Alaska News

Photos: Alaska volcanoes

Alaska is known for many great things -- its wildlife, its culture, its scenery -- but that beauty and ecological diversity comes with a price. A year can't go by without someone being seriously injured or killed by one of Alaska's many wild animals. And among the many pristine peaks that dot the Alaska landscape lurk other, less innocuous mountains.

Many know that the 1964 "Good Friday" earthquake that devastated the area around Prince William Sound was the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the U.S., and the second-strongest recorded in the world. But more than 50 years prior, Alaska was also home to the world's largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

And while the 1912 eruption of Novarupta in the Katmai cluster of volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula was the biggest of Alaska's many recorded volcanic eruptions, it's far from the only major eruption. Many Alaskans still remember numerous volcano eruptions, with accompanying ashfall and disruptions to travel, over the years.

Volcanic eruptions are just one more thing that Alaskans have learned to live with, like shoveling snow or feeling the ground shake as a temblor works itself out somewhere across the land. Below are five memorable eruptions from Alaska's past.

Read about some of Alaska's most memorable eruptions, here. And be sure to check out the Alaska Volcano Observatory for up-to-date activity on all of Alaska's most explosive peaks.

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