Cleveland (the Volcano) From Space While I'm in Cleveland (the City)

Cleveland and Tana volcanoes on Chuginadak Island in Alaska. Image taken July 26, 2012 by the EO-1 Advanced Land Imager, courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. Today's I'm trekking to and from Cleveland to do some lab preparation work at Case Western Reserve University. So, I thought I'd post a cool image of Cleveland volcano in Alaska as spied by the EO-1 Advanced Land Imager on July 26, 2012. Now, this image has more than just the volcano - it covers the entirely of Chuginadak Island (which apparently means "to fry or make sizzle") in the Aleutians. On the left side is Cleveland and the right side of Tana. You might also notice some small cinder cones in the area between the volcanoes. As many of you who follow Eruptions know, Cleveland is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc today and has erupted multiple times this year, both effusively producing a dome and explosively as that dome collapses. Tana, on the other hand, has no known historic eruptions and it thought to have last erupted sometime in the last few thousand years. Luckily, no one lives on Chuginadak Island and it is remote enough that the Alaska Volcano Observatory doesn't even have a webicorder for the island (although a webcam is pointed at the volcano from Umnak Island). I had some discussion with the folks at the NASA Earth Observatory about why the area connecting the two volcanoes is so grey and some suggestions were that it could possibly be storm damage (although the elevation is likely too high for the sea to wash over) or recent volcanic products from the cinder cones - but this is far from conclusive. Remote sensing like this is one of the few ways we have to monitor volcanoes that are so far off the beaten path, but as I've mentioned before, Cleveland volcano needs to be watched due to its location under flightpaths across the northern Pacific Ocean. {Special thanks to the NASA Earth Observatory and Robert Simmon for the Cleveland image.}