Geothermal Drilling In The Aleutians Reveals New Insights On Volcanic History Of Akutan Volcano

In 2010, two thermal gradient wells were drilled in the Hot Springs Bay Valley geothermal resource area on Akutan Island, Alaska. Well TG-2 was drilled in the region of hot springs occurrence near the mouth of the valley and reached a depth of 253 m (833'). Well TG-4 was drilled near the head of the valley, closer to the current volcano, and reached a depth of 457 m (1500'). The core recovered from these wells represent the only drill core extracted from an Aleutian volcano to date and reveals an important missing piece of the surficial eruptive and erosional history of the volcano that cannot be determined from surface evaluation of recent eruptive deposits laid down on 500 ka bedrock outcrops. No intrusive rocks were encountered, indicating a rich history of surficial activity. The core is dominated (46% of recovered core) by basaltic lava flow deposits (49-52 wt% SiO2), consistent with other observed deposits on the island. These flows are interspersed with andesite lava flows (20% of core, ranging from 53-58 wt% SiO2), abundant mass wasting deposits (27% of core) and a series of ash and ash tuff layers that are some of the most silicic deposits identified at Akutan (up to 66 wt% SiO2). Ash deposits are restricted to the upper 125 m in both wells, are significantly thicker in TG-4, and are difficult to correlate between the two wells. Mass wasting deposits are diverse, including a subset characterized by matrix-supported heterolithologic breccias enclosed in a crystalline basaltic lava host. A shell-rich zone at 273 meters depth indicates that the transition between sub-marine and sub-aerial activity may be recorded in the core.