Alaska’s Volcanoes

Region

the Great Land
Alaska’s volcanoes

the sky and the forget-me-not, the state flower The North

Star is for the future of the state of Alaska, the most northerly of the Union. The dipper is for the Great Bear-symbolizing strength.

Tree: The tall, stately, blue-green Sitka spruce was named the state tree by the 1961 legislature. The evergreen is found throughout the southeastern and central areas of Alaska.

Fish: Gigantic king salmon weighing more than 100 pounds have been caught in Alaska waters. This popular sport fish, also called the chinook salmon, was designated as the state fish in 1962.


Motto: North to the Future!

had favored statehood. On June 30,1958, Congress finally approved the

Alaska Statehood Act. Alaska officially became the 49th state on January 3,1959. Every four years Alaskans elect a governor and a lieutenant governor to four-year terms. Alaska's two U.S. Senators serve six-year terms of office; the one U.S. Representative a two-year term.

Governor's Mansion, Juneau

and vast stretches of wilderness create natural barriers to transportation.

Today the airplane makes it easy to travel to outlying communities and regions, and for most Alaskans, flying is a necessary part of life. Although Alaska offers many unusual ways to travel, the automobile is common and necessary. The Alaska Railroad offers another alternative for travel in this vast land.

Floatplanes and cruise ship, Juneau

beauty and vast wilderness areas are among its greatest treasures.

Protecting this special environment for future generations has been a goal of both the state and federal governments. Now more than half of the nation's parklands are found in Alaska. One of the best-known and most-visited areas in Alaska is Denali National Park and Preserve which surrounds North America's highest mountain, 20,320-foot Mt. McKinley. In Western Alaska, "The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes" in Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula was created in 1912 by one of the most violent volcanic eruptions of modern limes. Wood-Tikchlk State Park, the largest state park in lie U.S., offers superb fly-in fishing and boating. In Southeast Alaska, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve encompasses one of the most active glacial areas in the world. Totem Bight State Historical Park in Ketchikan, and Sitka National Historic Park, help to preserve the magnificent totems that characterize some of Alaska's Native cultures. At Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, visitors can trace the footsteps of Gold Rush fortune-seekers on their way from Skagway to Canada's Yukon Territory.
In Central Alaska, Chugach State Park is an accessible wilderness in Anchorage's backyard. Among the thirty state parks on the Kenai Peninsula is one of Alaska's most beautiful areas, Kachemak Bay State Park. The Kenai River, famous for its huge king salmon, is protected by the State Park System. In Interior Alaska, Chena River State Recreation Area preserves a large block of wilderness for recreational uses. Big Delta State Historical Park, on the Tanana River, commemorates the importance of roadhouses in Alaska's history.

moment. A mountain has burst near lee. We are covered

with ashes, in some places 10 feet and 6 feet deep. All this began June 6. Night and day we light lanterns. We cannot see daylight. We have no water, the rivers are just ashes mixed with water. Here are darkness and hell, thunder and noise. I do not know whether it is day or night. The earth is trembling, it lightens every minute. It is terrible. We are praying.“ But Orloff, and apparently every other witness to the 1912 eruption at Katmai that produced The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, survived. The terror that gripped Orloff and his contemporaries still lurks beneath the Earth's crust, as it has since before the beginning of recorded time. In southern Alaska, a plate that underlies much of the Pacific Ocean is being pushed beneath the North American Plate along the 25,000-foot-deep Aleutian Trench, causing stresses that spawn both earthquakes and volcanoes. Most of Alaska's young volcanoes occur along an arc that extends from about Mount Spurr,80 miles west of Anchorage, to beyond Buldir Island in the western Aleutians. Some kind of volcanic event occurs along the belt almost every year.

many natural features are the more than 80 volcanoes that

occur principally along the Aleutian volcanic arc and in the Wrangell Mountains. The eruption of Augustine Volcano in early 1976, however, brought a new awareness to many Alaskans of these fiery neighbors when noticeable ash fell over an area perhaps as large as 100,000 square miles. Augustine Volcano is a symmetrical, cone-shaped feature located on uninhabited Augustine Island, named by Captain Cook in 1778, 180 miles southwest of Anchorage in lower Cook Inlet. It has been the most active volcano in the Cook Inlet region, having erupted in 1812, 1883, 1908, 1935,1963-64, 1976 and 1986.

end of the Aleutian volcanic arc, an active chain of

volcanoes that extends 1,550 miles horn near Anchorage southwest along the Alaska Peninsula to the western Aleutian Islands. At least one volcano in the chain erupts, on average, each year. Scientists have identified more than 40 historically active volcanic centers along the chain, and they are particularly concerned about volcanoes whose eruptions could affect the Cook Inlet region, where about 60 percent of Alaska's population resides and which is the state's major supply, business and financial center.

map “Alaska”