No, Mount Edgecumbe is not about to explode, say scientists

The volcanic cone of Mount Edgecombe on Baranow Island rises 3,200 feet from the ocean near Sitka. (Ed Schoenefeld/Coast Alaska News)

Seismologists have detected unusual activity beneath the long-dormant Mount Edgecombe volcano near Sitka. Its last major eruption was 4,500 years ago.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory reported that a swarm of small earthquakes occurred somewhere deep down the mountain beginning on April 11 – but it’s too soon to tell if these signals indicate an eruption may be on the way.

Mount Edgecumbe is located a few miles from the Queen Charlotte Fault, where the North American plate and the Pacific plate slide in opposite directions at a rate of about two inches per year. So there is always a lot of normal tectonic activity in the background in the area.

But the swarm on April 11 was out of the ordinary.

said Dave Schneider, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage. The swarm consists of these 2 larger earthquakes accompanied by hundreds of smaller ones – all relatively shallow, at about 5 to 10 kilometers below sea level.

Most earthquake series begin with a larger earthquake – a major shock – followed by a series of smaller earthquakes called aftershocks. When a series of earthquakes does not have an obvious main shock that triggered it, it is often described as a swarm.

The vast majority of earthquakes in this swarm were too small to be felt, even though Sitka is only about 12 miles from its crater. But some were powerful enough to pinpoint their exact location with seismic stations at Sitka and elsewhere in Alaska.

“The second quake is a good-sized earthquake that breaks rocks in a volcano, but also nothing that will make your jaw really slip and freak out, either,” Schneider said.

Schneider says the April 11 squadron has dwindled a bit, which is a good thing. But this does not mean that the event is over. In the medical world, he says, they call it watchful waiting.

“Swarms of seismic volcanoes can diminish and dissipate,” he said. “I mean, they could start with a bang and kind of palpitate, and they could kind of start with a whimper and increase, or they could kind of swing back and forth. And so, we would be in a period of just watching and kind of seeing what was going on.”

“We are very far from an imminent eruption or an eruption at all,” said Jacques Schmidt, Earth sciences coordinator at Sitka Sound Science Center. When I heard from a community member that there was an earthquake beneath Mount Edgecumbe, I called the USGS and learned about the swarm, even before the Alaska Volcano Observatory released its initial report.

She said, “I was talking to seismologists there who assured me that the earthquakes were very small, which is true, but it is very unusual for them to occur under Mount Edgecombe in the pattern they see now.”

Schmidt-mount Edgecumbe is an exciting research opportunity. There are no concrete plans yet, but she hopes the science center can help the USGS with local monitoring of the volcano.

Dave Schneider shares Schmidt’s enthusiasm. There are 90 volcanoes in Alaska, four of which are currently erupting along the Aleutian Range. There’s even another seismic swarm going on at Davidov volcano, far in the chain.

Schneider says that if the activity was related to Mount Edgecumbe, that wouldn’t be unusual.

“The best case scenario for everyone – if you don’t like bangs – is for him to die,” he said.

Another possibility is more appealing to fans of bangs, and it doesn’t necessarily mean disaster.

“The oral tradition is that 800 years ago, there was some activity, but it was little,” Schneider said. “So if you look at the broad range of volcanic activity, minor activity is more common than major activity.”

Schneider says the Alaska Volcano Observatory will keep an eye on more than Mount Edgecombe. Satellite radar data is already being collected to monitor the crater for deformation, should magma or hydrothermal fluids cause the mountain to swell.

Schneider says other evidence that could point to a possible volcanic eruption in the future will increase earthquakes, large earthquakes or gas emissions.

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