August 1993: What’s a maar?

An example of maars (albeit in southwestern Alaska, rather than the Seward Peninsula); these are the Ukinrek Maars on the Alaska Peninsula, as photographed in 1977.

August 6, 1993

On KNOM’s daily feature interview program, Alaska volcanologist Jim Beget informs listeners that the large lakes on the northern Seward Peninsula are actually maars, the widest volcanic openings in the world. They last erupted ten thousand years ago.