Lake Kuttara fills the 3-km-wide Kuttara caldera, which formed during major late-Pleistocene explosive eruptions. Pumice-rich pyroclastic flow deposits from this eruption cover a wide area around the volcano. Post-caldera volcanism constructed a group of explosion craters and a lava dome on the W flank. A phreatic explosion at one of the W-flank craters postdates the 1663 CE eruption of nearby Usu volcano.

Photo by Mihoko Moriizumi, 1995 (Hokkaido University).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Calderas

Keywords: caldera

Kuttara