Southcentral and Kodiak Island residents are preparing for a likely eruption of Mount Spurr, a volcano about 80 miles west of Anchorage. But the potential impacts of that will pale in comparison to the largest volcanic eruption in the twentieth century, the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption. Ash from that event over a century ago still affects residents on Kodiak Island to this day.
If Mount Spurr erupts, scientists say the amount of ashfall that hits Southcentral and Kodiak Island communities will depend on several factors. Still any amount of ash will likely ground flights, darken the sky and potentially pose health risks to those with respiratory issues.
Even if the worst case scenario occurs, Kodiak residents won’t experience anything close to what happened in 1912.
More than 100 years ago a village called Savonoski, later renamed to Old Savonoski when New Savonoski was established between Naknek and King Salmon, sat in what is now Katmai National Park and Preserve, at the foot of Mount Katmai. The village was used traditionally as a subsistence fishing site for salmon.
But in 1912 the Novarupta-Katmai eruption forced residents like Trefon Angasan Sr. out of their village and across Naknek Lake.
Teddy Melgenak’s parents were among them. Melgenak is the adopted son of Pelagia and Nick Melgenak who survived the eruption.
“Big sparks, you could see 'em, sparks in the air, and a lot of ash on the ground," Melgenak said. "Ground get so hot that they can't even lay down on the ground. Every time you go to sleep, you get warm…”
Melgenak recounted his experience for a University of Alaska Fairbanks oral history program in 1998 called Project Jukebox. He said many Elders thought it was the end of the world.
In historical accounts the National Park Service collected, witnesses said the ash fallout darkened the sky around Katmai for three days. The ground and the waters nearby remained warmer than usual long after the eruption was over. while ash in the sky caused some global cooling.
Roughly 100 miles away in Kodiak, ash completely filled the air and plunged the city into darkness, forcing residents to take shelter on the U.S. Revenue Cutter Manning.
Much of that ash remains in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and surrounding region to this day and occasionally gets resuspended in the air by strong northwesterly winds. The 1912 Novarupta eruption created the Katmai caldera and Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.
Hans Schwaiger, a research geophysicist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory, said the resuspension is due to an enormous amount of volcanic ash in the area where there isn’t much vegetation to hold it down in the soil. That’s unlike the area around Mount Spurr.
“That’s probably the reason why there’s just an almost unlimited source [of ash] in the region," Schwaiger said. "But as things age, a lot of the fine material can get sort of blown away. These sort of resuspension events can happen with any sort of primary deposit as well; like when Mt. Spurr erupted in 1992, there was re-localization and resuspension of ash in the Anchorage area for a couple weeks afterwards.”
But in this case, ash from the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption continues to hit the west side of Kodiak Island, Larsen Bay and Karluk, roughly 65 miles away. That ash has drifted to Larsen Bay and Karluk at least four times in the last month. March 16, March 31, April 7 and April 9 are the most recent occurrences, along with Nov. 17 of 2024, before that.
The fall of 2021 saw multiple incidents of resuspended ash spread over the course of a few months.
Although the air quality hasn’t been significantly impacted recently, the resuspended ash affects local aircraft that regularly fly passengers from Kodiak to Larsen Bay, Karluk and other communities around the archipelago.
Erik Howard, who is the director of operations at Island Air, said two flights to Larsen Bay were canceled on Monday, April 7, due to resuspended ash.
At minimum Island Air has five flights a week to Larsen Bay during the non-summer months and three flights a week to Karluk, according to Howard. The canceled flights were made up the following day on April 8.
“The big thing for us is when you do get those strong westerly winds, typically the ash will be worse on the west side of the island," he said. "So when we’re operating to some of the float stops over there and then the villages of Larsen Bay and Karluk are usually the ones that get affected by it the most. Although I have seen it where it can come all the way up here towards town and affect all flights.”
Howard said it seems like ash is blowing to the island more often this spring due to the lack of winter snowpack.
Schwaiger, the geophysicist, agrees. He said there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for this volcanic phenomenon.
“I think that there’s probably enough [ash] there so that it’s going to continue to blow around for the rest of my lifetime," he said.
But Schwaiger adds that it will depend on how much the area containing all that ash can be revegetated in the coming years, that includes deposit zones near the coast on the northwest side of Shelikof Street and in the area of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory and the National Weather Service will continue to monitor resuspended ash from the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption and issue advisories in the interest of public health, such as air quality advisories or warnings for local aviators when warranted.
For the latest information about this or Mount Spurr, go online to the Alaska Volcano Observatory website.
