Life returning to Kasatochi

Life is already returning to the island of Kasatochi in the Aleutians, blanketed with ash and left bleak and barren by the surprise eruption of its eponymous volcano in August 2008. A scientific team is revisiting the island to look at how it is responding to the eruption, the Anchorage Daily News is running a series of reports on their work, written by University of Alaska Geophysical Institute Science Writer Ned Rozell.

The latest report describes the way in which life is ‘inching its way back to Kasatochi’. The birds are gone and ash outwash from the island is disrupting kelp growth in the surrounding ocean, but nineteen species of plant have been found springing back to life on the island, along with an insect or two and some tough invertebrates: ‘The smallest and luckiest of life forms clung to natural bunkers within the island, and mats of plant roots were buried quickly enough to withstand the heat of the eruption flows’.

News
After eruption life inching its way back to Kasatochi – Anchorage Daily News, 29 August 2009