Wrangell Volcanic Field

The field includes numerous shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, caldera complexes, cinder cones, and extensive lava flows, which have erupted throughout the past 26 million years.

All of the higher peaks are less than 5 million years old, since the rate of glacial erosion is very high in this region of extreme snowfall and cold temperatures.

The Canadian portion of the field is dominated by scattered remnants of upper Cenozoic subaerial lavas and pyroclastic rocks.

Over large areas extrusive rocks lie in flat undisturbed piles on a Cenozoic surface of moderate relief.

Considerable recent uplift, accompanied by rapid erosion, has reduced once vast areas of upper Cenozoic volcanic rocks to small isolated remnants.