Earthweek: a diary of the planet
For the week ending Friday, Oct. 28.
Aleutian blast
Alaska’s remote Cleveland volcano produced a blast that prompted the Alaska Volcano Observatory to issue its secondhighest alert level for the mountain. Cloud cover prevented a visual confirmation of the eruption, but it was heard 45 miles away by residents of the Aleutian settlement of Nikolski, which has a population of about 50 people.
Methane sinks
The ocean floor off Washington, The ocean floor off Washington, Oregon and California is riddled with deep-sea vents that spew the greenhouse gas methane. Researchers on the Ocean Exploration Trust’s submersible ship Nautilus made the discovery. The organization told the National Ocean Exploration Forum in New York that it expects to find ocean seeps elsewhere. Methane traps atmospheric heat 40 times more efficiently than carbon dioxide.
Planetary cameras
A startup company has launched a fleet of tiny Earth-observing satellites designed to photograph every part of the world every day to help reveal how the planet is changing. The company, Planet, has put 133 of the satellites in orbit and says they can be calibrated to observe every single tree on the planet to allow unprecedented visual evidence of deforestation no matter where it occurs. Planet is sharing its data with groups such as Amnesty International, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project and the U.S. government’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Massive bird kill
Tanzanian officials say they killed about 5.6 million red-billed quelea birds that had threatened to ravage thousands of acres of crops in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. The Moshi District Council used airplanes to spray poison over the pests, which are typically seen in the morning and evening hours feeding on paddies before they spend the night in sugarcane plantations.
Mouse huntsman
A pair of Australian neighbors were startled by the implausible sight of a giant huntsman spider carrying off a dead mouse, apparently to feast on in private. Jason Wormal of Coppabella, Queensland, saw the spider climbing up a refrigerator door, clutching the dead rodent by the head with its chelicerae. Graham Milledge of the Australian Museum’s arachnology collection said it was the first time he’d ever seen a spider catching a mouse. But colleague Helen Smith said it was unlikely that the spider had killed the rodent.