The Towering Vsevidof Volcano

The state of Alaska has a surprisingly large number of fairly large islands, many of which are either completely uninhabited or sparsely populated. One of these is Umnak Island, which is only around 6% smaller than the island of Maui. Yet, despite its size, less than 50 people live there. 

On Umnak Island there are three volcanoes, the first of which I am about to mention is the most famous; Okmok.

Okmok produced a powerful volcanic eruption in 43 BCE (a mid end VEI 6) which caused famines around the planet. This eruption has even been suggested to possibly have caused the political situation in the late Roman Republic to deteriorate to the point that it (along with other factors) eventually transformed into the Roman Empire.

Okmok last produced a sub-plinian VEI 4 eruption in 2008, and has not erupted since.

Moving to the west we have the Mount Recheschnoi complex. It is highly glacially eroded, and no obvious young (in this case, under 1,000 years) lava flows or eruptive products can be easily spotted. Yet, this volcano is classified as active / potentially active as some cinder cones and lava domes on flanks of the volcano have been found above glacial sediments, suggesting a post-glacial aka Holocene age. Mount Recheschnoi is also associated even today with a fairly large grouping of fumaroles, hot springs, and even a purported geyser. So, it still probably has some at depth magma chamber.

However, the most scenic volcano on the island is in my opinion the (possibly hard to pronounce?) Vsevidof volcano. Along with Kanaga, Mount Cleveland, and Shishaldin, Vsevidof is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in all of Alaska. It towers from a base at around sea level to a height of a little more than 7,000 feet. This is quite impressive when you consider that this volcano likely only began erupting 20,000 years ago! I recommend searching this volcano up on Google Earth, as images I am including in this post do not give it justice. It has shaded of red, black, and gray. The red is scoria from strombolian eruptions, the gray is andesite or dacite lava or ash, and the black is basaltic andesite lava. 

Vsevidof has erupted twice during historic times, one eruption in 1878 and another in 1957. The 1878 eruption was moderately explosive, and produced a new dacite composition lava flow on the volcano (on its west flank). On the other hand, the 1957 eruption was much smaller and was brief, not including any magma as it was phreatic in origin. 

Tomorrow I will be posting a video on the Vsevidof volcano. Any questions about it, Umnak Island, or any other Aleutian volcanoes? Be sure to let me know. 

Note: Image attribution can be found with a link to the source image in each of the posted images of this Vsevidof volcano Patreon post in the bottom right corner of each image.