FUJI
Country: Japan
Subregion Name: Japan - Honshu
Volcano Number: 0803-03=
Volcano Type: Stratovolcano
Volcano Status: Historical
Last Known Eruption: 1708
Summit Elevation: 3776 m (12,388 feet)
Latitude: 35.358°N 35°21'27"N
Longitude: 138.731°E 138°43'50"E
Fuji Volcano is the highest in Japan, rising 3776 m above sea level in the form of a typical cone about 50 km across the base. At the summit of the volcano is a circular crater about 500 m across and as much as 250 m deep below the highest point (35o21'N, 138o43'E). The upper half of the volcano is all in white color in winter, small patches of permanent icy snow left on the shady slopes in and about the summit crater are usually seen even in midsummer. But any traces of past glaciation are found nowhere on the volcano. The reason is nothing but the fact that the volcano is virtually covered almost everywhere with lava-flows and pyroclastics ejected by the volcanic eruptions that have occurred since the end of the last period of the Quaternary Ice Age.
The simple conical outline of Mt. Fuji belies its complex history of growth. Instead of being a single structure, the volcano is actually a group of superposed cones. Fuji Volcano consists of three different volcanoes; Komitake, Ko-Fuji (Older Fuji Volcano) and the present Fuji (Younger Fuji Volcano) which lie one upon the other. In addition, the volcano is studded with parasitic cones and flank openings amounting collectively more than one hundred although most of them are too small to be unsightly excrescences in the landscape of the host mountain. (Originally written by H. Tsuya)
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The Hoei crater from which the latest eruption occurred in 1707. Courtesy by Geographical Survey Institute, taken in September 1987. This photo appeared in the Bulletin of Volcanological Society of Japan (Vol. 32, no. 3, 1987) with commentary by Yoshiaki Ida.