Alaska - Mt Redoubt Volcano could erupt within days

Weekly update:

REDOUBT VOLCANO (CAVW #1103-03-)
60°29'7" N 152°44'38" W, Summit Elevation 10197 ft (3108 m)
Current Aviation Color Code: ORANGE
Current Volcano Alert Level: WATCH

Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues. No eruption has occurred. Volcanic tremor with variable amplitudes and intermittent discrete earthquakes occurred continuously throughout the week. The strongest tremor occurred February 16-18. Satellite views of Redoubt were largely obscured by clouds throughout the week. A few clear images showed nothing unusual. Webcam views have been obscured by snow and ice. This level of activity is similar to what we have observed over much of the current period of unrest.

No field work was done at Redoubt this week. A gas-measurement flight is now scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday February 20, if weather permits.

AVO continues to monitor Redoubt Volcano closely, and the observatory is staffed 24 hours a day.

Heavily ice-mantled Redoubt volcano is located on the western side of Cook Inlet, 170 km (106 mi) southwest of Anchorage and 82 km (51 mi) west of Kenai, within Lake Clark National Park. Redoubt is a stratovolcano which rises to 10,197 feet above sea level. Recent eruptions occurred in 1902, 1966-68, and 1989-90. The 1989-90 eruption produced mudflows, or lahars, that traveled down the Drift River and partially flooded the Drift River Oil Terminal facility. The ash plumes produced by the 1989-90 eruption affected international air traffic and resulted in minor or trace amounts of ash in the city of Anchorage and other nearby communities.

AVO

A few minutes ago a powerful earthquake has saturated most Redoubt webicorders I have opened on GEE. I wonder what happened! Big explosion?



EDIT: it probably was this:
MAP 4.6 2009/02/23 00:04:26 58.960 -153.692 98.0 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA

[edit on 2009/2/22 by Shirakawa]

Is 4.6 for KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA not a fair size, I see ones going off in Alaska alot but most off the time around or under 3.0.
Is Kosiak Island Region far from Mt Redoubt?

reply to post by freemindmine


I was about to check its distance from mt. Redoubt on Google Earth, but it got erased from the earthquake list in the USGS site. I think its location or magnitude were not correct, as from the coordinates I saved it would have been 180 kilometers far from the volcano (about 112 miles). I'm not sure a 4.5 EQ would saturate seismometers from there.

[edit on 2009/2/22 by Shirakawa]

reply to post by Shirakawa


I was wondering about it because on RSOE EDIS site, If there has been a quake and you click on it and go to the bottom it says

There is not a volcano in 100 km of radius.

Its as if to say no Quake would have an effect on a volcano at more than 100k, I would of thought that depends on the size of the quake?

Edit to add : That's a 4.9 KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA showing up on firefox now. Its now downgrade to 4.6 so must have been the same one as before.






[edit on 22/2/09 by freemindmine]

The earthquake reappeared in about the same place, 182 Km far from Redoubt volcano:

Looks like Redoubt is letting off a lot of steam now. This is the most I have seen, since the event began.

Could this be a pattern?

reply to post by questioningall


Agreed. And by the looks of the clear webcam image, compared with the "clear day" example of the webcam, and from previous days viewed online, there is significantly more rock face exposed caused by the steam, or the temperature of the mountain. If we see more of this melt, then it's probably safe to say that the magma is rising to the top.

In the AVO Redoubt gallery page, which has been recently updated, there's photographic evidence of a new ice hole which was forming during AVO's last observation flight. Check it out!

EDIT
An update regarding this from AVO:

2009-02-25 11:51:14
Redoubt Volcano has not erupted. Volcanic tremor and occasional discrete earthquakes are continuing. A flurry of small earthquakes began just before 10 a.m.

The web cameras show clear views of the volcano. Between the 9:08 and 10:03 a.m. views of the volcano it appears that a small flowage event occurred, originating from a melt hole in the Drift Glacier at about 5,600 ft. above sea level. This event was probably recorded by several seismic stations beginning at about 9:29 a.m.

AVO is monitoring Redoubt Volcano closely, and the observatory is staffed 24 hours a day.

I'm not exactly sure of what they're impling with "small flowage event", but I tried to convert it to audio. Here it is, at 40x speed. It indeed sounds like something flowing/sliding:

Download link
(the flowage starts at 00:12)

[edit on 2009/2/25 by Shirakawa]

I'll give it 4 days...tops. Hopefully when I'm not at work, too.

Tremors have increased substantially in amplitude in the last few minutes from what I'm seeing on GEE. Plus, the weather appears to be very bad on the webcam, and seismic station RSO seems to have some issues (maybe transmission problems due to such weather).

EDIT: Very big tremor! Occurred just now at 01:13 UTC!



[edit on 2009/2/25 by Shirakawa]

Still no eruption, but it got pretty active for the last hour. Looks like it is calming down some right now. No alerts here yet so no eruption. I've got my face mask and goggles in the car

Had it gone earlier the ash would have missed Anchorage, but now it looks like that has changed. Darn

reply to post by Blaine91555


Actually at the moment RSO seismic station is having the lowest tremor amplitudes I ever seen since they started in January... what's going on!?

EDIT: Another short but big tremor occurred just now (01:53 UTC).
Just before this one, tremors stopped completely for a while, at least from what I heard in the audio wave I converted from the seismic trace.

EDIT2: now volcanic tremors are continuing, but at a much lower amplitude than in past days.

EDIT3: but it looks like they have now stopped again completely. I speculate that some magma vent got clogged after the long and strong tremor from about a hour ago and that pressure is building up in the volcano - releasing suddenly, at least for now, as medium bursts of high intensity tremors when it gets high enough.

[edit on 2009/2/25 by Shirakawa]

WOW, the webcorders have increased..... also what do they mean by a "flow event", does that mean lava?

here is their latest summary.......

2009-02-25 16:02:32

Redoubt Volcano has not erupted. Volcanic tremor and occasional discrete earthquakes are continuing this afternoon. Tremor amplitude increased about 3:45 p.m. and is continuing at this time.

Clouds began obscuring the web cam views of the volcano just after noon today.

AVO is monitoring Redoubt Volcano closely, and the observatory is staffed 24 hours a day.

You think it will blow pretty soon? It looks like it is in the stages of finally going off................ what does everyone else think?

Also the pic that I posted above, showed lots of steam....

reply to post by questioningall


I think they meant flow of debris/mud/water/snow, not ash or magma.
Volcanic activity has had its highest peak a couple dozen of minutes ago, but now seems to have come to a nearly complete stop.

Hear in this audio file volcanic tremors to almost disappear:

Download link

Here's the spectrograph of the wavefile. It's clearly visible where tremors subside substantially:



Also have a look at the webicorders ...!

[edit on 2009/2/25 by Shirakawa]

Just got home from work and yes it has gone silent. weird. Guess it just needed a good burp

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Just got home from work and yes it has gone silent. weird. Guess it just needed a good burp

No, I think you are wrong ... she's going to blow. Soon.

reply to post by Avastar


Also, according to AVO's "failed eruption" scenario, a complete stop of volcanic activity would be supposed to be gradual:

Failed Eruption:
No eruption occurs because magma does not reach the surface. Earthquake activity, gas output, and steaming slowly decrease over several weeks or months. Continued heat flux may cause continued, modest melting of snow and ice on the edifice and subsequent increased, but not hazardous outflow into the Drift River. [...]

Prediction: It'll go today. (Thursday.) Around 7PM EST.