Kurile Lake

Kurile Lake is a caldera and crater lake in Kamchatka, Russia. It is also known as Kurilskoye Lake or Kuril Lake. It is part of the Eastern Volcanic Zone of Kamchatka which, together with the Sredinny Range, forms one of the volcanic belts of Kamchatka. These volcanoes form from the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Okhotsk Plate and the Asian Plate.

Before the Kurile Lake caldera formed, the Pauzhetka caldera was active during the Pleistocene, and was the origin of the 443,000 ± 8,000 years old Golygin ignimbrite. The Kurile Lake caldera erupted 41,500 years ago, and another small eruption occurred between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago; then 6460–6414 BC a very large eruption took place, forming the present-day caldera and the Kurile Lake ignimbrite and deposited ash as far as 1,700 kilometres away.