Emmons Leontovich welded tuff

Start: 294000 yBP [1]

Event Type: Explosive

Max VEI: 4 [2]

Event Characteristics:
  • Caldera/crater [1]
  • Pyroclastic flow, surge, or nuee ardente [1]
  • Tephrafall [1]

Description: From Waythomas and others (2006): "Major Plinian/ultra-Plinian eruption. Extensive ignimbrite sheets."
"Major explosive events with high column of ash and pyroclastic debris. Extensive ash dispersal and formation of mobile and far traveling pyroclastic flows."
"Eruptive product studies associated with caldera formation date the major eruptions around 294,000, 234,000, 123,000, 100,000, 30-50,000, and 26,000 years ago. Each of these eruptions produced relatively extensive pyroclastic-flow deposits of dacite to rhyolite composition hot enough to weld when deposited and form the welded tuff units shown in figures 7 and 8 [in original text]. Some of the welded tuffs show evidence of secondary flowage (rheomorphic tuffs) as far as 35 km from their source calderas (fig.8 [in original text]). Rheomorphic welded tuffs are unique to the Emmons Lake volcanic center and are found nowhere else in the Aleutian arc. The welded tuffs crop out in areas southeast and northeast of the caldera complex where they flowed into and filled preexisting valleys and ancestral drainages."
The Global database on large magnitude explosive volcanic eruptions (LaMEVE; 2017) reports a magnitude of 4, bulk eruptive volume of 0.10 cubic km and a dense rock equivalent eruptive volume of 0.040 cubic km for the eruption.

References Cited

[1] Preliminary volcano-hazard assessment for the Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Alaska [Pavlof Sister, Pavlof, Little Pavlof, Double Crater, Mount Hague, Emmons], 2006

Waythomas, C.F., Miller, T.P., and Mangan, M.T., 2006, Preliminary Volcano Hazard Assessment for the Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Alaska [Pavlof Sister, Pavlof, Little Pavlof, Double Crater, Mount Hague, Emmons]: Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. Geological Survey, Scientific Investigations Report 2006-5248, 33 p., 1 sheet, available online at http://www.avo.alaska.edu/pdfs/SIR2006-5248.pdf .
map sheet 2.4 MB
full-text PDF 4.08 MB

[2] Global database on large magnitude explosive volcanic eruptions (LaMEVE), 2012

Crosweller H.S., Arora, B., Brown, S.K., Cottrell, E., Deligne, N.I., Guerrero, N.O., Hobbs, L., Kiyosugi, K., Loughlin, S.C., Lowndes, J., Nayembil, M., 2012, Global database on large magnitude explosive volcanic eruptions (LaMEVE): Journal of Applied Volcanology, v. 1, n. 4, unpaged.

Complete Eruption References

Global database on large magnitude explosive volcanic eruptions (LaMEVE), 2012

Crosweller H.S., Arora, B., Brown, S.K., Cottrell, E., Deligne, N.I., Guerrero, N.O., Hobbs, L., Kiyosugi, K., Loughlin, S.C., Lowndes, J., Nayembil, M., 2012, Global database on large magnitude explosive volcanic eruptions (LaMEVE): Journal of Applied Volcanology, v. 1, n. 4, unpaged.

Diverse lavas from closely spaced volcanoes drawing from a common parent: Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Eastern Aleutian Arc, 2009

Mangan, Margaret, Miller, Thomas, Waythomas, Christopher, Trusdell, Frank, Calvert, Andrew, and Layer, Paul, 2009, Diverse lavas from closely spaced volcanoes drawing from a common parent: Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Eastern Aleutian Arc: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 287, p. 363-372, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.08.018 .

Preliminary volcano-hazard assessment for the Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Alaska [Pavlof Sister, Pavlof, Little Pavlof, Double Crater, Mount Hague, Emmons], 2006

Waythomas, C.F., Miller, T.P., and Mangan, M.T., 2006, Preliminary Volcano Hazard Assessment for the Emmons Lake Volcanic Center, Alaska [Pavlof Sister, Pavlof, Little Pavlof, Double Crater, Mount Hague, Emmons]: Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. Geological Survey, Scientific Investigations Report 2006-5248, 33 p., 1 sheet, available online at http://www.avo.alaska.edu/pdfs/SIR2006-5248.pdf .
map sheet 2.4 MB
full-text PDF 4.08 MB
× Instrument data