Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 8 5 2008 10.5194/nhess-8-1083-2008 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/8/1083/2008/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/8/1083/2008/nhess-8-1083-2008.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/8/1083/2008/nhess-8-1083-2008.pdf 1083 1097 2008-10-15 Constraining recent Shiveluch volcano eruptions (Kamchatka, Russia) by means of dendrochronology O. Solomina olgasolomina@yandex.ru I. Pavlova A. Curtis G. Jacoby V. Ponomareva M. Pevzner Institute of Geography RAS, Staromonetny-29,119017, Moscow, Russia Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA Institute of Volcanology and Seismology FED RAS, Piip Blvd. 9, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, 683006, Russia Geological Institute RAS, Pyzhevsky Per. 7, 119017, Moscow, Russia Shiveluch (N 56&deg;38´, E 161&deg;19´; elevation: active dome ~2500 m, summit of Old Shiveluch 3283 m) is one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka. The eruptions of Shiveluch commonly result in major environmental damage caused by debris avalanches, hot pyroclastic flows, tephra falls and lahars. Constraining these events in time and space is important for the understanding and prediction of these natural hazards. The last major eruption of Shiveluch occurred in 2005; earlier ones, dated by instrumental, historical, ¹⁴C and tephrochronological methods, occurred in the last millennium around AD 1030, 1430, 1650, 1739, 1790–1810, 1854, 1879–1883, 1897–1898, 1905, 1927–1929, 1944–1950, and 1964. A lava dome has been growing in the 1964 crater since 1980, occasionally producing tephra falls and pyroclastic flows. Several Shiveluch eruptions (~AD 1050, 1650, 1854, 1964) may have been climatically effective and are probably recorded in the Greenland ice cores. <br><br> Previously, most dates for eruptions before AD 1854 were obtained by tephrochronology and constrained by radiocarbon dating with an accuracy of several decades or centuries. In this paper we report tree-ring dates for a recent pyroclastic flow in Baidarnaia valley. Though the wood buried in these deposits is carbonized, fragile and poorly preserved, we were able to measure ring-width using standard tree-ring equipment or photographs and to cross-date these samples against the regional Kamchatka larch ring-width chronology. The dates of the outer rings indicate the date of the eruptions. In the Baidarnaia valley the eruption occurred shortly after AD 1756, but not later than AD 1758. 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