Volcano of the Week #29 - Shishaldin

I have chosen to write about this volcano for volcano of the week because it's erupting and is in a place called Fox Islands which sound really cool (possibly because I'm watching X-Files and I think there could be a great episode set here). The Fox Islands are part of the Aleutian Island chain which is what links Siberia to Alaska and forms the top part of the ring of fire (definitely could be an X-Files episode). There are around 8,000 people on the Aleutian Islands and natives are known as Unangan, the language is closely related to Eskimo (loads of words for snow blah blah blah). The growing season only lasts 135 days so there is basically nothing there and economy is dependent of military and fishing. The islands along with that bit of Alaska were all originally Russian and according to wikipedia the Russian influence seems generally positive as they preserved the language and tradition of the region. Some of the Russian influences in the area are still present including religion and there are some Orthodox churches. Captain Cook also went there (because he went everywhere cool) and surveyed the islands, the islands were taken over by Americans in 1867. There were some nuclear tests done in 60/70s which seems like a really great thing to do on a chain of volcanic islands.

Back to the volcano, it's apparently the most symmetrical in the world, measuring volcano symmetry sounds like a very fun job. It has quite a lot of low level non eruptive activity including currently and the volcano is on yellow alert. The last eruption occurred last year and the first recorded eruption was in 1824.

Look how symmetrical that babe is.