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An Alaskan volcano erupted on Friday, sending clouds of ash more than three miles into the sky.
The eruption from the 8,225-foot Veniaminof Volcano, on the Alaska Peninsula nearly 480 miles southwest of Anchorage, marked some of the strongest unrest detected at the site this summer and may intensify, the Alaska Volcano Observatory warned.
But it was not believed to be linked to a large 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Friday in waters off the remote Alaska island of Adak, nearly 800 miles southwest of Veniaminof in the Aleutians chain, said John Power, the observatory’s scientist in charge.
“The plate tectonics are the same, but there’s no direct relationship between the volcano and the earthquake,” he said.
The quake was felt strongly on Adak, a former US Navy station now home to a commercial fishing and maritime service centre, and was followed by numerous aftershocks, according to local reports.
Shaking also was felt in Atka, a tiny native Aleut village 65 miles northeast of the quake’s centre. But there were no initial reports of injuries or severe damage.
Large quakes and volcanic eruptions are fairly common in southwestern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, which lie in one of the most seismically active parts of the US.
Eruptions at another volcano in the same region, Pavlof, disrupted regional air flights earlier this year, but scientists determined in early August that its eruptive phase had ended.