Wrangell Volcanic Field facts for kids
The Wrangell Volcanic Field is a huge area in Alaska, United States, and the Yukon Territory in Canada. It's filled with many volcanoes! This field is home to four of the tallest volcanoes in the United States: Mount Bona, Mount Blackburn, Mount Sanford, and Mount Churchill. Each of these giants stands taller than 15,000 feet (4,600 meters).
This volcanic area formed because of how Earth's giant plates move. The Pacific Plate is slowly sliding under the North American Plate. This movement happens at the eastern end of the Aleutian Trench, which is a deep ocean valley.
Contents
Where is the Wrangell Volcanic Field?
Most of the Wrangell Volcanic Field is found in the Wrangell Mountains in Alaska. But it also stretches east into the nearby Saint Elias Mountains and the Yukon Territory in Canada.
This volcanic area is very large. It is more than 200 miles (320 km) long from east to west. In the middle of the Wrangell Mountains, it can be up to 80 miles (130 km) wide.
What Kinds of Volcanoes Are Here?
The Wrangell Volcanic Field has many different types of volcanoes. You can find shield volcanoes, which look like a warrior's shield lying on the ground. There are also stratovolcanoes, which are cone-shaped and steep. Some areas have calderas, which are large bowl-shaped hollows formed when a volcano collapses. You can also see smaller cinder cones and huge lava flows.
These volcanoes have been erupting for a very long time. The oldest eruptions happened about 26 million years ago. The tallest peaks in the field are much younger, less than 5 million years old. This is because a lot of snow and ice covers the area. Glaciers and icefields wear down the mountains very quickly. Above 5,000 feet (1,500 meters), most of the field is covered in ice.
Famous Volcanoes of the Field
The entire field is named after Mount Wrangell. This is a massive shield volcano that has been active in recent history. This means it has erupted in times that people have recorded.
Mount Churchill is a stratovolcano in this field. It has had some of the biggest eruptions recently. About 2,000 years ago, it had two huge explosive eruptions. These eruptions covered most of the Yukon with volcanic ash. This ash layer is known as the White River Ash.
How the Volcanoes Formed
The volcanoes in the western Wrangell Mountains are less than 5 million years old. Some of the newest lava flows might be as recent as 50,000 years ago.
Many volcanoes in the Western Wrangell Mountains are different from others around the Pacific Ring of Fire. The Pacific Ring of Fire is a path around the Pacific Ocean where many volcanoes are found. Instead of erupting explosive lava that builds steep stratovolcanoes, these volcanoes were formed by hundreds of flowing lava streams. These streams built up to create wide, gentle shield volcanoes.
Only the younger Mount Wrangell still looks like a shield volcano. Other older volcanoes, like Rabbit Mountain and Felsite Peak, have been changed a lot by glaciers and erosion. They now look like rocky hills or outcrops.
Major Volcanoes in the Field
Here are some of the main volcanoes in the Wrangell Volcanic Field:
- Mount Bona, 16,421 ft (5,005 m), in the Saint Elias Mountains
- Mount Blackburn, 16,390 ft (4,996 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Mount Sanford, 16,237 ft (4,949 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Mount Churchill, 15,638 ft (4,766 m), in the Saint Elias Mountains
- Mount Wrangell, 14,163 ft (4,317 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Atna Peaks, 13,860 ft (4,225 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Regal Mountain, 13,845 ft (4,219 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Mount Jarvis, 13,421 ft (4,091 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
- Mount Drum, 12,010 ft (3,661 m), in the Wrangell Mountains
Volcanoes in Canada
The Canadian part of the Wrangell Volcanic Field also has some volcanoes:
- Felsite Peak, 8,301 ft (2,530 m), in the Coast Mountains
- Rabbit Mountain, 6,857 ft (2,090 m), in the Nutzotin Mountains
