Kizimen Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula

Kizimen Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, spotted March 12. 

CREDIT: NASA Earth Observatory.

Ash, lava and debris cloak the snowy slopes of Kizimen volcano on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula after a series of eruptions early this month.

NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite spotted the eruption's aftermath on March 12. A gas plume still rose from the summit, while snow covered a lava flow on the volcano's eastern flank.

Kizimen is a stratovolcano, a 7,795-foot-tall (2,376 meters), cone-shaped mountain similar to Japan's Mt. Fuji or Washington's Mount St. Helens, before the latter's earth-shattering eruption in 1980, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

The Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia is home to 29 of the world's active volcanoes, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.

Kizimen's eruption started in February 2011. The volcano unleashed an explosive eruption after a series of earthquake tremors that started in July 2009, indicating magma was moving underground. Ash plumes spewed about 2 miles (4 kilometers) into the atmosphere.

After two years of on-and-off activity, in January 2013, pyroclastic flows (superheated clouds of gas and volcanic debris) sped down the volcano's flanks when a lava dome collapsed at Kizimen's summit.

The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team, which monitors volcanic activity on the peninsula, noted that Kizimen produced incandescent lava extrusions, along with gas and steam eruptions in early March 2013, NASA's Earth Observatory reported.

Russian Plosky Tolbachik volcano erupts after 30 years

The Plosky Tolbachik volcano is continuing to erupt in Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, sending plumes of gas and ash into the sky.

The Plosky Tolbachik volcano in East Russia, is one of 29 on the Kamchatka peninsular, and has been erupting since last November.

Officials have warned people to stay away, but the eruption has led to stunning images of lava flowing through snow.

It is not known how long the eruption will last but it is believed that the volcano had been dormant for 30 years.

Plosky Tolbachik Volcanic Eruption

An aerial view of Plosky Tolbachik, a volcanic complex on the Kamchatka Peninsula, far eastern Russia 

Picture: ITAR-TASS / Barcroft Media

ESA ISS Astronaut Image: Alaid Volcano in the Kuril Islands

Alaid Volcano in the Kuril Islands of the Russian Federation is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 31 crew member on the International Space Station.

The Kurils chain extends from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the islands of Japan, and contains numerous active volcanoes along its length.

Alaid is the highest (2,339 meters above sea level) volcano in the Kuril chain, as well as being the northernmost.

The textbook conic morphology of this stratovolcano is marred only by the summit crater, which is breached to the south (center) and highlighted by snow cover.

The volcano rises 3,000 meters directly from the floor of the Sea of Okhotsk, with the uppermost part of the volcanic edifice exposed as an island.

Much of the sea surface surrounding the volcano has a silver-gray appearance. This mirror-like appearance is due to sunglint, where light reflects off the sea surface and is scattered directly towards the observer onboard the space station.

Sunglint is largely absent from a zone directly to the west of the volcano, most likely due to surface wind or water current patterns that change the roughness—and light scattering properties—of the water surface in this area.

Volcanoes in the Kurils, and similar island arcs in the Pacific “ring of fire”, are fed by magma generated along the boundary between two tectonic plates, where one plate is being driven beneath the other (a process known as subduction).

Alaid Volcano has been historically active with the most recent confirmed explosive activity occurring in 1996.