Earthquake Registering 5.9 Magnitude Shakes up Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island

Location of 5.9 earthquake (orange dot in center of image). Image-USGS

Residents on Kodiak Island and the Kenai Peninsula were shaken awake at 11:00pm on Friday night as a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Alaska Peninsula/ South Central region.

The quick jolt occurred 69 miles north of Larsen Bay and 238 miles southwest of Anchorage. It was generated at a depth of 52.1 miles beneath the surface on the mainland across from Kodiak Island.

The location of this earthquake was equidistant between the long quiet region of Devil's Desk and Kaguyak Volcano.

Devil's Desk is a volcanic neck of a former stratovolcano now completely surrounded by Hook Glacier. Erosion has removed most of the stratovolcano. Wes Hildreth of USGS as well as others state that Devil's Desk was active 292,000 years ago to the Holocene.

Kaguyak Volcano is another stratovolcano that had its last major eruption about 5,800 years before present, and has been largely quiet since that time with no recent eruptions or activity for at least the last 1,200 years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a statement advising that there was no tsunami danger from this quake.