Important Takeaways:
- Almost 300,000 residents in Alaska’s largest city are bracing for an explosive volcanic eruption.
- Mount Spurr, a 11,000-foot-tall volcano that sits just 81 miles from the largest city in the state, is due to blow this year for the first time in 30 years.
- City officials in Anchorage have raised the emergency planning level to Level 2, meaning that they will ramp up communication with the public about the threat and public safety agencies will prepare to launch into eruption response protocols.
- ‘If it’s during the school day, as soon as we get word that an eruption has occurred, we’re going to be reaching out to the Volcano Observatory,’ said Anchorage School District Office of Emergency Management Director Jared Woody.
- ‘We’re going to be working with the National Weather Service, as well as (the city) to find out what are the anticipated impacts to the city. Is the ash plume coming towards us at this point?’
- Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) say Mount Spurr is ‘moving closer to an eruption’ that could happen in ‘weeks to months.’
- On March 7, the volcano began releasing elevated levels of gas from its summit and a side vent that last erupted in 1992.
- These emissions are the latest development in a period of unrest this volcano has been experiencing since April 2024, when it started shuddering with small earthquakes — the first clue that new magma was rising toward the volcano’s vents.
Read the original article by clicking here.
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.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Mount Spurr, which sits about 75 miles west of Anchorage, has seen “volcanic unrest” for the last 10 months, including an increasing number of earthquakes, according to a Feb. 6 statement from the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
- The unrest suggests “that an eruption is possible,” officials said.
- Since April, the number of earthquakes under the volcano has increased from 30 a week on average to 125 a week, officials said. The observatory “has located over 2,700 earthquakes during the unrest episode thus far,” according to officials, who said the largest of them was a magnitude 2.9 quake on Jan. 2.
- “Based on all available monitoring data,” the observatory views the chance of no eruption versus one similar to those in 1953 and 1992 as equal, officials said.
- Officials said they’d “expect to see additional seismic activity, gas emissions, and surface heating, as well as changes to surface deformation prior to an eruption, if one were to occur. Such stronger unrest may provide days to a few weeks of additional warning, but that is not certain.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
