Alaid Volcano, Kuril Islands, Russia

Alaid Volcano, Kuril Islands, Russia

Atlasov Island, part of the The Kuril Island chain that extends from the Kamchatka Peninsula to Japan. This astronaut photograph, taken from the International Space Station (ISS) highlights Alaid Volcano, the northernmost and highest volcano in the chain (2,339 meters above sea level). The volcano rises 3000 meters from the floor of the Sea of Okhotsk, with the uppermost part of the volcano exposed as an island. (Note that the image is oriented so that north is to the lower left.) Volcanoes in the Kurils and similar island arcs in the Pacific "ring of fire," are fed by magma generated along the boundary between two tectonic plates, where one plate is being driven beneath the other (a process known as subduction). Alaid Volcano has been historically active, with the most recent confirmed explosive activity in 1996.

Album / Science Source / NASA/Johnson Space Center

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