volcanic field A volcanic field is an area of Earth's crust that is prone to localized volcanic activity. The type and number of volcanoes required to be called a "field" is not well-defined. Volcanic fields usually consist of clusters of up to 100 volcanoes ...

covering the northern half of

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

, People's Republic of China. Although mostly

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

in age, minor eruptions have been recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Morphology

The field is made up of 58 Pleistocene-Holocene

tholeiitic The tholeiitic magma series is one of two main magma series in subalkaline igneous rocks, the other being the calc-alkaline series. A magma series is a chemically distinct range of magma compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic magma ...

cones. The two best preserved cones (Leihuling and Ma'anshan ()) are on an East-West fracture line that contains 30 young cones in the Shishan () and Yongzing regions. Historically, small

fissure eruption A fissure vent, also known as a volcanic fissure, eruption fissure or simply a fissure, is a linear volcanic vent through which lava erupts, usually without any explosive activity. The vent is often a few metres wide and may be many kilom ...

s have been recorded from the

Lingao Língāo County (formerly romanised as Limko or Limkao) is an administrative district in Hainan province, China. It is one of 4 counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 571800, and in 1999 its population was 399,057 people. Climate See also * L ...

and

Chengmai Chéngmài County ( postal: Tsingmai; ) is an administrative district in Hainan, China. It is one of four counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 571900. In 2002, its population was 490,800. History The first record of Chengmai County is in 110 BC ...

areas.

Eruptions

Two eruptions have been reported in recent history.

1883

A small fissure eruption took place from Lingao cone in the

area sometime in 1883.

1933

Another small fissure eruption took place from the Nansheling Ridge in the

area on June 26 (date accurate to within plus or minus 4 days), 1933. This eruption probably ended on July 8, 1933.

References

Volcanoes of China Active volcanoes Landforms of Hainan Volcanic fields {{hainan-geo-stub