Officials warn of the possibility of an Alaskan volcano erupting after recording a “large number of earthquakes”.

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Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory have warned of a possible eruption of Tanaga after recording earthquakes under the volcano’s summit.

Earthquake activity began to increase “slowly” under the volcano, which is located on an uninhabited island, at around 1:30 p.m. local time on March 8, according to a post on the observatory’s Facebook account. By 8:45 that evening, activity had escalated. The observatory said two or three quakes were occurring every minute.

“We’re starting to see a huge number of earthquakes happening, one after another, many times a minute,” John Bauer, a USGS research geophysicist who is stationed in Anchorage at the observatory, told the Associated Press.

The observatory said all the quakes were relatively small, with magnitudes ranging between 2 and 3. Their location under the volcano’s summit poses a threat.

“This indicates that we are seeing significant unrest at the volcano,” Bauer told the Associated Press.

Tanaga volcano. Matt Lewin/Alaska Volcano Observatory

As a result, the Volcano Alert level has been raised from “Normal” to “Advisor”. This is the second of four levels used by the USGS, which is part of the US Department of the Interior. An advisory alert means that the volcano “shows signs of elevated unrest above the known background level,” according to the USGS.

Bauer told the Associated Press that despite the increased threat level and increased seismicity, it’s still too early to say whether an eruption is possible.

“But we worried enough about it that we went and raised the alert level,” he said.

The volcano, which is monitored by local seismic and regional lightning detection networks, and satellite data, is the tallest of the three volcanic edifices on Tanaga Island. The island is located in the Andrianof Islands, about 50 miles west of Adak and 1,260 miles southwest of Anchorage.

The last eruption of Tanaga was in 1914, the observatory said on Facebook. Prior to that, eruptions were reported in 1763, 1770, 1791 and 1829. Those eruptions appear to have led to plump lava flows and occasional ash clouds, the observatory said, based on sediments. located in the volcano.

Bauer told the Associated Press that instead of the red rivers of lava many people associate with a volcano erupting, there will likely be more viscous, slow-moving lava similar to the one seen at Mount St. Helens when it erupted in 1980. The biggest threat, he said, would be at Planes, because the islands are under the routes that planes use to fly between North America and Asia.

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