Alaska’s Mount Spurr volcano will ‘likely’ erupt in the coming weeks: scientists

Alaska’s Mount Spurr, a volcano about 80 miles away from the state’s largest city, will “likely” erupt in the coming weeks or months for the first time in over 30 years, according to scientists.

Significantly elevated levels of volcanic gas emissions and newly reactivated gas vents were recently detected in the area surrounding Mount Spurr, the Alaska Volcano Observatory announced in a Wednesday summary.

Those increased emissions are a result of magma that has intruded into the Earth’s crust beneath the summit of the volcano — causing a flurry of activity discovered by scientists on observational flights on Mar. 7 and 11, the observatory said.

The latest evidence “indicates that an eruption is likely, but not certain, to occur within the next few weeks or months,” according to the summary.

Scientists say the increase in magma has been accumulating under the summit for a number of months.

The force of the molten flow has opened up a new pathway near a previously known Crater Peak vent, suggesting that fresh magma may rise and erupt there.

Mount Spurr, which is 80 miles northwest of Anchorage, has erupted two other times in modern history — once in 1953 and most recently in 1992.

Those eruptions each lasted for only a few hours, though they produced massive ash clouds that carried downwind for hundreds of miles.

Alaskan authorities are warning of more seismic activity, gas emissions, and an increase in surface temperature as the underground system continues to progress.

More than 3,4000 earthquakes have been detected under Mount Spurr since April 2024, according to the observatory.