Most of the volcanoes in the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula form a continuous arc with a shared history and tectonic setting. Actually, the Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World organizers should probably have combined these at the start as Region 09 and used 10 for the volcanoes of mainland Asia, but few if any inland volcanoes were recognized at the time. The original Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World grouping was "Kamchatka and Manchuria," but by the time of publication (1958) this had been widened to "Kamchatka and continental areas of Asia." Nevertheless, only five mainland volcanoes were listed in that catalog, as opposed to 30 here; an increase exceeded only by the gains in Region 12 (Western US and Canada).

Russian explorers reached Siberia's Pacific coast in 1637, and the Kamchatka Peninsula by 1697, also the year of its first eruption report (on Kliuchevskoi, the region's most vigorous volcano). Two other Kamchatkan volcanoes erupted in the 17th century, Mutnovsky and Koshelev, but the first historical eruptions from the Kuril Islands were early in the 18th. Peter the Great's epic exploring expedition, led by Vitus Bering from 1733 to 1742, mapped the east coast of Kamchatka, and La Perouse explored the Kurils by sea in 1787. The Kurils have been contested by Japan and Russia, and Japan held the islands from 1875 to the end of WW-II. Heavy colonization of Kamchatka began early in the 19th century, and in 1904 the Trans-Siberian Railroad opened, linking Europe to Vladivostok (and China). Of Kamchatka's 607 historical eruptions, 95% have been in the last two centuries (and 71% in the 20th).

As with the rest of the NW Pacific, subduction of the Pacific Plate has produced the vigorous explosive volcanism of the Kuril-Kamchatka arc, but tensional volcanism dominates the mainland part of the region. The Baikal rift, for example, includes young basaltic cinder cones as well as the world's deepest lake.

The contrast between Kamchatka and the mainland remains strong in the timing of historical volcanism, with that on the Asian mainland having begun early but been infrequent in recent centuries. Six volcanoes had erupted by 1697, the year of the first historical Kamchatkan eruption (the first being the Tianshan Group in the 1st century AD, followed by Datong in the 5th century). We are hopeful that more work with the detailed chronicles of mainland Asia will further illuminate the volcanic history of this region. One of the world's largest Holocene eruptions took place at Baitoushan on the China/Korea border, in the 11th century AD. Mainland Asia's most recent eruptions are Wudalianchi, in 1719-21, and the Kunlun group in 1951.

The Kurils and Kamchatka are sparsely populated and among the four smallest Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World regions. The Kamchatka peninsula holds 454,800 people (63% in the city of Petropavlovsk) and the Kurils 29,800 (83% in the three southern islands of Kunishir, Iturup, and Urup). The addition of mainland Asia, however, makes Region 10 easily the most heavily populated, and (with the possible exception of Antarctica) the largest.

Regular monitoring of Kamchatkan volcanoes began in 1935 when the Kamchatka Volcanological Station was founded in Petropavlovsk. This grew into the Institute of Volcanology, the largest in the world, and was split into the IV and the IVGG in 1991. Observation of Kuril volcanoes is largely done by the Institute of Volcanology and Geodynamics in Sakhalin.

Region 10 has the largest number of undated Holocene volcanoes (105), and is second only to South America in total number of Holocene volcanoes (194). Kamchatka easily leads the world in the number of eruptions (247) dated by tephrochronology and/or radiocarbon, and in the number of big (VEI >= 4) BC eruptions (21?). No other region has a higher proportion of eruptions characterized as explosive (86%). Kamchatka also has the largest number of shield volcanoes (48), mostly in the Sredinny Range on the peninsula's western side, and very nearly as many volcanoes consisting primarily of cinder cones (17) as Region 12.

From Simkin and Siebert, 1994.

Výber : Prevo, Aconupuri, Ušišur, Ivan Groznyj a Medvežia


viac tu: http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/region.cfm?rnum=09&rpage=list