Ash Fills The Air Over The Aleutians

Flight traffic has been affected by the ash cloud, which prevents airline pilots from flying through the cloud. Photo courtesy the Alaska Volcano Observatory.

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by Jamey Kirk

Story Created: Jul 15, 2008 at 12:59 PM AKST

Story Updated: Oct 12, 2010 at 4:06 PM AKST

Ash continues to spew from the Umnak Island in the Aleutians. On Saturday a volcano erupted, which filled the Aleutian skyline with a thick cloud of smoke and ash.

John Power, an observatory physicist, said the volcano is in an almost continuous state of eruption. Power said that there was a possibility that the volcano could be producing lava, however the ash cloud is too thick to make such a determination.

According to a satellite imagery analysis, one side of the volcano is displaying a thermal anomaly.

The ash plume stretches more than 6 1/2 miles high, some of which was reported in Dutch Harbor on Saturday.

No accumulation has been reported since.

The volcano has not erupted since 1997.
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