Map showing the flight track of an airborne gas survey performed on March 7, 2025 at Mount Spurr. The colors indicate the total amount of sulfur dioxide above the aircraft as measured using an upwards looking spectrometer. The gas plume emitting from the summit of Mount Spurr was clearly detected drifting south of the active vent. Further analysis of the data yielded a sulfur dioxide emission rate of about 440 tons per day.
Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
Important Takeaways:
- During overflights on March 7 and 11, AVO measured significantly elevated volcanic gas emissions from Mount Spurr volcano. Newly reactivated fumaroles (gas vents) were also seen at the volcano’s Crater Peak vent. Elevated earthquake activity and ground deformation continue.
- The increase in gas emissions confirms that new magma has intruded into the Earth’s crust beneath the volcano and indicates that an eruption is likely, but not certain, to occur within the next few weeks or months.
- The most likely outcome of the current unrest is an explosive eruption (or eruptions) like those that occurred in 1953 and 1992. Those eruptions each lasted a few hours and produced ash clouds that were carried downwind for hundreds of miles and minor ashfall (up to about ¼ inch) on southcentral Alaska communities.
- We expect to see further increases in seismic activity, gas emissions, and surface heating prior to an eruption, if one were to occur. Such stronger unrest may provide days to weeks of additional warning.
- We cannot assign an exact timeframe for when an eruption will occur, if it does, but the increased gas emissions recorded on March 7 suggest that an eruption may occur in the next few weeks to months. We expect to see additional changes to monitoring data prior to an eruption, if one were to occur, as magma moves closer to the surface. This would include a change in the rate and character of earthquakes, onset of sustained seismic tremor, further increased gas emissions, changes in surface deformation, and melting of snow and ice. In 1992, such changes occurred about three weeks prior to the first eruption.
- Should earthquake activity or other monitoring data suggest that an eruption is likely within hours or days, AVO would raise Mount Spurr from its current Aviation Color Code Yellow and Alert Level Advisory to Aviation Color Code Orange or Red and Alert Level Watch or Warning. Alert level definitions can be found here: Alaska Volcano Observatory | Volcano Alert Levels.
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