Megata

Megata, a group of three small maars along the tip of the Oga Peninsula in NW Honshu, has been active during the Holocene (Ishikawa et al., 1957). Lakes 300-600 m wide fill the basaltic-to-dacitic maars, which are a noted locality for mantle-derived xenoliths. Ichinomegata, the easternmost, largest, and oldest of the three maars, is 600 m in diameter. Ninomegata and Sannomegata are located immediately E and S of Toga Bay, which itself is a maar. The rim of the rhyolitic Toga (Togowan) maar, larger than the Megata maars, is breached by the sea on the western side and was formed about 450,000 years ago. The Megata maars are mostly late Pleistocene in age, but Murayama (1987) noted that pottery from roughly 4,000 years before present (Jomon Period) has been found within tephra layers from the maars.