Augustine Volcano
Spewing forth an 8, 000 foot plume of gas clouds and hot ash, Mt. Augustine awoke from a 10 year sleep in January 1976 to remind Alaskans that we are very much part of a growing land. And while the major activity seems to have abated a bit, intermittent activity has continued and is expected to continue for several months.
Some relics brought back from the Geophysical Institute's scientific hut on the island are grim evidence of one form of death-dealing destruction that sometimes accompanies volcanic eruptions. Sometime on January 23 or 24, 1976, one or more hot gas clouds rushed down the slopes of Mt. Augustine and engulfed the hut. Called nuees ardentes, the French name for glowing avalanches or clouds, such downward flows travel as fast as 100 miles or more per hour.
From them there is no escape; the metal hut on Augustine withstood a blast no living thing inside or in that area could have survived. Temperatures rose, perhaps only for a second or two, to higher than 500° F. Wood objects outside the hut were seared black on the side toward the volcano, yet were virtually untouched on the lee side of the blast. The upper and lower mattresses of a triple bunk inside the hut were essentially untouched. Between them the middle mattress, located beside a glass window, was completely incinerated, the window having been popped out by the gas cloud. Across the room, a plastic towel holder and a plastic measuring cup were partially melted down. Fortunately, no one was in the hut or on the island when the nuee ardente rushed down the volcano's slopes.
At other times and places, people were not so lucky. In 1902, the 30,000 residents of the town of St. Pierre, Martinique, were all killed in a few seconds by a nude ardente sweeping down the slopes of volcanic Mt. Pelee.
And, of course, the burned kitchen relics from Augustine remind us of Pompeii. A beautiful city, rich in Roman art and architecture, Pompeii was built up over a period of 500 years upon a lava flow from nearby Mt. Vesuvius. Wracked by a disastrous earthquake in the year 62 A.D., Pompeii was still being rebuilt 17 years later when hot gas and ash flow engulfed the city. Though many of the 20,000 residents died, the event was a boon to the historians of a later age. For 1,500 years, Pompeii lay entombed in ash which preserved paintings, statues, buildings and other precious objects. In a sense even the people were preserved; by 1860, casts of their bodies were being obtained by pouring plaster of Paris into the hollows they left in the ash. Nevertheless, it may be hard to convince the former residents of Pompeii or St. Pierre that every cloud has a silver lining.
Almost assuredly, the current saga of Augustine Volcano is unfinished.
