Don't Tell Bobby Jindal - USGS To Receive ARRA Funding To Improve Volcano Monitoring

[hatrack]

The US Geological Survey will use Recovery Act funding to improve its ability to monitor volcanoes and to predict their eruptions. Some of the funds will be used to modernize instrumentation and information systems to state-of-the-art, providing the necessary tools to communicate hazard information quickly to those who need it.

The United States and its territories contain 169 volcanoes considered capable of erupting. One, Kilauea in Hawaii, has been erupting continuously for the past 26 years, at times inundating residential areas with lava and at other times requiring national park closures due to explosions and toxic gas.

Another, Redoubt Volcano in Alaska, shot ash clouds to heights of more than 50,000 feet several times this year. The three-month long eruption appears to have paused and may have ended, but not before severely disrupting aviation operations, repeatedly dusting Alaskan communities with ash, and forcing an oil storage facility to suspend operations. Residents and critical infrastructure in the nation's six highest-risk volcanic areas—including the Yellowstone region-- will benefit from increased monitoring and analysis as a result of Recovery Act funds being channeled into volcano monitoring, Secretary Salazar announced today.

The U.S. Geological Survey is planning to use $15.2 million of its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to upgrade volcano monitoring and the analysis and distribution of eruption information at the five volcano observatories that cover Wyoming, Alaska, Hawaii, the Northwest, California, as well as the network that covers the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/40878