The launch of a new GVP website is scheduled for Monday, May 20,
2013. |Subregion Name:||Kuril Islands| |Last Known
Eruption:||1924| |Summit Elevation:||551 m||1,808 feet| |A low,
551-m-high truncated volcano forms the small barren Raikoke
Island, which lies 16 km across the Golovnin Strait from Matua
Island in the central Kuriles. The oval-shaped basaltic island
is only 2 x 2.5 km wide and rises above a submarine terrace with
a depth of 130 m. The steep-walled crater, highest on the SE
side, is 700 m wide and 200 m deep. Lava flows mantle the
eastern side of the island. A catastrophic eruption of Raikoke
in 1778 during which the upper third of the island was said to
have been destroyed prompted the first volcanological
investigation in the Kuril Islands two years later. Reports of
eruptions in 1777 and 1780 are erroneous (Gorshkov, 1970).
Another powerful eruption in 1924 greatly deepened the crater
and changed the outline of the island.|