Fernandina Volcano Eruption. Galapagos Islands. 2009.

Shield volcano 1476 m / 4,842 ft
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, -0.37°S / -91.55°W

Fernandina volcano eruptions: 2009

Fernandina, the most active of Galápagos volcanoes and the one closest to the Galápagos mantle plume, is a basaltic shield volcano with a deep 5 x 6.5 km summit caldera. The volcano displays the classic “overturned soup bowl” profile of Galápagos shield volcanoes. Its caldera is elongated in a NW-SE direction and formed during several episodes of collapse. Circumferential fissures surround the caldera and were instrumental in growth of the volcano. Reporting has been poor in this uninhabited western end of the archipelago, and even a 1981 eruption was not witnessed at the time. In 1968 the caldera floor dropped 350 m following a major explosive eruption. Subsequent eruptions, mostly from vents located on or near the caldera boundary faults, have produced lava flows inside the caldera as well as those in 1995 that reached the coast from a SW-flank vent. Collapse of a nearly 1 cu km section of the east caldera wall during an eruption in 1988 produced a debris-avalanche deposit that covered much of the caldera floor and absorbed the caldera lake.

Wolf Volcano Eruption. Galapagos Islands. 2015.

Shield volcano 1710 m.
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, 0.02°N / -91.35°W

Wolf volcano eruptions: 2015, 1982, 1797

A 6 x 7 km caldera, at 700 m one of the deepest of the Galápagos Islands, is located at the volcano’s summit. A prominent bench on the west side of the caldera rises 450 above the caldera floor, much of which is covered by a lava flow erupted in 1982.
Radial fissures concentrated along diffuse rift zones extend down the north, NW, and SE flanks, and submarine vents lie beyond the north and NW fissures. Similar unvegetated flows originating from a circumferential chain of spatter and scoria cones on the eastern caldera rim drape the forested flanks of the volcano to the sea. The proportion of aa lava flows at Volcán Wolf exceeds that of other Galápagos volcanoes. Wolf’s 1797 eruption was the first documented historical eruption in the Galápagos Islands.