Volcanoes – Good to know!

Alaska is an increasingly active place

Volcanic activity level heightened in the Aleutian chain.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) has heightened the alert status of a remote volcanic island. The “Ring of Fire” stretches across the length of the Aleutian island chain and contains the vast majority of Alaska’s 80 or more groups of volcanoes. 

The “Watch level” alert was triggered by plumes of ash seen rising over 30,000 feet above an island 130 miles west of Adak in Alaska’s Maritime Wildlife refuge. This island is dominated by Mount Semisopochnoi’s 5-mile wide caldera. A caldera is a crater that is formed when an eruption causes the mountain’s top to collapse in on itself. Mount Semisopochnoi’s caldera which is thought to be the origin of the ash plumes also houses a small lake and a number of peaked cones from previous eruptions. The most recent presumed eruption was in 1987.

This level of activity can be dangerous to air travel passing through the ash clouds because ash melts very quickly inside of the plane’s engine coating it’s interior with a layer of glass. Most of The ash is expected to be carried north by the prevailing winds, so not expected to affect us in Haines borough. 

There are no currently identified volcanoes in our immediate surrounding area. Our closest neighbors are a cluster stretching from Mt. Edgecumbe near Sitka, down to the Behm Canal near Ketchikan. To our north, Mount Wrangell heads a cluster 200 miles northeast of Anchorage and extending to over 40 active volcanoes along the Aleutian chain. Two of those volcanoes: Great Sitkin and Cleveland have been raised from normal to “Advisory level” recently as well.