Mount Redoubt in Alaska, a hundred miles from state capital Anchorage has sprung a ‘fumarola’, a gap in the mountain emitting gases and fumes.
Over the last week this has grown to reach the size of two football pitches according to local scientists, a possibly precursor to a full-scale eruption that would pump a huge dust cloud into the jetstream.
Mt Redoubt blows its top from time to time, one recent eruption caused a KLM jet on its way to Anchorage to drop two miles before the pilots regained control, so it’s not the end of the world yet.
It might be if, further down the west coast, the ’super volcano’ bubbling away under Yellowstone national park goes off (it’s allegedly overdue although the window lasts for another 40,000 years).
And it won’t just be Yogi Bear and Booboo in the firing line.
The dust cloud from this baby would affect the whole world and usher in a new ice age (there’d be no sun for about seven years) and we’d all be able to forget about the credit crunch and global warming.
Just a thought.
2 Comments
Hey, sport, Anchorage is NOT the capital of Alaska. Juneau is.
Although Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, it is not the state’s capitol. That honor belongs to Juneau, which is in the Southeast Panhandle portion of Alaska.