Foo - Alaska Volcano Eruption

Mt. Augustine has been erupting the last two days. Alaska Air has canceled flights due to the ash cloud and portions of the Kenai Penninsula are under an ash-fall warning. So far, Anchorage has not been in the depositional zone. Very interesting!!

Here's a photo and a link for those who are interested:
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/volcimage.php?volcname=Augustine&search_year=2006

Whoa, that's crazy. Are you anywhere near it?

It's not very close to Anchorage. If the wind blew northeast and the plume was large enough, it might get us. We are getting volcano advisories from the city (stock up on emergency supplies such as dust masks, etc.) but I doubt it will dump much on Anchorage (I hope). Mt. Spur dropped a lot of ash on the city before I lived here - I have seen photos and talked with people who were here at the time. It was a major pain - very hard on people with respiratory problems, hard on vehicles and homes, messy, etc. I doubt Augustine will do that since it is so far south. I suspect most of the ash will fall in Cook Inlet and Kenai. Nevertheless, it is very interesting. Glaciers, volcanoes... they are all here and shaping the planet right in front of our eyes. Pretty amazing.

That is weird. There isn't exactly a large population of "sordid non-Christians" there. You know, like in Thailand, New Orleans, and Pakistan...




































SARCASM BTW

I read a daily Biking blog, some may find it interesting.
http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/

I thought this volcano had been erupting for the last 3 months? Or is this a second Alaskan volcano?

Mt. St. Helens hasn't done anything particularly interesting for a while, but it's spitting out fresh lava at a steady pace. In a little over a year of activity, the new lava dome has reached about the same volume as the previous dome did in 6 years of activity. It's cool to see the mountain build from the webcam on Johnston Ridge. I think it has been averaging a dumptruck load of new material every 5 seconds straight for the past year.

I lived in Moose Pass in the '70s and '80s and I believe Mt. Spur was the one that resulted in "cinnamon-roll" snowballs for me and my sisters ;)

Alaska... the last frontier, as the license plates used to say. Maybe they still do. Also the only U.S. state with a really elegant flag design.

I lived in Moose Pass in the '70s and '80s

You're kidding! When I was a kid and we'd drive down the peninsula, our running joke was "Don't sneeze or you'll miss Moose Pass!" :D


Also the only U.S. state with a really elegant flag design.

Hard to believe it was designed by a 13 yr old boy. :)

You're kidding! When I was a kid and we'd drive down the peninsula, our running joke was "Don't sneeze or you'll miss Moose Pass!" :D

Yes indeed, as you were leaving the Seward end of Moose Pass, there was a pond on the left and a house on the right, that's where we lived :) Lemme see if I got a pic...

http://www.omnicast.net/~tmcfadden/alaska.JPG

:)

My dad worked in Seward on the Alaska Railroad. Maybe you remember the mudslide that took out about 1/3 mile of Highway 9 down by Snow River (if I have the name correct)? For a while there he would drive there, get in his little fiberglass motorboat and motorboat across the lake, get picked up on the other side, and that's how he got to work :eek: The avalanches blocking the highway and knocking out the power, melting snow for water when the waterbox line froze, no TV for months at a time sometimes, driving 100 miles to Anchorage in the winter to stock up on groceries (how Mom hated the curved bridge going up to Turnagain Pass!)... and the occasional earthquakes and volcanos, moose in the back yard... :D NOT a good place to retire, all things considered, so they moved to Washington state. But I loved Alaska :)


Hard to believe it was designed by a 13 yr old boy. :)

Yeah :)