When a Beautiful Volcano Few of Us Will Ever See Erupts
If Mount Shishaldin were somewhere in the Lower 48 states, Americans would easily recognize it as one of the nation’s most identifiable mountains and examples of topographical beauty. Its striking symmetrical cone shape, with a summit that tops out at 9,372 feet above sea level, is often compared to Japan’s Mount Fuji.
But Shishaldin is in a place that few of us will ever see up close thanks to its remoteness on Alaska’s Unimak Island, about 700 miles southwest of Anchorage in the Aleutian Islands. This relatively unknown mountain is something that would usually only be of interest to volcanologists and pilots flying between North America and East Asia.
This beautiful volcano has been erupting recently. Shishaldin’s activity isn’t necessarily big or unusual since the mountain is one of the most active in the highly volcanic Aleutians. It doesn’t pose much of a danger to anyone. (False Pass, with a population of under 50 people, is about 23 miles away.)
The only way we know about what’s going on at Shishaldin is thanks to the dutiful scientists and others who are monitoring the mountain through tools they have available to keep a watch on an isolated volcano located on a remote island where the North Pacific meets the Bering Sea.
According to the Alaska Volcano Observatory, Shishaldin’s monitoring is done through “local seismic and infrasound sensors, satellite data, a web camera, a telemetered geodetic network, and distant infrasound and lightning networks.”
With those tools, what have volcanologists been reporting?
According to a recent AVO report, lava flows filled the summit crater and by Oct. 24, small flows overtopped the crater rim and flowed approximately a half mile down Shishaldin’s northern slope. There were also “regular bursts of lava fountaining within the summit crater” plus ash deposits extending about 5.3 miles to the southeast. The lava also melted some of Shishaldin’s snow that produced superheated mudflows known as lahars that extended 1.9 miles down the mountain’s northwest slope.
In its Oct. 30 daily report for Shishaldin, the AVO report that “seismicity remains above background with several discrete seismic events occurring per hour. Satellite data show strongly elevated surface temperatures in several images over the past day, which is consistent with a lava flow extending down the northwest flank of Shishaldin.”
If this spectacular volcano were in a more accessible location or closer to a major population center, there’d be so many more eyes on it. We’d likely have photos and video of lava fountains and lahars tumbling down the volcano. Shishaldin photos would flood Instagram and there’d be public information campaigns urging curiosity seekers to steer clear of the mountain’s slopes for their own safety.
But the visual evidence for Shishaldin’s recent eruptive activity is fairly limited, including some satellite imagery and a “lucky” view from the ground captured on Oct. 21 by locals in Cold Bay, about 58 miles away, that shows the top of the mountain glowing orange with some “strombolian” activity.
Although the volcanic spectacle that’s been recently underway at Shishaldin has been going on mostly out of sight, we must be thankful for the relatively few eyes that we do have watching this wondrous mountain from afar.
Learn more about Shishaldin from the Alaska Volcano Observatory and the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program.
