More Eruptions

Eruptions continue - with a few shooting ash up to 65,000 ft, but only a trace of ashfall here in the Valley or in Anchorage. Trapper Creek (~40 miles to the NW of us) and the Kenai Peninsula have seen the most ash, with about 1/4 to 1/2 inches falling on various days there. These pics are all from the local newspaper's online archive - taken by various people. Last night someone got a good picture of one of the large eruptions and the lightning that accompanies the eruptions. That's not a storm, in fact there wasn't a clould in the sky, but the lightning happens inside the ash plume due to static electricity generated by the eruption. The big cloud on the horizon is the ash plume as it barrels toward Homer a couple of days ago - they got about 1/2 inch of ash that day. Other pics are of ash around local houses and in the valleys surrounding the volcano. The space view is of one of Thursday's eruptions as seen from a passing satellite in low earth orbit. They expect the eruptions to continue for about a month, with alot of eyes watching the Drift River Oil Terminal between Redoubt and Cook Inlet - it stores oil from the oil platforms in the inlet, and has about 6 million gallons in tanks right now. So far, the lahars and mudflows that have hit the terminal haven't breached the berms around the tanks - but if they do, it could spill that oil into the inlet. For comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill was 10 million gallons over a much much larger area in Prince William Sound, so this 6 million in the smaller area of Cook Inlet would do alot of damage. Hopefully the eruptions continue to occur at this rate, because if it gets plugged up by a lava dome and builds high enough in pressure to cause a larger eruption, then the oil terminal could be comprimised. So alot of folks are watching the terminal closely. Last two pics are of the terminal as of Wednesday (note the mud flows have damaged all the buildings but haven't breached the berms around the tanks yet).

Tuesday (3/24) was the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and yesterday (3/27) was the 45th anniversary of the Good Friday Earthquake which was a magnitude 9.2 centered around Valdez - the largest earthquake in North American History - which lasted almost 5 minutes and caused lateral ground movements of 8 feet, as well as causing the hay flats near the house to drop (subside) 15 feet. The hay flats were farmland at that time, but are now too marshy after subsiding. I included some pics from those events.