Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, lying between the Sea of Okhotsk
to the west and the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean to the east, is one of
the most active volcanic regions along the Pacific Ring of Fire. It
covers an area about the size of Colorado but contains more than 100
volcanoes stretching across the 1000-kilometer-long (620-mile-long) land
mass. A dozen or more of these have active vents, with the youngest
located along the eastern half of the peninsula. This color-coded shaded
relief image, generated with data from the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission (SRTM), shows Kamchatka’s volcanic nature to dramatic
effect.
Kliuchevskoi, one of the most active and renowned volcanoes in the
world, dominates the main cluster of volcanoes called the Kliuchi group,
visible as a circular feature in the center-right of the image. The two
other main volcanic ranges lie along northeast-southwest lines, with the
older, less active range occupying the center and western half of
Kamchatka. The younger, more active belt begins at the southernmost
point of the peninsula and continues upward along the Pacific coastline.
Two visualization methods were combined to produce this image:
shading and color coding of topographic height. The shade image was
derived by computing topographic slope in the north-south direction, so
northern slopes appear bright and southern slopes appear dark. Color
coding is directly related to topographic height, with green at the
lower elevations, rising through yellow and brown to white at the
highest elevations.
Size: 1,113 by 638 kilometers (692 by 396 miles)
Location: 55 degrees North latitude, 160 degrees East longitude
Orientation: North toward the top
Image Data: Shaded and colored SRTM elevation model
Date Acquired: February 2000
Photographs from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station show
a different perspective on the volcanoes
of cental Kamchatka.
Image Courtesy SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA