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Mount Takahe

Takahe

Shield volcano · Antarctica · 3460m

This aerial view looks northeast across the trachytic shield volcano Mount Takahe, with an ice-filled 8-km-diameter caldera at the summit. The approximately 30-km-wide edifice rises about 2,000 m above the surrounding ice sheet. Eruption deposits indicate both subaqueous and subaerial eruptions, and include lavas and tephra. Möll Spur (right of center) is a prominent steep ridge of lava produced in two sequences at about 34 and 17 ka. The most recent eruption occurred around 5.6 ± 0.8 ka, producing widespread tephra distribution across West Antarctica.
This aerial view looks northeast across the trachytic shield volcano Mount Takahe, with an ice-filled 8-km-diameter caldera at the summit. The approximately 30-km-wide edifice rises about 2,000 m above the surrounding ice sheet. Eruption deposits indicate both subaqueous and subaerial eruptions, and include lavas and tephra. Möll Spur (right of center) is a prominent steep ridge of lava produced in two sequences at about 34 and 17 ka. The most recent eruption occurred around 5.6 ± 0.8 ka, producing widespread tephra distribution across West Antarctica. · Photo: U. S. Navy photo TMA 1718 F33 022. · Wikimedia Commons
Type
Shield volcano
Country
Antarctica
Region
Antarctic-Scotia Volcanic Regions / Western Antarctica Volcanic Province
Elevation
3460m
Coordinates
-76.280, -112.080
Last eruption
-5550
Tectonic setting
Intraplate / Continental crust (> 25 km)
Landform
Shield
Major rock type
Trachyte / Trachydacite
Geological summary

Mount Takahe is an isolated shield volcano in eastern Marie Byrd Land with an 8-km-wide summit caldera. The massive 780 km3 volcano displays a conical, youthful morphology, and the oldest dated rocks are only 310,000 years old. Three samples were too young to date by Potassium-Argon, and some tephra layers younger than 30,000 years in the Byrd Station ice core are thought to have originated from Takahe. Two early Holocene phreatomagmatic tephra layers in the Antarctic ice core were attributed to Takahe (Palais et al., 1988). The latest stage of activity constructed cinder cones on the upper southern flanks and tuff cones and cinder cones on the lower SW and NE flanks.

From Wikipedia

Mount Takahe is a 3,460-metre-high (11,350 ft) snow-covered shield volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, 200 kilometres (120 mi) from the Amundsen Sea. It is a c. 30-kilometre-wide (19 mi) mountain with parasitic vents and a caldera up to 8 kilometres (5 mi) wide. Most of the volcano is formed by trachytic lava flows, but hyaloclastite is also found. Snow, ice, and glaciers cover most of Mount Takahe. With a volume of 780 km3 (200 mi3), it is a massive volcano; the parts of the edifice that are buried underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are probably even larger. It is part of the West Antarctic Rift System along with 18 other known volcanoes.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA · Read full article →

Eruption history

Summary (VEI over time)
Click a bar to see individual eruptions
7050 BCE~6900 BCE · 1 eruptions · max VEI ?6300 BCE~6150 BCE · 1 eruptions · max VEI ?5700 BCE~5550 BCE · 1 eruptions · max VEI ?7050 BCE6750 BCE6300 BCE6000 BCE5700 BCE

Detailed timeline

  1. 5550 BCEVEI ?Geological estimate
    BCE 5550 – Ongoing
  2. 6250 BCE (±5400 yrs)VEI ?Geological estimate
    BCE 6250 – Ongoing
  3. 7050 BCEVEI ?Geological estimate
    BCE 7050 – Ongoing

External links

⚠ For reference only. Not for emergency response.