Raikoke Island, seen here from the SE, lies 50 km SW of Shiashkotan Island and 16 km across the Golovnin Strait to the NE of its closest neighboring volcano on Matua Island. The summit of the low, 551-m-high Raikoke contains a steep-walled crater, 700 m wide and 200 m deep, that is highest on the SE side. The island is only 2 x 2.5 km wide and rises above a submarine terrace at a depth of 130 m. A catastrophic eruption in 1778 prompted the first volcanological investigation in the Kurile Islands two years later. Photo by Yoshihiro Ishizuka, 2000 (Hokkaido University).