One of Alaska's Most Dangerous Volcanoes Is Waking Up

Bright Side

One of Alaska’s most dangerous volcanoes, Mount Edgecumbe, is waking up after being quiet for centuries. Scientists recently noticed unusual earthquake activity and ground swelling in the area, which are signs that magma is moving beneath the surface. This is a big deal because Mount Edgecumbe hasn’t erupted in over 800 years, and now it’s showing signs of life. While it’s not erupting yet, experts are keeping a close eye on it to understand what might happen next. If it does erupt, it could affect nearby communities and even air travel due to ash clouds. For now, it’s a reminder of how powerful and unpredictable nature can be, especially in a place like Alaska!  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00The ground suddenly starts shaking.

00:03Clouds of gas start forming in the sky, making it dark during broad daylight.

00:08Bits of the ground start swelling, lifting, and even collapsing.

00:12These are the tell-tale signs of a volcano that is bound to erupt.

00:17And this is what could easily happen again with Mount Spur.

00:22It's only about 75 miles from Anchorage, one of Alaska's busiest cities.

00:27More than half of the population of the northernmost state of the U.S. live there.

00:32There's also a huge amount of air cargo that passes through its international airport daily.

00:38So anytime a volcano this close to such a vital hub begins to get restless, people start paying attention.

00:45Just FYI, approximately 350 million people in the world live within the danger range of an active volcano.

00:54That means that around 1 out of 20 people live in an area at risk of volcanic activity.

01:01Alaskans probably wish that Spur's reawakening was fiction, but it's actually true.

01:06The Alaska Volcano Observatory picked up on several of these

01:10I'm-about-to-erupt signs from Mount Spur.

01:13So much so that they raised the alert level to yellow, which means unrest above normal background levels.

01:22Spur erupted twice in the 90s, and it was pretty intense.

01:26If we were ranking volcanic eruptions on a scale from 1 to 10, these eruptions would rank a 6 or 7.

01:32Not that terrible, but still worth 10 to 17 million in damages.

01:38However, these numbers are nothing compared to Alaska's 1988 Redoubt eruption,

01:44another volcano that erupted and summed up a staggering $345 million in damages.

01:51Mainly because its ashes hit aircraft engines,

01:54such as the KLM-747 that lost power after all its engines went off due to the ashes.

02:01If people weren't paying attention to Alaska's unstable geology before that,

02:06well, they surely started to after it.

02:10When you think of the hazards of volcanic activity,

02:13the first thing that might possibly pop in your mind is Pompeii, Italy.

02:19Of course, that's the worst-case scenario, a city being engulfed by lava.

02:24Spur may seem innocent compared to Vesuvio, but it still took its toll.

02:29The last time it erupted in the 90s, and it threw volcanic aerosols over 60,000 feet into the atmosphere.

02:38Let's get our science straight here.

02:40Think of volcanic aerosols like liquid particles that are released into the atmosphere during an eruption.

02:46These particles are usually created when gases from a volcano, such as sulfur dioxide,

02:52combine with water and other particles that exist in our atmosphere.

02:56These aerosols can actually cool the Earth's surface since they reflect sunlight directly back into space.

03:03And that's not the worst part.

03:05It can stay in the atmosphere for several years after an eruption, causing lots of health issues.

03:12The eruption unleashed blazing-fast avalanches of hot gas and ash called pyroclastic flows,

03:19along with thick, muddy floods known as lahars.

03:23Oh, and there were also the massive volcanic boulders.

03:27These rock chunks were huge, some over three feet long,

03:31and they blasted out from the volcano like nature's cannonballs, landing more than six miles away.

03:38All that volcanic heat melted part of a nearby glacier,

03:41kicking off debris flows that dammed up the Chakachatna River and created a whole new lake along the valley.

03:49Some good came out of Spur's first eruption, though.

03:52The main lesson was, volcanic monitoring pays off.

03:56The local monitoring was able to reduce the economic damage done by the eruption,

04:01especially for a city that has an intense air traffic.

04:05Spur is deemed as dormant for the moment, but it could go off anytime soon.

04:11You see, volcanoes are classified as active, dormant, or extinct,

04:17depending on how much action they're putting on.

04:20If it's still active, it's still rumbling and erupting somewhat regularly.

04:24Dormant means it's had some recent activity, but it's still lying low for now.

04:29And extinct, that's when it's been quiet for such a long time that we figure it's done for good.

04:37One of the U.S.'s most dangerous active volcanoes is Mount St. Helens.

04:42This volcano is actually responsible for the most powerful eruption in U.S. history.

04:48Its last blast was so intense, it threw off about 1,300 feet off its summit.

04:55Basically, the top of the mountain vanished.

04:58If you thought Mount Spur's ash cloud was impressive, St. Helens wins the competition,

05:03since it launched its ashes 80,000 feet into the sky.

05:07Eastern Washington plunged into total darkness.

05:12But it wasn't just that.

05:14In a matter of three minutes, the eruption hurled 3.7 billion cubic yards of blazing rock and dust,

05:21enough to fill a million Olympic-sized pools across 230 square miles of lush forest.

05:28Actually, the earthquakes that anticipated the eruption started weeks before May 18, 1980.

05:35A ground shake of magnitude 5.0 went off, triggering a landslide on one side of the volcano.

05:43By the end of the official eruption date, 57 people had lost their lives.

05:48Nearly 7,000 big-game animals like deer and elk were wiped out,

05:53and millions of birds laid scattered on the burnt earth.

05:57Researchers don't think St. Helens will blow at the same magnitude again anytime soon,

06:02but they're keeping an eye on it, because this volcano is not exactly finished.

06:08By the way, the word volcano comes from the Roman name Vulcan, which was the Roman deity of fire,

06:15and they often happen at the meeting point of tectonic plates,

06:18which are the pieces of the Earth's surface that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

06:23The so-called Ring of Fire, located in the Pacific Ocean, is the world's danger zone when it comes to volcanoes.

06:30It contains between 750 and 915 active volcanoes.

06:37The largest volcano located in the Ring of Fire, also the largest active volcano in the world, is the Mauna Loa.

06:45It's over 13,000 feet high, and it's located in Hawaii.

06:49Researchers say that Mauna Loa has been erupting for at least 700,000 years.

06:55Its most recent eruption began on the 27th of November, 2022, and it lasted until December 13.

07:04It's been quiet since the 80s until it decided to wake up again.

07:08Thanks to constant monitoring by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, it didn't cause any casualties when it last erupted.

07:16Scientists have been investing big time on volcanic monitoring,

07:20not only to reduce economic hazards, but also to save lives.

07:25The most recent attempt has been to drill into volcanoes.

07:29Recently, a group of scientists went all the way to Iceland in one of the world's volcanic hotspots.

07:35There are around 33 active volcanoes in Iceland alone,

07:40but the one that is the most interesting to them the most is the Krafla volcano.

07:45The Krafla has erupted around 30 times in the last 1,000 years,

07:50and its most recent eruption was in the mid-1980s.

07:54The project, named Krafla Magma Testbed, or KMT for short,

07:58is hoping to advance the understanding of how magma behaves underground.

08:03The main advantage of this drilling research is predicting the risk of eruptions,

08:07but it can also help to push geothermal energy forward.

08:11I mean, can you imagine having electricity that is run by the limitless source of volcano power?

08:19The KMT team will begin drilling holes deep into volcanic ground in 2027.

08:24They're aiming at reaching over a mile into the ground.

08:28After all, it's different to monitor lava activity when it's on the surface than when it is still below ground.

08:34This will allow researchers to listen to the pulse of the Earth, according to them.

08:40They're saying this research is as revolutionary as the first time man went to the moon.

08:45Oh, and speaking of that, I was shocked to discover that volcanoes exist all throughout the solar system.

08:52Yep, other planets and moons have volcanoes too.

08:56The largest volcano in our solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars.

09:01It's a shield volcano, much like the ones that make up the Hawaiian Islands.

09:06It's about 370 miles wide.

09:09If we transported it all the way back to Earth, it would almost occupy all of Poland.

09:15Yikes!

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