Holocene Kamchatka volcanoes
Institute of Volcanology and Seismology
Kamchatka, Russia
 
Global Volcanism Program number
1000-18
Kikhpinych

Savich: 54°29' N, 160°16' E, summit elevation 1552 m



Fig.1


Fig.2

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Fig.3


Fig.4


Kikhpinych
volcano is a collective name for several edifices of different ages. Holocene three-headed edifice rests on the ruins of the mid-Pleistocene Old Kikhpinych (or Mt. Peak) volcano (Figs.1 and 2). Several more vents including silicic Late Pleistocene volcano Mt. Zheltaya ("Yellow") adjoin the massif from the south. No historic eruptions of Kikhpinych are known.

Holocene edifice comprises three distinct features, which form a west-east oriented ridge (Fig.1). The oldest vent is Zapadnyi ("Western") cone built  4200-4100 14C years BP. About 1450 14C years BP the eastern part of the cone was destroyed by an explosive crater. This eruption gave birth to Savich cone, which then has built its cone in several spurts of explosive-effusive activity (Fig.3). Crab lava dome formed on the eastern slope of Savich cone only few hundreds years ago. 

The largest explosive eruptions of Savich cone produced tephra fall at the distances of more than 70 km from the vent (Fig.4). Lava flows have typical aa topography.

All the erupted products of Holocene Kikhpinych as well as those of Mt.Peak are low-potassic basalt - basaltic andesite. They are rich in plagioclase-olivine-pyroxene inclusions typical for volcanoes of the frontal part of the Kamchatka volcanic belt (Volynets, 1994). 

Repose period of about 3200, which separated the activity of Zapadnyi and Savich cones, was one of the longest repose periods documented by us for Kamchatka volcanoes.

Literature

Braitseva OA, Florensky IV, Volynets ON (1991) Kikhpinych volcano. In: Fedotov SA and Masurenkov YuP (Eds) Active volcanoes of Kamchatka. V. 2. "Nauka Publishers", Moscow, pp 72-91 [in Russian and English] 

Braitseva OA, Florenskii IV, Ponomareva VV, Litasova SN (1989) The history of the activity of Kikhpinych volcano in the Holocene. Volcanology and Seismology  7:  845-872