In which part of Asia are more volcanoes concentrated?
Volcanoes usually gravitate towards areas of modern tectonic activity. Most of them are confined to the orogenic belt along the periphery of the Pacific Ocean,
The main part of active volcanoes is located in Kamchatka, the Aleutian, Kuril and Japanese islands and further south, along the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire. The volcanoes of the “ring of fire” are associated with the subduction (immersion) of the Pacific plate into the Earth’s mantle.
The origin of exotic Asian volcanoes remains in question. Most of them are located in a wide strip from Japan to Lake Baikal and, possibly, are also associated with subduction, but unusual. According to seismic tomography, in this region, the Pacific plate, reaching a depth of 650 km at an angle of 45 degrees, stagnates (takes a horizontal position) and moves another fifteen hundred kilometers under the continent (approximately to the border of China and Mongolia), then “floating” into the mantle. Reaching depths of about 60-100 km above the plate or already outside it in the westerly direction, the low-melting part of the plate material begins to melt and produce exotic volcanoes.
Modern volcanic activity on the territory of the Russian Federation is almost entirely concentrated in the Kuril-Kamchatka island arc, where there are at least 69 active volcanoes. At the same time, potentially active or “dormant” volcanoes have been discovered in a number of other regions of the country. First of all, this is the Greater Caucasus with the volcanoes Elbrus and Kazbek (the last eruptions within 3-7 thousand years ago), the south of Eastern Siberia (Kropotkin volcano, active 500-1000 years ago), Chukotka (Anyuisky volcano, which within the last millennium) and, possibly, the Baikal region. In the adjacent territories, the numerous volcanoes of the Japanese and Aleutian Islands are primarily distinguished by their activity. There are young volcanic formations in South Korea (Hallasan volcano on Jeju Island), China (Pectusan volcano on the border with the DPRK), where the last eruptions took place only 300-1000 years ago. Eruptions of the Ararat volcano (Lesser Caucasus, Turkey) were also noted in historical time.
Over the past decade, there has been an increase in volcanic activity in the Kuril-Kamchatka volcanic arc. Against the background of constantly erupting volcanoes Shiveluch, Klyuchevskoy, Bezymyanny and Karymsky, there are eruptions of the Mutnovsky (separate phreatic eruptions in 2000-2007), Avachinsky (2001) and Koryaksky (2008-2009) volcanoes in Kamchatka. On the Kuril Islands – volcanic eruptions Chikurachki (2002-2006), Ebeko (in 2002, 2006 and 2009). In June 2009, after 20 years of silence, there was a powerful explosive eruption of the Sarychev Peak volcano on Matua Island (Middle Kuriles) with VEI = 3. The intensification of exogenous processes on the volcanoes of the Greater Caucasus, in which endogenous component.
