Seismicity has increased dramatically at Redoubt in Alaska over the last 24 hours, so AVO has put the volcano back on Orange/ Watch status. They say the tremors being felt now could be signs to an impending eruption (days to weeks), especially after the other events of the past week. Stay tuned! (Pardon the briefness, I'm posting from my iPod.)
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Does the shift in the earth's crust have anything to do with volcanic eruptions? I just finished reading "RESONANCE," by A.J. Scudiere. As far as I understand from the book, as well as a few doomsday websites, the shift occurs when the magnetic poles of the earth play switcheroo, and this happens every 65 million years or so. This work of fiction blends scientific fact with a lot of hypothesis in a slightly long, but riveting plot which provides a lot of food for thought. What are your thoughts?
Does it count as an eruption if magma is making contact with ice, but not yet visible?
They say there is no signs of tremor, so what most likely is causing these small quakes? Could it be pressure building?
Doug - I'd say that if magma comes out of the vent, it would count as an eruption, even if it were under ice. Eruptions occurring under ice have been observed in Iceland and tend to produce glacial floods (jokulhlaups).
Ross - AVO seems to think that the quakes could be a sign of a "pressurization" of the system or magma making its way slowly into the upper parts of the volcano.
1) If magma makes contact with ice a big explosion would occur (and count as a phreatic eruption), so we can be fairly sure that this hasn't happened yet
2) AVO says: "This activity likely represents either the upward movement of magma or pressurization of the system"
The webicorder looks ominous since about 20:40 UTC. Looks like pretty much constant harmonic tremor.
As AVO says it is now in eruption! :-)
"RED/WARNING 2009-03-22 22:56:25 - VAN/VONA
An eruption of Mt. Redoubt began at approximately 22:38 AKDT, March 22, 2009 (0638 UTC). AVO is raising the aviation color code to Red and the alert level to Warning. Initial height of the eruption cloud is estimated at less than 20,000 ft above sea level at present. Further reports will be issued as more information becomes available"
Redoubt has erupted:
An eruption of Mt. Redoubt began at approximately 22:38 AKDT, March 22, 2009 (0638 UTC). AVO is raising the aviation color code to Red and the alert level to Warning. Initial height of the eruption cloud is estimated at less than 20,000 ft above sea level at present. Further reports will be issued as more information becomes available.
Redoubt is erupting. Status has been upgraded to Red.
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php
It's erupting!!!!!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/23/alaska.volcano/index.html
As East Coast and transatlantic readers probably already know (since you have been up for a bit), it has been reported that Redoubt has erupted four times overnight:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090323/ap_on_re_us/alaska_volcano
Erik will probably be busy with updates when he gets up!
Redoubt Volcano erupts
Thar she blows! It's finally happening, and some of the monitoring equipment has quit working. This is it, kids!
Finally.
As of last night, March 22, Redout has erupted and has had five explosive events. AVO has elevated the color code to red and the alert level to WARNING. There is also an ashfalladvisory in effect that can be accesed at http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/volcano.php
Thought I'd leave a comment and make sure that you know that your RSS feed is not working properly . I attempted loading your blog to my RSS reader tool but got absolutely nothing.