Kurile Lake, crater lake, 29 sq mi (76 sq km), 130 mi (209 km) SSW of Petropavlovsk, Russia, near the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Located in a rugged volcanic region and lying some 330 ft (100 m) above sea level, the lake has two basins separated by an underwater ridge; the deeper southern basin has a maximum depth of more than 1,000 ft (300 m), making Kurile Lake the second-deepest lake in Russia. There are lava domes and pyroclastic cones in the lake. The Kurile Lake caldera first formed in an eruption some 41,500 years ago, and a large eruption some 7,600 years ago created the present-day crater. Over thousands of years, as nearby volcanoes erupted and new ones formed, the surface of the lake has risen and fallen; at its highest it was 820 ft (250 m) above sea level.
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