Nature
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Visible here are two prominent volcanic mountains, Mount Drum and Mount Wrangell, whose silhouettes reflect different eruption histories. The younger Mount Wrangell is a shield volcano, a broad-dome mountain built mainly of oozing lava flows, and it remains active, with steam sometimes rising from its summit on calm days. The older Mount Drum is a stratovolcano, or a very explosive shield volcano, steeper and more conical than a shield volcano because pasty lava deposits exploded skyward in successive eruptions to build its bulk. From this angle Mount Drum appears taller than Mount Wrangell, though it is actually 2,000 feet shorter. As recently as 250,000 years ago, however, Mount Drum was 2,000 feet taller, before its top blew off. Thousands of volcanic lava flows covering more than 4,000 square miles compose the Wrangell Mountains.
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Silver Springs, Alaska · United States
