Gaua Volcano
Updated: Apr 19, 2024 19:50 GMT -
stratovolcano 797 m / 2,615 ft
Vanuatu, -14.27°S / 167.5°E
Current status: normal or dormant (1 out of 5)
Vanuatu, -14.27°S / 167.5°E
Current status: normal or dormant (1 out of 5)
Last update: 14 Oct 2023 (Smithsonian / USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report)
Gaua is one of the most remote and most active volcanoes of the Vanuatu archipel, located on the island with the same name in the West Banks island group atht enorthern end of the archipelago. Its most recent eruption started in Sep 2009 from Mt Garet inside the caldera lake and is ongoing (as of April 2010).
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Gaua volcano eruptions: July 1962, 1963, Sep 1965, 1966, Jul 1967, 1968, Sep 1969, May 1971, Oct 1973 - Jan 1974, Jan 1976, April 1977, 1980, July 1981, April 1982, Sep 2009 - ongoing
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Background
The roughly 20-km-diameter Gaua Island, also known as Santa Maria, consists of a basaltic-to-andesitic stratovolcano with an 6 x 9 km wide summit caldera. Small parasitic vents near the caldera rim fed Pleistocene lava flows that reached the coast on several sides of the island; several littoral cones were formed where these lava flows reached the sea.Quiet collapse that formed the roughly 700-m-deep caldera was followed by extensive ash eruptions. Construction of the historically active cone of Mount Garat (Gharat) and other small cinder cones in the SW part of the caldera has left a crescent-shaped caldera lake. The symmetrical, flat-topped Mount Garat cone is topped by three pit craters. The onset of eruptive activity from a vent high on the SE flank of Mount Garat in 1962 ended a long period of dormancy. (Source: GVP)
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