Okmok reported activity

Event Name : Okmok 1878

Start:

1878

Observed

Tsunami:
Eruption re-assigned to another volcano:

Eruption Type:	Explosive
MaxVEI:	2

Description: From Grey (2003): "A new crater is reported to have formed within the caldera in 1878 (Hantke, 1951), accompanied by earthquakes and a tsunami (location unknown). This could refer to the birth of Cone A, but since Hantke offers no additional information or references to support this notion, the report is apocryphal at best. It is intriguing to note that eruptions are also reported at Vsevidof, on the southwestern end of Umnak Island, in 1817, 1830, and 1878 (Miller and others, 1998). Of particular interest is the suggestion by Miller and others that the 1878 activity of Vsevidof 'may have been from a radial fissure eruption on the west flank; this event may have produced the youngest dacite flow, which extends west-southwest to Cape Kigushimkada.' Such a fissure eruption would probably produce earthquakes and could account for Hantke's 'new crater,' though not located inside a caldera. It is thus possible that Hantke misinterpreted the location of the 1878 activity, and there may not have been an eruption at Okmok in that year at all."

Sapper (1917), compiling information from Petroff (1884) and Fuchs, reports "a brief flame and ash eruption and a new crater developed from which came steam and hot cooking mud. This new crater appeared between Vsevidof and the settlement." This statement seems to support Miller and others's (1998) assertion that there was a radial fissure eruption at Vsevidof in 1878.