The scientists with the Alaska Volcano Observatory inspected Redoubt's lava dome by fixed-wing plane. It looked exactly the same as it did before the earthquakes, which died down by midweek.
"That's what we were hoping to see," said Tom Murray, chief scientist at the observatory.
Despite Redoubt's seeming return to quiet, AVO scientists are advising continued caution, and the volcano's aviation alert level remains at yellow. In a weekly update published Friday, the scientists said they will keep monitoring Redoubt daily until they decide it's safe to bring the alert level back down to code green -- inactive status.
"We're watching it closely now. It can still go either way," Murray said.
After the eruptions that began last spring, Redoubt's fresh lava dome grew into a towering massif estimated at roughly 68 million cubic feet in size. But until the earthquakes that began Sunday, the volcano had not grumbled much since last summer. Until this week's earthquakes triggered the new alert, the volcano had been on green status since September.
AVO's observations and data this week showed some high-temperature areas on the surface of the dome, which was expected, but the scientists also noticed that gas emissions from the volcano are higher than they were in November.
It's possible that new magma has been added to the volcano, or that the magma within the volcano remobilized, AVO scientists said Friday.
It's unlikely that Redoubt will erupt again without additional earthquakes and other significant disruptions, they said.
The 2009 eruptions created ash plumes, disrupted air traffic, produced mudflows that threatened a Cook Inlet oil terminal and caused Chevron to shut in some of its Cook Inlet oil production wells.
Redoubt is 160 miles southwest of Anchorage. Until last year, its most recent eruptions were in 1902, 1966-68 and 1989-90.
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