Balagan-Tas (, ) is a

cinder cone A cinder cone or scoria cone is a steep, volcanic cone, conical landform of loose pyroclastic rock, pyroclastic fragments, such as volcanic ash, clinkers, or scoria that has been built around a volcanic vent. The pyroclastic fragments are forme ...

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It was discovered by V.A. Zimin in 1939 and is one of the main features of the

Moma Natural Park Moma Natural Park or Moma Nature Park (, ''Momsky Pryrodny Park''; , ''Aan Aiylgy'') is a protected area of the Momsko-Chersk Region of Yakutia in the upper part of the Moma River basin. Administratively the park is a part of the Moma District, ...

Description

This volcano is located in the

Chersky Range The Chersky Range (, ) is a chain of mountains in northeastern Siberia between the Yana River, Yana and Indigirka River, Indigirka Rivers. Administratively, the area of the range belongs to the Sakha Republic, although a small section in the eas ...

, in the Moma River valley, and is the only clearly Quaternary volcano in the area; the existence of another volcano active in the 1770s has not been confirmed. The supposed Indigirsky volcano (reported near the Indigirka river) may be actually Balagan-Tas. Its location has often been given incorrectly. Balagan-Tas is a volcanic cone with a crater of which little remains. It covers a surface area of . The crater is wide and deep; the cone is high and has a base diameter of . It may be considered a composite volcano. The volcano has generated three lava flows which cover a surface area of . They reach a thickness of . The volcano has erupted alkali basalts typical for rift zone volcanoes. Its composition has been characterized as hawaiite. Titanium dioxide contents of 3.81% have been measured. The helium-3/helium-4 ratios approach these associated with mantle plumes. Balagan-Tas lies on an anticline. It is associated with Fault (geology), faulting. Further it is related to the Moma-Zoryansk rift and the Gakkel Ridge, Gakkel ridge, which extends to the Laptev Sea. The De Long Islands and a potentially Quaternary Dyke (geology), dyke complex of the Viliga river may also be related. This tectonic activity is related to the interaction between the Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate. Other volcanoes are found in the neighbourhood. Northwest of Balagan-Tas lies the Uraga Khaya volcano; it is located at and is a lava dome formed by rhyolite. Its age is unclear; potassium-argon dating has yielded an age of 16.6 Mya (unit), mya but its appearance indicates it may be considerably younger. A further volcano may exist northwest of this centre. A liparite dome named Majak is located at , but it may be the same as Uraga Khaya and the coordinates wrong. Potassium-argon dating of Balagan-Tas has yielded an age of 266,000 ± 30,000 years ago, comparable to Anyuyskiy Volcano, Anyuj volcano, and may reflect a regional or global pulse of volcanic activity. Other sources consider the volcano late Holocene in age, or even as active during historical times. Hot springs are found southeast of Balagan-Tas. They reach temperatures of , which together with the other activity indicates a hot upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle. If reports of activity of the supposed Indighirsky volcano in the 1770s refer to Balagan-Tas, then this volcano may have had historical activity, one of the few outside of Kamchatka Peninsula, Kamchatka in continental Asia.

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Description

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