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Four crew of the fishing vessel Katmai were rescued, but five were killed and two remain missing after the boat sank early Wednesday in the Bering Sea off the Aleutian Islands.A couple of years ago, a jobless Bobby Harrison contemplated a dramatic shift in lifestyle, leaving the urban comforts of Portland to join his cousin aboard the Katmai, a fishing vessel that tapped into the harvests off Alaska. But Harrison couldn't swim, and had heard a few too many tales about the dangers of fishing the North Pacific. He opted to stay put. "I heard stories about guys who had...

First of all, before I get to the picture, you may have heard that Halemaumau (the crater within the Kilauea caldera that in the 19th century hosted an active lava lake, which has occasionally reappeared since) had a fairly abrupt change. This change is now a steam-and-ash plume which (as I write this) is still going. Below is the quick-as-an-Easter-bunny new Webcam view of the plume (click to go there). Halemaumau Webcam It was this little event that made me think of showing a big ash (hmm...) event, the Katmai eruption of 1912. The image is from a very nice...

A mixed (and beautiful) bag this week. If you go to the articles linked above the pictures, you can access a bigger (in the case of Katmai, much bigger) image. Bungle Bungle Range Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska For fun, two historical pictures of Novarupta and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes soon after the eruption: AND finally, go to this Space Daily article to see a large version of the view that the Mars Rover Spirit had yesterday: Robot from Earth Climbs Mountain on Mars