Wrangell

About Wrangell

Mount Wrangell is one of the world's largest continental-margin volcanoes, with a diameter of 30 km at 2,000 m elevation. The andesitic shield volcano has produced fluid lava flows as long as 58 km and contains an ice-filled caldera 4-6 km in diameter and 1 km deep, located within an older 15-km-wide caldera. Most of the edifice was constructed during eruptions between about 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. Formation of the summit caldera followed sometime between about 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Three post-caldera craters are located at the broad summit, along the northern and western caldera rim. A steep-sided flank cinder cone, Mount Zanetti, is located 6 km NW of the summit. The westernmost cone has been the source of infrequent eruptions beginning in the 18th century. Increased heat flux in recent years has melted large volumes of ice in the northern crater.