Fourteen volcanoes stitch Alaska toward Kamchatka
The Aleutians chain fourteen larger volcanic islands and fifty-five smaller ones across some 1,200 miles from the Alaska Peninsula toward Kamchatka, fencing the Bering Sea from the Pacific. Fifty-seven volcanoes make them the Ring of Fire’s northern edge, and fog wraps them almost constantly.
Most islands are Alaskan; Russia’s Commander Islands continue the arc into Kamchatka Krai. Land area totals about 6,821 square miles. Physiographers slot them into the Pacific Border province and call them among the most geographically isolated U.S. landscapes.
In June 1942 Japan occupied Kiska and Attu—the only invasions of the North American United States in World War II, even as other U.S. Pacific territories also fell. The foggy Aleutian campaign followed.
The arc formed in the early Eocene, about 55 to 50 million years ago, when the Pacific Plate began sliding beneath the North American Plate; the Aleutian Basin to the north is a trapped remnant of the old Kula Plate. The chain trends southwest near Alaska but bends northwest at Tanaga Island, tracing the curve of its volcanic fissures, and it straddles the 180° meridian, so it reaches into both eastern and western longitudes. Peaks climb to about 1,900 metres, and new cones have risen from the sea near Bogoslof, which erupted again in 2017.
The weather is foggy, wet and mild. Unalaska averages about 3 °C, collects roughly 2,000 millimetres of rain on some 250 days a year, and counts among the rainiest places in the United States. Native trees are almost absent; Adak's so-called national forest is a planted grove of 33. Grasses, sedges and shrubs blanket the land instead, Buldir Island hosts 21 breeding seabird species, and sea otters protect kelp forests by eating urchins. The 2020 census counted 7,152 residents, 4,254 in Unalaska; the native Unangan are known to outsiders as Aleut.
Source: Aleutian Islands
