Unalaska, AK – A 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck in the Fox Islands region of the Aleutians on Saturday night. The earthquake hit about 40 miles from Nikolski, and was felt as far as Kodiak.
According to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, the initial earthquake happened 21 miles below the sea bed, and at least 20 aftershocks with magnitudes higher than 4 have hit since Saturday night. The strongest of these was a 5.8 magnitude aftershock that was felt in Nikolski around noon on Sunday.
"We expect the aftershock activity will continue for at least a couple of weeks and maybe up to a couple of months," says Natasha Rupert, a seismologist with the center.
For a 6.7 magnitude earthquake, the effect has been negligible. No tsunami hit in the aftermath of the quake, and no injuries related to the earthquake have been reported. While phones are down in Nikolski, there also hasn't been any word of any permanent damage, says Cindi Preller at the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.
"They felt some shaking and some stuff fell off the walls -- but no one was hurt, there were no injuries, and there was no significant water behavior," says Preller. "But what's interesting to me is what the difference is between a nearly magnitude 7 earthquake in Nikolski compared to a magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti, and how it affects the community."
If the earthquake didn't cause much harm to Nikolski, it caused even less to Unalaska, where about a dozen people reported feeling the earthquake to local police, says director of Public Safety Jamie Sunderland.

Unalaska, AK – This week, a group of Japanese scientist have been teaching Unalaska residents about their research.

A team of roughly 40 students and academics arrived here on the training vessel Oshoro Maru and kicked off their stay with a community barbecue on Monday night. On Tuesday, some of the researchers spoke about their work to an at-capacity audience at the Museum of Aleutians. The scientists discussed subjects like the differences between plankton conditions in the eastern and western North Pacific Ocean and the role currents play in distributing chlorophyll.

Unalaska, AK – The Museum of the Aleutians has received a grant for $138,550 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The money will help pay for the redesign of the permanent galleries - a project that has been in the works since 2007. The new exhibition, called "The Aleutian Islands: Crossroads of the North Pacific," will focus on the culture and heritage of the Unangan and Aleut people.

Unalaska, AK – Kjetil Solberg, the former owner of Adak Fisheries, has denied charges that he fraudulently transferred over $400,000 from the company.

Court documents obtained by Wesley Loy on Monday showed that the trustee of Adak Fisheries filed a lawsuit against Solberg on the grounds that company money had been personally transferred to Solberg after the company was already insolvent.

Unalaska, AK – Legal troubles continue to mount for Kjetil Solberg, the former owner of Adak Fisheries. New court filings obtained by Wesley Loy show that a trustee for the company is suing Solberg for $400,000 on the grounds that the money had been personally - and illegally -- transferred to Solberg after the company was already insolvent. Kenneth Battley, the trustee named in the suit, is also asking for court relief, saying that these transfers were illegal since they were made after the company was already insolvent.

Unalaska, AK – An American Airlines flight made an emergency landing at the Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island yesterday afternoon. The Tokyo-bound plane interrupted its trip from Dallas after pilots saw that a fire warning light had gone off.

Flight 175 touched ground at the Air Force base at around 4pm on Sunday. The 197 passengers aboard were evacuated and all cargo was removed from the plane. The Boeing 777 jet was examined by airline employees, and it was determined that there was no fire in the cargo area.

Unalaska, AK – This month, a team from the Alaska Volcano Observatory will be conducting research and upgrading its stations at Umnak Island.

A rotating team of geophysicists and geologists will be studying the volcanic deposits made by the eruption of Okmok Volcano in 2008. The scientists will be figuring out the composition of the volcanic deposits and mapping out their locations.

Unalaska, AK – University of Washington biologists have challenged the idea that people "fish down the food web." A decade ago, a study suggested that fishermen go for predators first. When the fisheries at the top are depleted, fishermen would move onto smaller and smaller fish. Fishermen would go after cod at the top and then when that was depleted they would move onto herring and so on.

Unalaska, AK – Today most people have probably never heard of Amchitka - it's just an unpopulated island at the end of Alaska's Aleutian Chain. But in the 1970s, it was a cause. The U.S. government selected Amchitka as a nuclear testing site, and suddenly the place inspired protests and music festivals. Jim Bohlen was a major leader in this anti-nuclear campaign and became a founder of Greenpeace. He died this week at age
84. Alexandra Gutierrez tells the story of his trip out to Amchitka as part of the first Greenpeace mission.