Yasur (Vanuatu)

Status Eruption Eruption 2019 361m
Stratovolcano (Subduction zone / Intermediate crust (15-25 km))

Yasur, the best-known and most frequently visited of the Vanuatu volcanoes, has been in more-or-less continuous Strombolian and Vulcanian activity since Captain Cook observed ash eruptions in 1774. This style of activity may have continued for the past 800 years. Located at the SE tip of Tanna Island, this mostly unvegetated pyroclastic cone has a nearly circular, 400-m-wide summit crater. The active cone is largely contained within the small Yenkahe caldera, and is the youngest of a group of Holocene volcanic centers constructed over the down-dropped NE flank of the Pleistocene Tukosmeru volcano. The Yenkahe horst is located within the Siwi ring fracture, a 4-km-wide, horseshoe-shaped caldera associated with eruption of the andesitic Siwi pyroclastic sequence. Active tectonism along the Yenkahe horst accompanying eruptions has raised Port Resolution harbor more than 20 m during the past century.

A column of steam rises above the summit crater of Yasur volcano, seen here from the west across Lake Siwi in 1988. Yasur, the best-known and most frequently visited of the Vanuatu volcanoes, has been in more-or-less continuous strombolian activity since Captain Cook observed ash eruptions in 1774. This style of activity may have continued for the past 800 years. The mostly unvegetated 361-m-high pyroclastic cone is capped by a nearly circular, 400-m-wide summit crater.

Photo by Ian Nairn, 1988 (New Zeland Geological Survey).

Last updated 2022-04-11 22:00:04