Alaska Volcano Rumbles to Life
A remote but long-restless Alaska volcano rumbled to life today with three explosions and started emitting a continuous plume of ash, steam and gas in an area important to air traffic, scientists said.
The low-level explosions at Cleveland Volcano, which lies below a major air-traffic route between North America and Asia, were not severe enough to cause a significant threat to planes, said experts.
But the incident did prompt federal aviation authorities to divert some traffic north of the volcano as a precaution, said Rick Wessels, a US Geological Survey geophysicist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.