Ushishir (russian: Ушишир;

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: 宇志知島; Ushishiru-tō; Ainu: ウシシㇼ, lit. "Land of the bay") is a collective name for two uninhabited

volcanic island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

s and several reefs, all being parts of an eponymous partially submerged volcano, located in the centre of the

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 ...

chain in the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...

in the northwest

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Its name is derived from the

Ainu language Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...

for "

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

Geology

Ushishir consists of two islets almost connected by a narrow spit of land with an area of . These islets are the tops of a partially submerged volcano. The southern island, Yankicha (russian: Янкича ), consists of the summit caldera and has a maximum width of . The caldera has a diameter of , and is breached on the south, forming a sea-water Crater Bay. The bay has an estimated depth of , and there is strong evidence of ongoing underwater volcanic activity, as evidenced by frequent bubbles, altered water chemistry and the presence of bacteria mats. Two small

lava dome In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions on ...

s form small islands in the central lagoon, and numerous

fumarole A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...

s and hot springs are along the southeast caldera shoreline. The island's highest point is high, and is on the eastern shore. The northern islet (Ryponkicha russian: o. Рыпонкича ) is the smaller of the two, and consists of a portion of the volcano's flank, with sheer cliffs rising up from the sea. Ushishir is still an

active volcano An active volcano is a volcano which is either erupting or is likely to erupt in the future. An active volcano which is not currently erupting is known as a dormant volcano. Overview Tlocene Epoch. Most volcanoes are situated on the Pacific Ri ...

with the last known

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 ...

in 1884.

Fauna

In the spring and summer some of the largest colonies of crested and

whiskered auklet The whiskered auklet (''Aethia pygmaea'') is a small seabird of the auk family. It has a more restricted range than other members of its genus, ''Aethia'', living only around the Aleutian Islands and on some islands off Siberia (like Commander ...

in the Kuril Islands are found on the island;

least auklet The least auklet (''Aethia pusilla'') is a seabird and the smallest species of auk. It is the most abundant seabird in North America, and one of the most abundant in the world, with a population of around nine million birds. They breed on the isl ...

also nest here.Kondratyev, A. Y., Litvinenko, N. M., Shibaev, Y. V., Vyatkin, P. S., & Kondratyeva, L. F. (2000)
"The breeding seabirds of the Russian Far East"
''Seabirds of the Russian Far East'', 37-81.

History

Ushishir had no permanent habitation prior to European contact, but was visited in summer by the Ainu tribes from

Rasshua Rasshua (russian: Расшуа, ja, 羅処和島), is an uninhabited volcanic island near the center of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean, from Ushishir and southwest of Matua. Its name is derived f ...

, who regarded the island as a sacred land, which they identified as the home of the thunder god. Remains of Ainu huts have been found on the northern slopes of Yankicha's crater bay. Claimed by the

Empire of Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

over Ushishir was passed to the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg along with the rest of the Kuril Islands. Approaches to the island are difficult due to frequent fogs, rapid

ocean current An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...

s and the presence of numerous small offshore rocks. The island was formerly administered as part of Shimushiro District of

Nemuro Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Japan claims the southern parts of the disputed Kuril Islands (known as the Northern Territories in Japan) as part of this subprefecture. As of March 2009, the subprefecture has an estimated p ...

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the island came under the control of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, and is now administered as part of the

Sakhalin Oblast Sakhalin Oblast ( rus, Сахали́нская о́бласть, r=Sakhalínskaya óblast', p=səxɐˈlʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the K ...

of the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Geology

Fauna

History

See also

References

External links

Notes

Further reading