Kizimen Volcano released plumes of ash and steam on December 30, 2010, according to the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency. On the same day, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image. The volcano sent a pale brownish plume toward the southwest, across the Kamchatka Peninsula and over the Sea of Okhotsk.
Kizimen Volcano is a stratovolcano—a steep-sloped, cone composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, solifidied ash, and rocks ejected by earlier eruptions. Lava domes overlap each other at Kizimen’s summit, and hardened lava flows occur on the volcano’s flanks. Estimated to be about 12,000 years old, Kizimen experienced a major, explosive eruption event in the late 1920s.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
