It’s code orange for Mount Redoubt, the Alaskan volcano whose rumblings have had geologists predicting an eruption since January.

Officials at the Alaska Volcano Observatory raised the threat level yesterday from yellow, which indicates elevated unrest, to orange, the stage just before eruption when its unrest is escalating or a volcano is emitting minor amounts of ash. Red is the highest level, when eruption is imminent or underway. Geologists had just lowered the threat level to yellow last Tuesday when they began to detect movement of magma within Redoubt’s cracks and fractures, which produces a specific signal, the Associated Press reports.

When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal delivered the official Republican response to President Obama’s speech last night, he blasted elements of the economic stimulus package as “wasteful spending”– among them, “$140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’”

“Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.,” Jindal said.

What was that all about? Well, Congress authorized some of that $140 million to be spent on volcano monitoring, but not all of it, ProPublica notes in a blow-by-blow of the economic recovery package. That line, ProPublica says, is directed to “U.S. Geological Survey facilities and equipment, including stream gages, seismic and volcano monitoring systems and national map activities.”

The so-called ring of fire edging the Pacific is known to be highly active. So it's no surprise that said ring is jolting Seattle residents awake and putting denizens of Anchorage on notice of an imminent eruption from the redoubtable Mount Redoubt.

What felt like a "huge gust of wind," according to Luann Lee of Puyallup (via Twitter) struck Indianola, Wash., this morning, right in the heart of the Seattle-Tacoma urban agglomeration. The quake measured just 4.5 on the Richter Scale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and no damage has been reported.

The residents of Anchorage may not be so lucky, as the USGS also issued a warning that Mount Redoubt, roughly 106 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of that city, is rumbling and "an eruption is possible within days to weeks."

It's been nearly 25 years since Mauna Loa, Hawaii's most dangerous volcano, last erupted—but researchers warn that another eruption may be on the horizon. It's nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact date or time the mountain may blow next, but a new technology allows scientists to determine the eruption's location on the slopes of the giant volcano, thereby helping them determine where the lava it spews will go.

Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on Earth, is a so-called shield volcano, which means that lava can rush either from its central crater or its slopes—and in some eruptions from both. If lava shoots out of Mauna Loa's southern or northern rifts, two neighboring villages are at risk of being scorched. When the mountain blew in 1950, lava ran down its southwest side, prompting the evacuation of 75 people and destroying 15 homes near the village of Kona, about 25 miles from the mountain. When it last erupted in 1984, rivers of fiery-hot lava flooded the northeastern side of the mountain, stopping just short of the island of Hawaii's largest city, Hilo (population: approximately 150,000).

New research indicates that Mount Vesuvius' magma chamber is slowly traveling upwards, suggesting that the volcano may not be as hazardous as previously believed.

Vesuvius most famously destroyed the Roman town of Pompeii in a cataclysmic eruption in 79 AD. The blast was so violent that it covered Pompeii in  nearly 100 feet of ash. If Vesuvius erupted today, it could kill up to 700,000 people in southern Italy, including the residents of Naples.

The location of Vesuvius' magma reservoir is a major consideration for estimating the dynamics of the molten rock, which helps researchers predict how strong the volcano's next eruption will be.  A team of scientists, led by Bruno Scaillet of the CNRS-Université d'Orleans in France, report in Nature today that they analyzed rocks from four major explosions to estimate the temperature and pressure of the magma chamber over time. Their results suggest that Vesuvius' pool of magma has risen about 10 km (6 miles) in the past 20,000 years.