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Mar 16, 2009 11:10 AM | 6
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.
"We got a return of this stuff we call volcanic tremors," geologist Chris Waythomas told the AP. “We think it's associated with the hydrothermal system there. It's being reinvigorated."
Steam and ash from the volcano rose 15,000 feet above sea level yesterday, the AP noted. Volcanoes in Alaska typically shoot ash upward (20 years ago, a plume from Redoubt knocked out a jet’s engines); tests will show whether the ash contains new magma or remnants of old rumblings.
Redoubt is 103 miles (166 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage and is 10,200-feet (3,100 meters) tall. We’ve got more on why volcano monitoring is important and what causes a volcano to erupt.
Updated at 5:50 p.m. March 16 to correct height of Mount Redoubt.
Ash and steam plume from Mount Redoubt, March 15, 2009 by Heather Bleick, AVO/USGS
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6 Comments
Add CommentIt's 3100 meters tall, not 3 meters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"10,200-feet (3 meters) tall."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore good math and proof-reading from Sci Am.
And they wonder why I stopped my subscription?
It's going to blow and the ash with current wind conditions will travel far. Suddenly I'm enjoying life in the southeast states. Talk about global warmng..(spotted owl) Al gore is going to be ticked with this one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this^x ^p > h/2 (uncertainty principle) or maybe March 19th anyone care to make a bet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCandud, this is a post in a blog. Not the magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut I'm sure they sat around and bemoaned your absence long and hard.
Everybody who watches too much tv, and thinks Al Gore, Spotted Owls (kinda dating yourself there), "belief in global warming", evolution, the heliocentric theory, the theory of gravitation, etc... are myths, perhaps you could illustrate just how superior your rationale is, by relocating to south central Florida. It'd be evolution at its finest. If you're right, you'll outbreed us by procreating more often and with more partners in the perpetually summery weather, and if you're wrong, well, then you removed yourselves from the gene pool, for the good of the species. Everybody wins!
"10,200-feet (3,100 meters)"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCome on Jasked and candide, if that says 3.1 meters, it also says 10.2 feet, so what's the problem? If you look closer I think you'll find those are commas.