Mar 26 2009
Redoubt Erupts - Event Summary for Week of March 22
Last week I posted on Volcano Redoubt getting restless and spouting off a little steam and ash. This event also triggered some minor seismic activity through the region. We also had an event in the Pacific with an underwater volcano, earthquake and tsunami warnings being issued, although no tsunamis actually occurred.
On Saturday, March 21st, Redoubt in Alaska become a little bit more active with venting of steam and some ash, this caused the Alaska Volcano Observatory to raise the level up to orange / watch and to issue some preliminary advisories. Seismic activity was recorded by summit monitoring stations at the rate of about 26 per 10 minute intervals.
On March 22nd at 22:38 AKDT the volcano erupted. The threat level was raised to the highest which is now at: red / warning. The initial cloud release was up to 50,000 feet above sea level. Five explosions occurred during the initial eruption period between the evening of March 22nd and around 5:00 AM AKDT on the 23rd. The National Weather Service has reported ash clouds reaching as high as 60,000 feet with the bulk of the ash between the 5,000 and 20,000 foot mark. This eruption caused melting of the Drift glacier and as a result has caused the water level in Drift River to rise.
Another round of ash eruption occurred again on the evening of March 23rd around 7:40 PM ADT. This could was estimated to reach around 50,000 feet and lasted just under 20 minutes. Seismic activity has diminished somewhat since the start of the initial eruption event on Saturday. There was little activity on the 24th and an over flight as well as satellite images showed steam rising to around 20,000 feet and drifting about 40 miles northwest. On the 25th, a small explosion occurred around 5:10 AM AKDT and the event lasted for around 10 minutes.
Volcano Redoubt has been relatively quiet in recent years, up until the Fall of 2008 when seismic activity started to increase. This volcanic unrest with the mountain intensified in January and has continued to escalate over the past weeks until the small eruption that occurred earlier last week. The volcano alert condition remains at red / warning and other eruptions and events can occur at anytime without warning.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory is staffed 24 hours a day and is continuing to monitor the status of the volcano. You can get updates via the National Weather Service: http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/volcano.php. The observatory is also feeding updates by Twitter and you can follow along here: http://twitter.com/alaska_avo.
If you remember, Mount St. Helens went through its period of eruptions, you can read up on it by checking out the book review on “Super Volcano” over at Nonfiction Book Review.
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I wonder if the activity is done now, or if there will be more in the days to come.