Anatahan
— — an island still deciding whether to settle.
Not only on a wall.
“A volcanic island in the Northern Marianas, about 320 kilometres north of Saipan. Two summit calderas, the eastern one active, the western one quiet. The island has been uninhabited since the volcano stirred in 1990 and erupted in May 2003, the first eruption ever recorded here. Ash plumes still rise from time to time. The slopes are dark, the surrounding Pacific is the deep blue of open water, and no ferry runs.
Anatahan, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Anatahan is a volcanic island in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the western Pacific. It sits about 320 kilometres north of Saipan, the territorial capital. The island is roughly 9 kilometres long and 3 kilometres wide, with two summit calderas reaching 788 metres elevation. The eastern caldera is the active vent; the western caldera is older and quiet. Anatahan has had no permanent population since the volcano became restless in 1990, and the U.S. government maintains a hazard exclusion zone.
Anatahan had no recorded eruption until 10 May 2003, when the east caldera produced an explosive event sending ash to 12 kilometres altitude and drifting plume hundreds of kilometres west toward Guam. Smaller eruptions followed through 2008. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Commonwealth's Emergency Management Office maintain a remote monitoring station and a permanent maritime exclusion zone. Earlier in the twentieth century, a group of Japanese soldiers and civilians held out on the island until June 1951, six years after the war's end.
No ferry serves Anatahan and no airstrip exists. Approach is by chartered boat or government vessel, both rare. The last residents, a Carolinian community of around twenty, were evacuated in May 1990 when seismic swarms began. Wild goats and pigs left behind have stripped much of the lower vegetation. From a passing ship the island reads as dark scoria and pale steam against open Pacific water. The few photographs in circulation come from USGS overflights and NOAA fisheries surveys.