AbstractDistinguishing the initiation of actual collision from flat‐slab subduction of oceanic buoyant highs along convergent margins is elusive because both can lead to inboard deformation and disrupt magmatic arcs. Volcanoes with nascent tear magmatic signatures provide a means to document both the occurrence and timing of actual oceanic buoyant high collision. There is a ~40‐year debate on when the true collision of the Yakutat plateau began in Alaska. Three newly identified ca. 1 Ma volcanoes with a north‐to‐south trench perpendicular orientation, nascent tear geochemical signatures, overlaying an imaged Yakutat slab tear, provide constraints on the timing of Yakutat collision and slab tearing. The ca. 1 Ma slab tear is coincident with Yakutat slab segmentation, northern continental Aleutian Arc rejuvenation, cessation of Wrangell Arc magmatism, increased collisional zone exhumation and eastern Yakutat trench abandonment. The documentation of nascent slab tear volcanoes may help resolve similar debates in other convergent margin settings.