Russian Volcano Keeps Spilling Lava Months After Waking From a 500-Year Nap

After more than four centuries of lying dormant, the Krasheninnikova volcano erupted in August, sending clouds of ash to the skies. Since then, volcanic plumes have continued to emerge from the site, spilling lava across Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

NASA’s Earth observation satellite, Landsat 9, captured an overhead image of the Krasheninnikova volcano on November 14, revealing ongoing activity that has persisted for several months. The image shows a volcanic plume erupting from one of Krasheninnikova’s craters and drifting toward the northwest, as well as an accompanying lava flow making its way across the snowy slopes.

With the recent eruption, authorities raised the aviation color code to orange, meaning that the volcano is exhibiting heightened unrest.

The reawakening

Krasheninnikova lies in the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia and is made up of two overlapping stratovolcanoes within a large caldera that stretches across roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers). Scientists believe the eruption that formed the caldera, a large, bowl-shaped volcanic depression, dates back some 30,000 years.

Before this year’s activity, the volcano’s most recent eruption is estimated to have happened around 1550 CE based on geological evidence. After nearly 500 years of inactivity, the volcano erupted overnight on August 3, producing lava flows from both summit cones.

This year’s eruption took place five days after a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred in the peninsula, which also triggered tsunami warnings. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), a remote sensing technique, to measure how much the ground in southern Kamchatka shifted after the earthquake.

Using that data, Paul Lundgren, a geophysicist at JPL, analyzed the movement of magma in the Krasheninnikova eruption. Lundgren was able to detect surface deformation at the volcano that began after the earthquake took place but before the eruption, indicating magma approaching the surface. “In keeping with a volcano that had not erupted or shown any signs of activity in about 400 years, I would consider this eruption as triggered by the magnitude 8.8 earthquake,†he said.

The volcano is in a remote area inside the Kronotsky Nature Reserve and poses little harm to human settlements.