January 31, 2006

• ASH IN THE AIR

  When I woke today, I looked at the clock and then at the window. 
  I thought, “Hmmm… it should be brighter than that at this time of
  day.  I wonder if it’s ash in the air.”  I turned on the
  radio and one of the first things I heard was a volcano report saying
  that the ash cloud was extending northward over the Susitna Valley.

  It was our turn under the ash plume.  Over the past few days,
  light dustings of ash have fallen on the Kenai Peninsula and on Kodiak
  Island.  The intensity and frequency of Augustine’s eruptions
  escalated three days ago.  For that long, the volcano has been
  emitting a continuous ash plume, pyroclastic flows and occasional
  explosive eruptions.  It shakes and booms, and I have felt some of
  the subsonic vibes even at this distance.

  I smelled the volcano when I stuck my head out the door earlier this
  morning, and got some grit in my eyes, but that was all.  There is
  no significant visible darkening of the surface of the snowpack, and
  for the last two hours the sky has been clear.  Apparently, the
  wind has now shifted the plume away from us.

  Potemkin, the visiting tomcat, came in briefly this morning to eat and
  warm up.  Last time he was here it was much colder — minus
  twenty-something then, around zero now — and we noticed that the tip
  of one of his ears was shriveled from frostbite.  It hasn’t
  dropped off yet, but surely will.  Old Granny Mousebreath had lost
  the tip of one of her ears before we moved in here with her, makes it
  look like the tip of a tanto blade.  Potemkin wanted out again
  right away, and I had an irrational maternal protective urge to tie a
  tiny bandana over his little nose.

  Two days ago, Kristi Wallace took the photo below during an AVO overflight.  The gas and steam rising from the slopes and base of the volcano are from pyroclastic flows.
  

  The next image was captured yesterday by Game McGimsey.  Photo
  courtesy of Alaska Volcano Observatory and U.S. Geological Survey.
  

  The photomicrographs of ash particles below were captured by Pavel
  Izbekov using the ISI-40 scanning electron microscope at the Advanced
  Instrumentation Laboratory, University of Alaska Fairbanks.  The
  ash sample was from the January 14 eruption, collected by John
  Paskievich of AVO.  Photos courtesy of AVO/USGS/UAF.
  

  

  The AVO website also has an interesting, even amusing, illustrated report of their crew who recently went to Augustine Island to fix the webcam.

  

  • 5:04 pm
  • 8 Comments