earth science

Mount Spurr

Mount Spurr is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mount Spurr rather than just read about it. In short: Mount Spurr (Dena'ina: K'idazq'eni) is a stratovolcano in the Aleutian Arc of Alaska, named after United States Geological Survey geologist and explorer Josiah Edward Spurr, who led an expedition to the area in 1898. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) rates Mount Spurr as Level of Concern Color Code Yellow.

Key takeaways

Mount Spurr belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mount Spurr to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mount Spurr from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mount Spurr (Dena'ina: K'idazq'eni) is a stratovolcano in the Aleutian Arc of Alaska, named after United States Geological Survey geologist and explorer Josiah Edward Spurr, who led an expedition to the area in 1898. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) rates Mount Spurr as Level of Concern Color Code Yellow. The mountain is known aboriginally by the Dena'ina Athabascan name K'idazq'eni, literally 'that which is burning inside'. Mount Spurr, the highest volcano of the Aleutian Arc, is a large stratocone at the center of a roughly 5-kilometer-wide (3.1 mi) horseshoe-shaped caldera that is open to the south. The volcano lies 81 miles (130 km) west of Anchorage and northeast of Chakachamna Lake. The caldera was formed by a late-Pleistocene or early Holocene sector collapse and associated pyroclastic flows that destroyed an ancestral Spurr volcano. The debris avalanche traveled more than 15.5 miles (24.9 km) to the southeast, and the resulting deposit contains blocks as large as 100 meters (330 ft) in diameter. Several ice-carved post-caldera domes lie in the caldera. Mount Spurr is the highest of the post-caldera. The regrown summit peak of Spurr experienced a heating event in 2004 which created a small crater lake. By 2008, the summit crater had cooled enough to have begun to have accumulated significant amounts of snow again. The youngest post-caldera dome, Crater Peak (2,309 meters, 7,575 ft), formed at the breached southern end of the caldera about 3.2 kilometers (2.0 mi) south of Spurr, has been the source of about 40 identified Holocene tephra layers. Spurr's two historical eruptions, from Crater Peak in 1953 and 1992, deposited ash on the city of Anchorage. Crater Peak has a summit crater that is itself slightly breached along the south rim; the north wall of the crater exposes the truncated remains of an older dome or lava lake. Before the 1992 eruption, a small crater lake occupied the bottom of Crater Peak's crater. As with other Alaskan volcanoes, the proximity of Spurr to major trans-Pacific aviation routes means that an eruption of this volcano could significantly disrupt air travel. Volcanic ash can cause jet engines to fail.

Recent activity On July 26, 2004, the AVO raised the "Color Concern Code" at Spurr from green to yellow due to an increasing number of earthquakes. Earthquakes beneath a volcano may indicate the movement of magma preceding a volcanic eruption, but the earthquakes might also die out without an eruption. In the first week of August 2004, the AVO reported the presence of a collapse pit, filled with water forming a new crater lake, in the ice and snow cover on the summit. This lake may have been caused by an increase in heat flow through the summit lava dome. On May 3, 2005, a debris flow was observed in webcam images, as well as by a nearby pilot. A subsequent overflight revealed that much of the sitting pond within the melt hole had drained away, leaving a cauldron, and the color of concern was lowered back to green on February 21, 2006. The alert level for Mount Spurr was again raised to yellow (advisory) on October 23, 2024, due to an increase in seismic activity.

Gallery

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mount Spurr

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mount Spurr claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mount Spurr before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mount Spurr ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mount Spurr

In research: Mount Spurr appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mount Spurr in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mount Spurr is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century volcanic events, Active volcanoes, Calderas of Alaska, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mount Spurr outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mount Spurr in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mount Spurr means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mount Spurr out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mount Spurr in simple terms?

Why does Mount Spurr matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mount Spurr?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mount Spurr.