Activity at Kizimen Volcano

Activity at Kizimen Volcano. On December 31, 2010, Kizimen continued releasing plumes of ash and steam. The U.S. Air Force Weather Agency reported ongoing activity as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite showed a plume from the volcano blowing southward over the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The red outline at the volcano’s summit is a hotspot where MODIS has detected unusually high surface temperatures. Kizimen’s plume blows toward the southwest and southeast, likely the result of changing winds. In the southeast, the plume appears as a faint gray-beige veil over the ocean. An expanse of snow west of the volcano looks gray, perhaps the result of a recent ashfall from Kizimen.
Rising to an altitude of 2,376 meters (7,795 feet), Kizimen Volcano is a stratovolcano composed of hardened lava, solifidied ash, and rocks ejected by earlier eruptions. The volcano has experienced multiple periods of long-term growth, and lava domes overlap at the summit.Kizimen (Russian: Кизимен) is a stratovolcano in the southern part of Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.
The volcano was in a dormant state since an eruption in 1929, but on 2 September 2009 it was reported by Georgina Cooper for the Reuters news agency that the crater lake temperature had risen 10 degrees Celsius in a week and plumes of steam were rising from its flanks.] The activity continued throughout 2010, with the formation of new fumaroles reported in November.Seismic activity and ash emission continued to build over the following weeks, and in January 2011 a hotspot was recorded, indicating the presence of lava. In early February 2011 the volcano sent a column of ash several kilometres high.
In April 2011, it was reported that the volcanic activity and ash were threatening the endangered wild reindeer of the area.
On 31 December 2012, following a 24-hour period of some 357 earthquakes reported under the volcano, Kizimen was raised to ‘orange alert’ status. An eruption was reported on 10 January 2013, with the ash plume reaching 4,200 m (13,800 ft) altitude.

Credit: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.