Volcano Type: Stratovolcano
Volcano Status: Historical
Last Known Eruption: 2009
Summit Elevation: 3108 m 10,197 feet
Latitude: 60.485°N 60°29’7″N
Longitude: 152.742°W 152°44’31″W
Redoubt is a 3108-m-high glacier-covered stratovolcano with a breached summit crater in Lake Clark National Park about 170 km SW of Anchorage. Next to Mount Spurr, Redoubt has been the most active Holocene volcano in the upper Cook Inlet. The volcano was constructed beginning about 890,000 years ago over Mesozoic granitic rocks of the Alaska-Aleutian Range batholith. Collapse of the summit of Redoubt 10,500-13,000 years ago produced a major debris avalanche that reached Cook Inlet. Holocene activity has included the emplacement of a large debris avalanche and clay-rich lahars that dammed Lake Crescent on the south side and reached Cook Inlet about 3500 years ago. Eruptions during the past few centuries have affected only the Drift River drainage on the north. Historical eruptions have originated from a vent at the north end of the 1.8-km-wide breached summit crater. The 1989-90 eruption of Redoubt had severe economic impact on the Cook Inlet region and affected air traffic far beyond the volcano.
Mount Redoubt Eruption
The glacier-covered Redoubt Volcano is one of many that line Alaska’s southern shores. Located 177 kilometers (110 miles) southwest of Anchorage, Redoubt is one of the peaks in the scenic Chigmit Mountain Range that frames the western side of Cook Inlet in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Redoubt is also one of the most active of the Cook Inlet volcanoes. It last erupted in 1989 and 1990, sending a plume of ash into the atmosphere large enough to interfere with air traffic. At the time, the eruption was one of the costliest eruptions in U.S. history, said Joel Hard, superintendent of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. In late January 2009, the volcano started to rumble once again.
Mount Redoubt Eruption
Redoubt Volcano has the typical cone shape of the young and active Alaskan stratovolcano. Like its many mates in the Aleutian volcanic arc, it erupts magmas derived from the crust of the Pacific plate being subducted beneath Alaska’s segment of the North American plate. Redoubt sits across Cook Inlet from Homer, Alaska. On that waterway travel all the ships going to and from Anchorage, and the oil tankers carrying Alaskan crude to the Lower 48 aren’t much farther away.
Redoubt at Sunset
Mt. Redoubt Eruption
Originally posted 2010-08-09 06:47:01.
