Volcano Type: Stratovolcano
Volcano Status: Historical
Last Known Eruption: 1992
Summit Elevation: 3374 m 11,069 feet
Latitude: 61.299°N 61°17’58″N
Longitude: 152.251°W 152°15’4″W
The 3374-m-high summit of Mount Spurr, the highest volcano of the Aleutain arc, is a large lava dome constructed at the center of a roughly 5-km-wide horseshoe-shaped caldera that is open to the south. The volcano lies 130 km west of Anchorage and NE of Chakachamna Lake. The caldera was formed by a late-Pleistocene or early Holocene debris avalanche and associated pyroclastic flows that destroyed an ancestral Spurr volcano. The debris avalanche traveled more than 25 km to the SE, and the resulting deposit contains blocks as large as 100 m in diameter. Several ice-carved post-caldera cones or lava domes lie in the center of the caldera. The youngest vent, 2309-m-high Crater Peak, formed at the breached southern end of the caldera and has been the source of about 40 identified Holocene tephra layers. Spurr’s two historical eruptions, from Crater Peak in 1953 and 1992, deposited ash on the city of Anchorage.
Spurr Volcano Lava Flow
Spurr Volcano
Mount Spurr is a Quaternary stratovolcano located near the northeastern end of the Aleutian volcanic arc. It is the easternmost historically active volcano in the Aleutian arc and is the highest of several snow- and ice-covered peaks that appear to define a large, dissected stratovolcano. Mount Spurr volcano, 3,374 m (11,070 ft) high, is visible on the skyline 125 km (78 mi) west of Anchorage, Alaska.
The youngest volcanic feature at Mount Spurr is a satellitic cone, Crater Peak, located in the breach in the caldera about 3.2 km south of Mount Spurr. Crater Peak has been the source of all Late Holocene eruptive activity at Mt. Spurr. Before the 1992 eruption, a small crater lake occupied the bottom of the crater.
Originally posted 2010-08-21 05:01:31.
