Alaska - Mt Redoubt Volcano could erupt within days

For those who cannot or don't want to download the mp3 file I uploaded, I've set up a Youtube video with the same audio file (quality is lower, though). Please note that playing speed is 40x (necessary to make it in the audible range):



[edit on 2009/2/2 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by geogeek

Hehe! I would not live anywhere else.. Although BC would be a second choice for me. I love the Toad River area - just grand!
If you ever get a chance one geo-kewl place is up North round Healy, AK. Buzzard Creek and the Dome - lots of wildlife and fewer people just be careful round hunting season :-). Also some very neat geo features off the Old Denali Hwy/Denali side; I'm not sure what I was looking at but it looked like several mountains in a row with their tops blown completly off.. The Chugach range is pretty but wet and swampy in areas, also tons of folks just cant get away without running into someone or, as will happen with human population increase, a bear looking for a jogger to chase. Hidden lakes/Ship Lake/Crow pass is very kewl though.. Ive never hiked around Spur :-) but would be something to behold I'm sure..

reply to post by Shirakawa

Thank you! That was awesome for us lame Os with IE.. Although I did not hear the 'whale song.' Darn.

Latest from AVO. Looks like things are heating up.

Elevated seismic activity continues and we have been detecting small repeating earthquakes over the past several hours.

The volcano has not erupted and is still in a very restless state.

Preceding updates:

A short, high-intensity burst of volcanic tremor occurred at 8:47 AKST this morning, and since then a series of small repeating earthquakes is ongoing. There is no eruption associated with this earthquake activity. The volcano is just now appearing in the Redoubt HutCam, and no steam plume is visible.

--------------------

A high intensity burst of volcanic tremor occurred from about 2:44 through 2:50 AST this morning at Redoubt. The tremor episode appears to have ended for now. There was no eruption associated with this tremor.

AVO


News report

Mount Redoubt has experienced "high-intensity" volcanic tremors this morning but has not erupted, scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory report.

The first tremor event was recorded from 2:44 through 2:50 a.m., volcanologists said. A second, short burst occurred at 8:47 a.m.

"Since then a series of small, repeating earthquakes is ongoing," the observatory reports.

The 10,197-foot mountain 106 miles southwest of Anchorage has been under close observation for several days due to elevated seismic activity and the release of steam and gases near the summit.

Volcanologists say the mountain could explode with little warning and dust the region with ash.

Anchorage Daily News

Here's a good high res pic of the mountain



[edit on 2-2-2009 by violet]

I'm experimenting with audio spatiality. This is an audio segment taken from today 2009-02-02 between 17:30 and 19:00 UTC from three different stations: RSO, REF and RDN. Playing speed is 25x.

Download Link

Credits to PuterMan and his QuakeData program I used to convert seismic data into .wav audio files.

Warning!
Don't play this file at a too high volume: it contains very low frequencies of high intensity that while they may not seem too loud for your ears, they are loud for your audio equipment.

So how many people died from the lava flowing into Anchorage?

A new update

2009-02-02 13:08:52 Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismic activity remains elevated and is well above background levels. A vapor plume is intermittently visible in the AVO web camera. It appears to rise no higher than the volcano's summit. An observation and gas-measurement flight to the volcano is en route now.

Link


Is it getting closer?

[edit on 2/2/09 by freemindmine]

[edit on 2-2-2009 by violet]

FEMA Situation Reports for today:

Volcano Activity - Redoubt

The Aviation Color Code remains at ORANGE and the Volcano Alert Level remains at WATCH.
Alaska Volcano Observatory Staff are currently monitoring the volcano 24 hours a day.
There are no reports of damages or injuries and no requests for Federal assistance at this time
Redoubt Volcano is a stratovolcano located within a few hundred miles of more than half of the population of Alaska. The largest impact to infrastructure is the possibility of damage and loss of production capability to natural gas wells and transmission facilities from ashfall.

Scientist See Holes in Glacier at Alaska Volcano

Geologists monitoring Mount Redoubt for signs of a possible eruption noticed that a hole in the glacier clinging to the north side of the volcano had doubled in size overnight - and now spans the length of two football fields. Scientists with the Alaska Volcano Observatory on Friday flew close to Drift Glacier and spotted vigorous steam emitted from a hole on the mountain. By Saturday, they confirmed the area was a fumarole, an opening in the earth that emits gases and steam that was increasing in size at an alarming rate. They also saw water streaming down the glacier, indicating heat from magma is reaching higher elevations of the mountain.

The signs of heat add to concerns that an eruption is near, which could send an ash cloud about 100 miles northeast toward Anchorage, the state's largest city, or into communities on the Kenai Peninsula, which are even closer to the mountain on the west side of Cook Inlet. It would be the first eruption since 1990.

Particulate released during an eruption have jagged edges and can injure skin, eyes and breathing passages, especially in young children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems.
It can also foul jet engines.

A week ago, the observatory detected a sharp increase in earthquake activity below the volcano and upgraded its alert level to orange, the stage just before full eruption. The warning that an eruption was imminent caused a rush on dust masks and car air filters in Anchorage.

Alaska's volcanoes typically start with an explosion that can shoot ash 50,000 feet high and into the jet stream, but there are warning signs because magma causes small earthquakes as it moves.
A geologist said the observatory has been recording quakes up to magnitude 2.1 but not at the frequency that preceded the last two eruptions in 1989 and 1990

FEMA

[edit on 2-2-2009 by violet]

If the summit's getting hotter, maybe it's getting closer to eruption?

Latest update from AVO:

Restlessness at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismic activity remains elevated and is well above background levels. The volcano has not erupted.

A gas/observation overflight today reported continued changes in the summit glaciers indicative of heating of the summit area. The flight and hut webcam photos show a small vapor plume at the summit.

CNN News Article:

... inside the operations center, things are heating up.

"This is kind of the nerve center, if you will," says geologist Michelle Coombs, who is at the helm of a bank of video monitors showing readouts from sensors on Mount Redoubt, a volcano about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

The sensors measure seismic activity on the volcano's summit. Scientists at the observatory combine that information with data gathered from daily airplane flights to the volcano to measure gases and try to figure out if and when Redoubt is going to blow.

"We're seeing lots of little earthquakes right now," says Coombs. "As that magma rises, it breaks rock as it gets to the surface, and it also it gives off gases, and that leads to the seismic activities were seeing now."

When the magma, or molten rock, makes it to the surface, the volcano will erupt.

A siren goes off, and one of the video monitors goes haywire. Is the mountain erupting?

"That's just a little alarm. There was just a little bit of increased seismic activity," Coombs says reassuringly. "It's a special kind of earthquake particular to volcanoes called a long-period earthquake. It has more to do with fluid and gases than with breaking rock."

Since the monitors first showed increased activity on January 23, the observatory has been staffed 24 hours a day. Scientists here are calling in reinforcements; several geologists from the Lower 48 have been making their way north to help.

Coombs thinks Redoubt will erupt within days or weeks. No one lives near the mountain, which sits on the Cook Inlet and is largely surrounded by glacier ice. That means there is no direct danger from lava flows, but huge clouds of ash could spread throughout Alaska.

CNN

Something else is going on up here with Shishaldin that may interest some of you.

Odd to say the least.

Not really that weird. When you see something like that on a Seismograph, it's usually a problem with the Seismograph. If not, we'd have heard updates.

reply to post by violet


Nice find
I have to wonder if the lady there is closer to having her kid than the volcano is to erupting though (Watch the vid link at CNN and you'll see what I mean )

M.

That turned out to be a combination of wind and they were having a telemetry problem. Learn something new every day.

Redout is still active, with a lot of micro quakes still happening. But I believe the sustained harmonic tremors have subsided quite a bit in the past day or two. Maybe with a bit of luck it will be a failed eruption.

News articles:

From National Geographic:

February 3, 2009—Volcanic smoke and gas from two new holes eat through snow and ice high on Alaska's Redoubt Volcano on Saturday—one of them (left) about the size of a football field.

"Things are shifting" on, and in, the 10,197-foot (3,108-meter) volcano—considered the ninth most dangerous in the U.S.—said geologist Kristi Wallace of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, who was on a survey flight over the two big fumaroles yesterday

Surrounding ice is melting rapidly, and the gases have now been confirmed to include carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide—adding to evidence that a magma chamber is creeping upward, she said.

What's more, Wallace and colleagues are now convinced new magma from deep in the Earth has entered the system.

As a result, there's now a "greater likelihood" the volcano, which is about 106 miles (170 kilometers) from Anchorage, will explode in days or weeks, she told National Geographic News today.

"It's always possible it could erupt at any time," she added.

National Geographic

From Johan “Joop” Varekamp, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and resident volcanology expert:

According to Varekamp, if the predicted eruption is large enough, it could harm Anchorage and make next year’s winter even harsher.

According to Varekamp, the sulfur that is released after an eruption can stay in the stratosphere for years. After the eruption of Mt. El Chichon in Mexico in 1982, the country witnessed a harsher than average winter in 1983. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1815 was the largest eruption known by volcanologists and had the most severe climate impact—it snowed the following July in New England.

As a precautionary measure, the people surrounding Mt. Redoubt have evacuated the area. Although scientists can predict when the volcano will erupt, they have so far been unable to predict the size of the eruption.

“How much and how big of an eruption it will be is a whole ‘nother ball game,” Varekamp said.

The consequences of a Mt. Redoubt eruption will not be nearly as large as Mt. Pinatubo, yet volcanic eruptions are always a cause for concern

“Depending on wind direction for the ash, Anchorage could be in the danger zone,” Varekamp said.

Source

[edit on 3-2-2009 by violet]

Hey!

2009-02-03 15:02:56
Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismic activity remains elevated above background. Clear web camera images show no activity at the volcano.

An AVO crew is working near the volcano today. They have installed one new seismic station and are presently working on a second installation.

AVO is monitoring the volcano 24 hours a day.

AVO

A new seismic station? Great!

news.yahoo.com...

Clear web camera images from this morning show no activity at the volcano.

Well keep your fingers crossed folks, this may be a failed eruption if things keep as relatively quiet as they have been the last several days. Hey, it doesn't hurt to wish for the well being of our fellow Americans over the kick someone is going to get out of watching a dangerous volcano erupt on a stinking webcam, causing some serious problems and maybe even death to some if the eruption should be of the largest type. Wish failure, not success.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Nice thing to wish for, but we're on geological time not ours. Just because its rumbling for a few days doesn't mean it'll go off in a week or a month or six months, but it is indicative of magma movement near the summit so it'll more likely than not erupt within the next year. A watched pot never boils.