Guatemalan volcanoes Santiaguito and Fuego increased their activity in the last hours and the authorities recommended on Monday took all the necessary precautions with the surrounding air traffic.

The dispersion of ash in various directions and changes in wind pattern led to the National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology (Insivumeh) to warn about the civil aviation.

An Insivumeh report that Santiaguito volcano recorded 33 explosions in 24 hours, with a range of up to 800 meters above the crater, leaving ashes scattered in the southwest and southeast.

Santiaguito volcano is located in Quetzaltenango district, and its height is 2,550 meters above sea level.

The Insivumeh reported white and blue plume up to 100 meters above the crater, with displacement to the southwest, in the case of Fuego volcano, whose height is 3,763 meters above sea level and is located between the departments of Sacatepequez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla (center south).

For most of the winter of 2011 - 2012, the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice. Though ice obviously forms there every year, the cover has been unusually extensive this season. In fact, the past several months have included the second highest ice extent in the satellite record for the Bering Sea region, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

The natural-color image above shows the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska and northeastern Siberia on March 19, 2012. The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite. Black lines mark the coastlines, many of which have ice shelves or frozen bays extending beyond the land borders.

NSIDC data indicate that ice extent in the Bering Sea for most of this winter has been between 20 to 30 percent above the 1979 to 2000 average. February 2012 had the highest ice extent for the area since satellite records started. As of March 16, National Weather Service forecasters noted that all of the ice cover in the Bering Sea was first year ice, much of it new and thin - which is typical in the Bering Sea

The accumulation of ice this season has largely been fueled by persistent northerly winds blowing from the Arctic Ocean across the Bering Strait. The local winter weather has been dominated by low-pressure systems - with their counterclockwise circulation - that have brought extensive moisture up from the south to coastal and interior Alaska, while sending cold winds down across the sea to the west.

Sickly, underweight bottlenose dolphins living and dying in the northern Gulf of Mexico may be the result of exposure to oil that gushed into the water after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.

The oil disaster occurred April 20, 2010, when the Macando oil well blew out. During the three months it took to contain the leak emanating from the broken riser pipe at the well, about 4.9 million barrels of oil - or about 205 million gallons - gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, according to government estimates.

Barataria Bay in the Gulf was particularly affected by the oil for a prolonged period, the researchers noted. So to get a bead on dolphin health, they conducted comprehensive physicals of 32 live dolphins in Barataria Bay during the summer of 2011. They found that many of these dolphins were underweight, anemic, had low blood sugar and/or some symptoms of liver and lung disease. In addition, nearly 50 percent showed abnormally low levels of hormones known to help with the body's response to stress, metabolism and immune function.

Specifically, the team saw low levels of the stress hormones cortisol and aldosterone, which are released by the adrenal glands.

Date-Time
Monday, March 26, 2012 at 18:12:54 UTC

Monday, March 26, 2012 at 11:12:54 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
10.198°N, 104.030°W

Depth
9.9 km (6.2 miles)

Region
NORTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE

Distances
568 km (352 miles) E of Clipperton Island

862 km (535 miles) SSW of Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico

864 km (536 miles) SSW of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico

1146 km (712 miles) SSW of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico

A huge, copper-toned lava crater dominates a mesmerizing photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers snapped the hypnotic image of what was likely an old volcanic basin as the space station flew over the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, on the Atlantic Coast of West Africa.

The photo shows Kuipers' unique vantage point from the orbiting complex, which flies approximately 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth. The image was taken on March 7 using a Nikon D2Xs camera, officials at the European Space Agency said in a statement.

During their months-long stints aboard the International Space Station, astronauts often perform Earth observations for science and public outreach.

Throughout their mission, many spaceflyers maintain active social media presences, such as on Twitter or Google+, to share stunning views from space with members of the public.

A fishing boat lost in the massive Japanese tsunami a year ago has turned up off Canada's west coast, authorities said Saturday.

An aerial inspection suggested that there was no one on board, Transport Canada spokeswoman Sau Sau Liu told AFP.

The 65-meter (210-foot) vessel was spotted Tuesday by a Canadian Forces aircraft on a routine surveillance patrol, and its Japanese owner has been notified, said Transport Canada.

A military photo shows the ship, streaked with rust but intact, floating 278 kilometers (150 nautical miles) off the southern coast of Haida Gwaii islands, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) north of Vancouver.

Date-Time:
Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 22:37:06 UTC
Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 06:37:06 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
35.183°S, 71.792°W

Depth:
34.8 km (21.6 miles)

Region:
MAULE, CHILE

Distances:
27 km (16 miles) NNW of Talca, Maule, Chile

55 km (34 miles) WSW of Curico, Maule, Chile

99 km (61 miles) NNE of Cauquenes, Maule, Chile

219 km (136 miles) SSW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Santiago feels effects of 7.2 tremor with emergency agency evacuating some coastal areas, although tsunamis not expected
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit central Chile on Sunday, shaking buildings in the capital Santiago and the government emergency agency, ONEMI, said it was preventively evacuating some areas of the coast.

The quake struck 64 miles (103 km) west north west of the town of Talca at a depth of 6.2 miles (10 km), the US Geological Survey said.

Magnitude 7.0 quakes or greater are capable of causing widespread, heavy damage.

ONEMI said, however, that the quake was not expected to generate a tsunami off the coast.

The latest earthquake hit near the same central region that struck by a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in 2010 and tsnunamis in 2010 that killed about 500 people.

The central area is home to some important copper mines, but the bulk of output in the world's top copper exporting nation is concentrated in the far northern region.

Source: Reuters

The United States and Canada just basked in an unusually mild winter. Temperatures ranked fourth warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many spring flowers are already blooming. But did the birds notice? Definitely, according to the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), an annual tally of bird sightings collected by amateur birders across the United States and Canada. The numbers reveal that the snowy owl population in particular boomed and that many other birds showed up in more northerly latitudes than usual.

GBBC, now in its 15th year, is a joint effort by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, and the National Audubon Society, headquartered in New York City. This year, birders, who were instructed to identify and record whatever birds they happened to see in their yards and neighborhoods between 17 and 20 February, tallied 17.4 million individual sightings. Pat Leonard, GBBC's director of communications, says that it's unclear how many individuals took part because each observer can submit more than one sighting checklist, but he estimates that between 65,000 and 70,000 volunteers participated.

Ornithologists working with GBBC analyzed the data and found a number of unexpected trends. One of the biggest surprises, says Marshall Iliff, an ornithologist at the Cornell lab who co-authored the report and leads a smaller, year-long project similar to GBBC called eBird, was an explosion in sightings of the snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). In November, reports began trickling in to eBird that the snowy owl, which primarily lives north of the Arctic Circle, was showing up in unexpectedly large numbers in the United States and southern Canada, and GBBC's tally backs that up. Observers reported 428 sightings of the owl, which is four times the number from the same time last year. "This snowy owl thing is pretty surprising," Iliff says.

A severe drought in Mexico that has cost farmers more than a billion dollars in crop losses alone and set back the national cattle herd for years, is just a foretaste of the drier future facing Latin America's second largest economy.

As water tankers race across northern Mexico to reach far-flung towns, and crops wither in the fields, the government has allotted 34 billion pesos ($2.65 billion) in emergency aid to confront the worst drought ever recorded in the country.

The water shortage wiped out millions of acres of farmland this winter, caused 15 billion pesos ($1.18 billion) in lost harvests, killed 60,000 head of cattle and weakened 2 million more livestock, pushing food prices higher in Mexico.

The overall cost to the economy is still being gauged but Mexico's drought-stung winter has been evolving for years and is expected to worsen as the effect of global climate change takes hold, according to the government.

"Droughts are cyclical - we know that - but they are growing more frequent and severe due to climate change," said Elvira Quesada, the Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources.