OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Open search box
Four active volcanoes located on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia were caught erupting simultaneously on January 11, 2013! This is no real surprise as the Kamchatka Peninsula has the highest concentration of active volcanoes on Earth, but to have images of Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Plosky-Tolbachik, and Kizimen volanoes (see map below) erupting at the same time is quite spectacular. The activity of the four volcanoes was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA's Terra satellite during a single orbit. An amazing satellite photo of Tolbachik volcano is shown below, which is one of the few shield volcanoes on Kamchatka. The photo shows the thin, runny lava flows forming low and broad flows much like those formed in Hawai'i and the hot lava actually glowing in near-infrared light. The image above is of a lava fountaining on Polsky Tolbachik courtesy of Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT).
Tolbachik volcano is a massive basaltic volcano that is composed of two overlapping, but very morphologically different volcanoes. One is a flat-topped shield volcano, known as Plosky Tolbachik, which is located east of the older and higher sharp-topped Ostry Tolbachik stratovolcano. There are long rift zones extending along the volcano that have erupted voluminous basaltic lava flows. Tolbachik volcano erupted in 1975-76 and was the largest historical basaltic eruption in Kamchatka.
