Kiska reported activity

Event Name : Kiska 1990/6

Start:

June 1, 1990 ± 1 Hours

Observed

Flank eruption:
Steam:
Tephra plume:

Eruption Type:	Explosive
Duration:	Ash emission lasted only several hours
MaxVEI:	2
ColHeight:	3500 m

Description: Miller and others (1998): "Steam and minor ash emission from an upper flank vent on June 1, 1990 was reported by an observer on neighboring Amchitka Island (Anchorage Times, June 3, 1990 [Bensman, 1990]; Smithsonian Institution, 1990). Although a sizeable steam plume was reported during the next several days, ash emission apparently lasted only several hours."

Bensman, 1990: "Witnesses at a small U.S. Naval transmitter station on Amchitka said they first noticed white steam clouds blowing from the 4,000 foot Kiska Volcano at about 10 am Friday morning. The workers continued watching as the steam mixed with a dark gray cloud of ash until weather conditions obscured the view about three hours later.

"J.A. Ruehle, an electronics technician working at a Navy radar transmission site on Amchitka, shared a pair of binoculars with his co-workers to view the scene from atop a 540-foot plateau. He said no one was certain at the time what island the plume was coming from.

"'I went out the back door of the shop, and it surprised me because I could see the top of the mountain, and I saw the steam coming out of it. The steam was real visible and it started mixing with dark ash, or clouds coming out of it,' Ruehle said in a telephone interview Saturday.

"'You could see it wasn't coming right off the top. It was coming off the left side and sort of blowing around to the right toward us. It must have been a fissure off to the left side. It was so fascinating to me.'

"Captain James Fredenhagen, a Reeves Air pilot who took off from Amchitka at about 3 pm, confirmed the eruption had come from Kiska. He said a small plume of steam was rising slowly from the volcano by then, but that a haze of gray residue had dispursed [sic] into the surrounding skies at about 12,000 feet.

"'I classify it as a mild eruption,' Fredrenhagen said. 'We caught sight of it at 7,000 feet. You could see the haze. It appeared to be coming from the crater.'"

Smithsonian Institution, 1990: 05/90 (BGVN 15:05): "Steam and ash plume, steam plume rising to 3.5 km"