Mount Shishaldin is a very peculiar looking mountain on Unimak Island, part of the Aleutian Islands chain. The reason this mountain stands out among the rest is because it is almost perfect in every way. Shishaldin is the most symmetrical cone-shaped mountain on earth. In fact, the contour lines above 6,500 feet are perfectly circular. The perfection in its cone-like shape is a very strange occurrence and makes Mount Shishaldin one of a kind.

Learn more about this rare volcano and why it is considered to be so dangerous…

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The Aleuts named the volcano Sisquk, which means "mountain which points the way when I am lost" and is one of the most infamous navigational marks of Alaska.
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Mount Shishaldin is the westernmost volcano of the three stratovolcanoes on Unimak Island. It is also the highest mountain peak on all of the Aleutian Islands chain!
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As you can tell by most of its pictures, Mount Shishaldin is almost constantly emitting a plume of smoke. The mountain contains 300 cubic kilometers of material inside its opening. Believe it or not, the summit crater is only 500 feet wide!

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Believe it or not, Mount Shishaldin is not that old, 10,000 years to be exact. The mountain has emerged out of an ancestral volcano. Its formation was helped along by a glacier that was pushed by volcanic rock that dates as far back as the late Tertiary age!
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Though it has a long history of eruptions (all the way back into the 18th century) the AVO has recorded at least 24 eruptions by Mount Shishaldin making it the third most active volcano, and THE most active volcano in Alaska.
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The most recent eruption was in 1999 and has continued with its seismic activity since. Mount Shishaldin sits along the Ring of Fire and its shape (a cindercone) is considered the most dangerous type of volcano. Let's hope it doesn't get too active and erupt on a much larger scale!

Did you learn anything new about this magnificent mountain? Is there anything you can add? Let me know in the comments.

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