Volcanic eruptions are not easy to anticipate. Now, a new paper proposes a way to provide early clues by evaluating magma movement far beneath volcanoes. The Bárdarbunga volcanic system in Iceland began to erupt from a fissure on Aug. 29, 2014. By the time it quit six months later, it had created an almost 33-square-mile lava […]
Volcanoes can pulse and inflate before they erupt. Earthquakes can tear the ground along fault lines like a losing raffle ticket. Satellites can see these landscape events from space, and, now, a new tool will help scientists to better visualize them. This spring, a team of scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and […]
Across much of Alaska, permafrost is thawing. In most locations of interior and south Alaska, what permafrost exists is protected by the ecosystems around it. Trees, moss and peat shade the ground from summer heat and help slow thaw. At the same time, scientists predict that wildfire seasons in Alaska will increase in duration and […]
“This green line looks like the death of permafrost — it’s flatlining,” Louise Farquharson said to an audience of a few dozen scientists. Her quiet voice came through speakers over the muffled clicking of keyboards and occasional coughs in a dimly lit room at the 2019 American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco. […]
An ocean view of McBride Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Photo by Joanna Young. Authors of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, delivered a stunning alarm bell for our planet’s oceans and frozen landscapes, one that may ring uncomfortably loud in Alaskan ears. Hundreds of government […]
September is national preparedness month and, for many Alaskans, that means thinking about tsunamis. With the most earthquakes and the longest coastline in the U.S., Alaska is the state most vulnerable to tsunamis. However, planning for natural disasters is difficult across a landscape peppered with communities only accessible by boat or seaplane. The Alaska Earthquake Center’s new Alaska […]
A volcano is like a stream. It might sound like a Zen proverb, but it’s a useful comparison for University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute graduate student Julia Gestrich. Scientists can use stream flow to understand volcano ash plumes, Gestrich explained while presenting her research at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., […]