Bennett Lake Volcanic Complex

The Bennett Lake Volcanic Complex is an extinct caldera complex in the Coast Mountains near Bennett Lake on the British Columbia-Yukon border. About 50 million years old, it preserves a major volcanic center formed in the early Eocene as the ancient Kula Plate subducted beneath North America. In its most violent phase, eruptions expelled about 850 cubic kilometers of pyroclastic material, and collapse of the drained magma chamber created two nested calderas within an elliptical depression roughly 19 by 30 kilometers wide. Later intrusions cut older volcanic rocks, and a broad dome rose above the chamber. The complex remains one of northwestern Canada’s major ancient volcanic structures.

Yukon · Canada