Mageik

About Mageik

Mount Mageik is a broad ice-capped stratovolcano at the head of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes across Katmai Pass from Trident volcano. Four small overlapping peaks form the broad summit, three of which lie along a NE-SW trend south of the northern peak. The central summit consists of a lava dome, while the E, SW, and N volcanoes are capped by fragmental cones with ice-filled craters. The three westernmost summits are glaciated and of primarily Pleistocene age, but the East Mageik summit cone was the source of at least six Holocene eruptive episodes and fed Holocene lava flows that descended toward Katmai Pass and cover the NE-to-SE flanks of the volcano. A 300-m-wide explosion crater between the east and central summits that formed about 2,400-2,500 years ago contains a shallow, acidic lake and many superheated fumarole jets. Three Holocene debris avalanches from S-flank failures descended into the Martin Creek drainages, one perhaps reaching the coast. Reports of observed eruptions during 1927-1946 CE are considered uncertain (Miller et al., 1998; Hildreth and Fierstein, 2000).