IMHE Accomplished Expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula----INSTITUTE OF MOUNTAIN HAZAPDS AND ENVIRONMENT CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The Kamchatka peninsula located in Russian Far East is one of the most famous volcano regions, which has a large number of active volcanoes with wide influencing range and numerous types. In the Kamchatka peninsula, there are more than 160 volcanoes including 33 active volcanoes, such as the volcanoes of Klyuchevskoy, Kamen (4656 meters), Awaqinsiji, Baez Monet (3085 meters) and Shiveluch (3283 meters) etc. Accompanied by the volcanoes activities, there are a series of natural disasters mainly containing the lava flow, pyroclastic flow and lahar (i.e. volcanic debris flow).

Expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula. (by IMHE)

In China, there are no active volcanoes and hence few observation and research on volcanic debris flow were carried out. From August 1st to 23th, 2013, invited by Professor Sergey Chernomorents from Moscow State University, a four-people group leading by Professor Kaiheng Hu from Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE), CAS visited the Kamchatka peninsula in the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Russia. They made a field survey of three volcanoes (Shiveluch, Klyuchevskoy and Tolbachik) and investigated the related secondary disasters.

During the expedition, the investigation team went the field site of the volcanic mud flow to study its cause, type, accumulation form and hazards, and collected abundant samples of volcanic mud flow. Professor Andrey Lukashov and Sergey Chernomorents presented in details about the history and eruption causes of the volcanoes, as well as the secondary disasters induced by the volcanoes activities. Both sides further discussed the rules of formation, motion and accumulation of the lava flow and the volcanic mud flow.

This filed expedition has laid the solid foundation for successful accomplishing scientific cooperation in the NSFC-RFBR project on "Examination of key parameters for large-scale debris flows induced by earthquakes and volcanism: implications for hazard assessment". The scientific cooperation will provide the firsthand information for research on the volcanic mud flow in China.