Three explosive eruptions of Kasatochi occurred so suddenly that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel stationed on the volcanic island managed to evacuate on a passing fishing boat just moments before the violent eruption began.
“Fortunately, the existing seismic networks on nearby volcanoes picked up the (early signs of) activity at Kasatochi,” said Tom Murray, scientist-in-charge of the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
In the days that followed the August 7-8 eruption, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura satellite tracked a dense cloud that contained about 1.5 million tons of sulfur dioxide.
It was one of the largest volcanic sulfur dioxide clouds scientists have observed since Chile’s Hudson volcano erupted in August 1991.
Alaska Airlines was forced to cancel more than 40 flights between the state and numerous west coast destinations such as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles because the sulfur dioxide and ash cloud from Kasatochi drifted into the flight paths to those cities.
