Uzon () is a 9 by 12 km volcanic

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

located in the eastern part of

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

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 ...

. Together with the Geyzernaya caldera it hosts the largest geothermal field in the Kamchatka Peninsula. The calderas were formed in the mid-

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

in several large eruptions that deposited 20–25 km³ of

ignimbrite Ignimbrite is a type of volcanic rock, consisting of hardened tuff. Ignimbrites form from the deposits of pyroclastic flows, which are a hot suspension of particles and gases flowing rapidly from a volcano, driven by being denser than the surrou ...

over a wide area. Lake Dalny fills a Holocene

maar A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow ...

in the northeast of Uzon Caldera. The Uzon Caldera is a location of the occurrence of

extremophile An extremophile () is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e., environments with conditions approaching or stretching the limits of what known life can adapt to, such as extreme temperature, press ...

micro-organisms due to its high localized temperatures.(C.Michael Hogan. 2010)

References

* C.Michael Hogan. 2010
''Extremophile''
eds. E.Monosson and C.Cleveland. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment, Washington DC * Volcanoes of the Kamchatka Peninsula Calderas of Russia Diatremes of Russia Volcanic crater lakes Holocene calderas Pleistocene calderas Holocene Asia Pleistocene Asia {{volcanology-stub

See also

References