Tao-Rusyr Caldera (russian: Тао-Русыр) is a
stratovolcano located at the southern end of
Onekotan
Onekotan (russian: Онекотан; Japanese 温禰古丹島; Onekotan-tō, occasionally Onnekotan-tō, ain, オネコタン or オネコタㇴ) is an uninhabited volcanic island located near the northern end of the Kuril Islands chain in ...
Island,
Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. It has 7.5 km wide
caldera
A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...
formed during a catastrophic
eruption
Several types of volcanic eruptions—during which lava, tephra (ash, lapilli, volcanic bombs and volcanic blocks), and assorted gases are expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure—have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often ...
less than 10,000 years ago (reported ages range from 5,550 to 9,400
Before Present
Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...
). The waters of Kol'tsevoe Lake (russian: Кольцевое озеро, Ring Lake) fill the
caldera
A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...
, along with a large symmetrical
andesitic
Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomin ...
cone, Krenitsyn Peak, that rises as an island within the lake. This volcano was named after Captain
Pyotr Krenitsyn
Pyotr Kuzmich Krenitsyn (russian: Пётр Кузьмич Креницын) (1728 – July 4, 1770), spelt "Krenitzin" in the United States, was a Russian explorer and Captain/Lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Navy. Following Vitus Bering's 1741 ...
of the
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...
.
The most recent eruption, in 1952, formed a small lava dome on the island's coast. Krenitsyn Peak has a summit crater 350 m wide and is the highest point of the volcano and on the entire Onekotan Island. Another caldera,
Nemo Peak
Nemo Peak (russian: Пик Немо) is a stratovolcano located at the northern end of Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands, Russia. It is truncated by two nested calderas, with the cone of Nemo Peak itself rising in the southwest end of the youngest ...
, lies at the northern end of the island, and it also contains a
central cone and crater lake.
The caldera forming eruption yielded about of material and destroyed the upper parts of the pre-existing volcano. The event has been potentially identified in the
GISP2
The Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP) was a decade-long project to drill ice cores in Greenland that involved scientists and funding agencies from Denmark, Switzerland and the United States. Besides the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), f ...
ice core.
The caldera forming eruption wiped out vegetation on southern Onekotan, and it took a long time for it to recover. Only one historical eruption occurred at Tao-Rusyr, just after the
1952 Severo-Kurilsk earthquake
The 1952 Severo-Kurilsk earthquake struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The 9.0 Mw earthquake triggered a major tsunami that hit Severo-Kurilsk, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR, on 4 November 1952 at 16:58 ( UTC) ...
.
See also
*
List of volcanoes in Russia
This is a list of active and extinct volcanoes in Russia.
European Russia
Kamchatka
Volcanoes of the Kamchatka Peninsula of the northwestern Pacific Ocean and the Russian Far East.
Kuril Islands
Volcanoes of the Kuril Islands
The Kuri ...
References
External links
*
Volcanic Activity and Recent Tephras in the Kuril Islands: Field Result during the International Kuril Island Project (IKIP) 2000*
Onekotan
Calderas of Russia
Volcanic crater lakes
Stratovolcanoes of Russia
Active volcanoes
VEI-6 volcanoes
Volcanoes of the Kuril Islands
Mountains of the Kuril Islands
Holocene calderas
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