Gallery. Valley. RDC ScanEx

Gallery

Title
The Valley of Geysers

Acquisition date
04.06.2007

Sensor
SPOT-2 sensor HRV

600 x 685
JPEG (492 KB)

The Valley of Geysers

SPOT-2 satellite image from June 4, 2007 in pseudo-color synthesis at 10 meters resolution enabled to spot the damage as a result of the natural calamity that occurred on June 3, 2007 when a vast mudslide basically wiped off the Valley of Geysers one of the unique places on Earth. This event was due to active snow melting on the slopes followed by slope gravitation processes in the mountains. The sliding down mud-and-rock avalanche covered 2/3 of the Valley of Geysers and resulted in building up a 60 m high and 250 m wide dam that cut the Geyser river stream and created a lake. Most part of geysers intact from the mudslide, was flooded with water of the new lake, which will exist till the river finds its way through the dam. With time, hopefully, the nature will get into a balance: the geysers will break through the debris and the rock will be covered with grass and bushes.

The existence of the Valley of Geysers can be explained by volcanic activities in this region in form of steam outbursts and hot subsurface water eruptions geysers. This act of nature is related to the interaction of different types of Earth crust, oceanic and continental, and the creation of the area of high thermal flow that rises from the entrails of the earth. Cold surface waters running into the earth are gradually heated in the underground crevices and cavities under hydraulic pressure. After reaching a critical temperature the heated water boils up and forms steam carrying away the noisy boiling water, blowing out of the geyser throat to the surface. The biggest geyser the Giant spits out water and steam spurts of 40 m high. Multicolor minerals geyserites are created in the source water. The Valley of Geysers stretched out for 5 km before, accounting for about 20 big geysers as strong as the ones in Iceland and the US Yellowstone national park and New Zealand.

The image allows the viewer to see that the famous Kamchatka volcanoes are stretching from South to North almost near the Valley of Geysers: Kikhpanych, bald peaks of Krashennikov and Kronotsky. The Kronotsy volcano (3528 m) is the highest summit covered the clouds on the image.

The Kronotsky lake covered with ice is located to the west of the volcanos chain in a vast intermountain basin, with the Kronotsky river flowing out of it. The river is meandering in the middle reach, creating a lot of dead channels and islands.

Hydrothermal events, volcanoes and the Kronotsky lake are part of the oldest biosphere stat zapovedniks (strict nature reserves) of Russia, established in 1934 with the acreage of almost 1007,1 thousand hectares. The geysers were discovered during the territory survey in 1941, whereas the biggest Kamchatka geysers were described by T.Ustinova only in 1955. The Valley of Geysers was named a Pearl of the Kronotsky zapovednik, as in number of spouting hot water sources per a confined area it is unique in the entire world. Many of volcanoes on the territory of the zapovednik are still active steaming and bursting out ash and lava. The protected objects of the zapovednik are: the Valley of Geysers, Uzon volcano lava pit, the Kronotsky lake, 9 acting volcanoes, 10 groups of thermal sources and the unique fir grove (Abies gracilis). This kind of fir trees is the most enigmatic tree of the zapovednik as this type of coniferous wood grows only here in Kamchatka.

Title:	The Valley of Gaizers
Acquisition date:	04.06.2007
Sensor:	SPOT-2 sensor HRV

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©2005-2010 R&D Center ScanEx. All Rights Reserved.
mailto: webmaster@scanex.ru