No latest activity reported for Sanford.

Below is a summary of eruption dates and Volcanic Explosivity Indices (VEI).

The following references are the sources used for data regarding this volcano. References are linked directly to our volcano data file. Discussion of another volcano or eruption (sometimes far from the one that is the subject of the manuscript) may produce a citation that is not at all apparent from the title. Additional discussion of data sources can be found under Volcano Data Criteria.

IAVCEI, 1973-80. Post-Miocene Volcanoes of the World. {IAVCEI Data Sheets, Rome: Internatl Assoc Volc Chemistry Earth's Interior}.

Mendenhall W C, 1905. Geology of the central Copper River region, Alaska.. {U S Geol Surv Prof Pap}, 41: 54-62

Richter D H, Rosenkrans D S, Steigerwald M J, 1995. Guide to the volcanoes of the western Wrangell Mountains, Alaska--Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. {U S Geol Surv Bull}, 2072: 1-31

Winkler G R, 2000. A geologic guide to Wrangell--Saint Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. {U S Geol Surv Prof Pap}, 1616: 1-166

Wood C A, Kienle J (eds), 1990. {Volcanoes of North America}. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ Press, 354 p

Massive dissected Mount Sanford shield volcano is one of the highest Quaternary volcanoes in the United States. The 4949-m-high, glacier-covered andesitic volcano towers above the Copper River and has a broad, bulbous top that is surrounded by massive, glacially excavated cirques, most prominent on the SW and SE sides of the summit. The upper part of this little-studied, ice-covered volcano is possibly of Holocene age (Richter, in Wood and Kienle, 1990) and developed on a base of three coalescing andesitic shield volcanoes south, NW and NNW of the summit that began to form about 900,000 years ago. A massive mid-Pleistocene rhyolitic lava flow from a NE-flank vent traveled more than 18 km to the NE. Basaltic lava flows that were erupted from a NE-flank rift zone about 320,000 years ago mark the latest radiometrically dated activity from Mount Sanford.