Theo Chesley / Alaskan Volcano Observatory via AP

The Pavlof volcano erupts on May 16, 2013, as seen from the air from the southwest in Cold Bay, Alaska.

Rachel Kremer / Alaskan Volcano Observatory via AP

Lava fountaining is visible near the summit of the Pavlof Volcano on May 16, 2013, and steam and ash clouds rise from the northwest flank where a lava flow advances down the slope.

A remote Alaska volcano continues to erupt, spewing lava and ash clouds.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory said Thursday a continuous cloud of ash, steam and gas from Pavlof Volcano has been seen 20,000 feet above sea level.

John Power, the U.S. Geological Survey scientist in charge at the observatory, estimates the lava fountain rose several hundred feet into the air.

Onsite seismic instruments are picking up constant tremors from the eruption at Pavlof, located about 625 miles southwest of Anchorage. Read the full story.

Nathaniel Wilder / Reuters

Gerald Sousa's team charges down the trail at the start of the Iditarod in Willow, Alaska, on March 3.

Nathaniel Wilder / Reuters

Four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King greets fans as his team charges down the trail at the start on March 3.

By Rachel D'Oro, The Associated Press: Dogs aching to run bolted out of the chute Sunday to launch the 41st running of Alaska's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Now 65 teams will be making their way through punishing wilderness toward the finish line in Nome on Alaska's western coast 1,000 miles away.

The Iditarod kicked off Saturday with an 11-mile jaunt through Anchorage, 50 miles south of the real starting line in the town of Willow. Sunday's event marked the competitive portion of the race. Read the full story. 

Nathaniel Wilder / Reuters

Peter Kaiser's team charges down the trail during the start on March 3.

Nathaniel Wilder / Reuters

A dog from Jeff King's team leaps into the air before it hits the trail on March 3.

Rachel D'Oro / AP

Dogs wait to run in the race on March 3.

Nathaniel Wilder / Reuters

The lead dogs of musher Brent Sass race down 4th Avenue at the ceremonial start to the Iditarod in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, on March 2.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Blind sled dog thrives with brother's help
• Puppy training: Future service dogs head to maximum-security prison
• Dog days of winter

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Jeff Schmaltz / NASA MODIS / GSFC

This outer-space view of southwest Alaska was captured on Nov. 21 by the MODIS imager on NASA's Aqua satellite.

This satellite picture captures a broad view of southwest Alaska just as Jack Frost is nipping at the northernmost state's "nose."

NASA's Aqua satellite took aim at the region with its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, on Nov. 21. Even though that's a month before the official start of winter, Arctic sea ice is beginning to form, creating white tendrils that spread out from the Alaska Peninsula (a geological feature that always reminds me of an elephant's nose).

If you take a close look at the picture, you can trace the snow-covered volcanoes on the peninsula, the tan patches of bare land, the bright reflections from Alaska's frozen rivers and the deep green boreal forests breaking through a white blanket of frost. Need a closer look? Check out this 4-megabyte, 250-meter-resolution version from NASA's MODIS website. To get your bearings, compare the recent view with this annotated satellite picture from Google Maps.

This frosty look at Alaska serves as today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features a fresh view of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. Follow the links below to feast your eyes on more visual goodies for the holiday season:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
• Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• The Atlantic: Hubble Advent Calendar
• Zooniverse Advent Calendar

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

BP oil installations seen from the air.

Photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen traveled from the southern tip of South America to the far reaches of Alaska on the North American continent to explore migration in the Americas. What he found both supported and defied stereotypes, which he reported on a website and an app for iPad called Via Panam.

Deadhorse, Alaska, lies on what its residents call “The Slope,” the coastal plain along the Arctic Ocean formally known as the North Slope. For a town with a total population (including part-timers) of only a few thousand, it has a very lively airport. Several large planes fly to and from Fairbanks and other Alaskan cities daily. Formally, Deadhorse is not a municipality, but an industrial zone. Its facilities and security are provided by privately owned businesses, not the government.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Arrival of workers at Deadhorse airport.

Deadhorse lies at the end of the Pan American Highway, in the extreme north of Alaska. The place owes its existence to the oil that has been extracted from the ground around since the 1970s - generally by international companies that lease the land from the indigenous peoples. Almost all of the residents of Deadhorse are migrants from “the Lower 48” (the contiguous  United States) or from Latin America.

At more than 586,000 square miles, Alaska is by far the largest state in the United States. It is also the least densely populated. Fairbanks, the second-largest city in the state after Anchorage, lies in the middle of the state. The Dalton Highway runs north from there, ending at Deadhorse and the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay, on the Arctic Ocean. The road was built in 1974, to support the construction and maintenance of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. About 250 semitrailers travel the road daily to supply the oil businesses around Prudhoe Bay.

The work sites of the oil companies are mostly leased from the Iñupiat, the indigenous people of Alaska’s Northwest Arctic. The Iñupiat receive a considerable income from the leases, but not everyone is happy with the oil extraction. One Iñupiat-owned company, called NANA, is active in mining, the hotel sector, the oil industry, tourism, catering and security services. The profits go to projects for the 12,500 members of the Inupiat community.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Paulette McNab, 42, is from Indiana. When she was 20 years old she came with her father to Wasilla, Alaska and in 2008 she came to Deadhorse. 'I work as a housekeeper at the Prudhoe Bay hotel, where many workers stay. The people are really nice here and I love my work. I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Every month I get two weeks off and I go back to Wasilla where my daughter lives.'

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs nearly 800 miles, making it one of the longest in the world. It was built between 1974 and 1977, just after the 1973 oil crisis. There was considerable protest against its construction from environmental groups and native peoples, on whose territory the oil extraction takes place. Every day 700,000 barrels of crude oil are pumped through this pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the southern port city of Valdez, just east of Anchorage. Oil is by far the largest source of income for Alaska.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

A tanning saloon at the Prudhoe Bay hotel which houses hundreds of migrant workers who work in the oil (related) industry.

Hundreds of migrant workers in the oil sector live at the Prudhoe Bay Hotel. They drive to their jobs daily at oil rigs or businesses connected with the oil industry. Life in Deadhorse consists of working hard, often four weeks on and two weeks off. There is no time for pleasure. Moreover, there is hardly any entertainment, and alcohol is banned.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Cameron Milroy, 25, was born in Kotzebue on the west coast of Alaska. His mother is native, his father Scottish - Irish. He grew up with his father in Oregon. When Cameron was 20 years he came back to Alaska and got a job with Nanan (a native oil company) in Deadhorse. 'I started as a cleaner, but now I am a 'level 1' truck driver. I enjoy the climate here.'

Slideshow: Migration in the Americas

K. van Lohuizen / NOOR

From Colombians fleeing war to North Americans retirees moving to Nicaragua, a photographer's journey from Chile to Alaska explores both the expected and unexpected patterns of migration in the Americas

Launch slideshow

Experience the entire journey, from Chile to Alaska, by exploring the slideshow at right, the Via Panam website or by downloading the app for iPad.

More Photoblogs from the Migration in the Americas series: 
Mom works in US while family stays in El Salvador
US retirees flock to Nicaragua
On the run from water in Panama
Bolivia hopes for windfall from producing lithium

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Lt. Joe Klinker / US Coast Guard via AP

In this photo taken Monday July 30, 2012, an Alaska SeaLife Center employee prepares a walrus calf for transport aboard a U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane in Barrow, Alaska. The Coast Guard crew assisted Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Alaska SeaLife Center personnel transporting three malnourished walrus calves to Anchorage for care.

KTUU-TV reports -- A Pacific walrus calf has been taken in by the Alaska SeaLife Center after apparently becoming separated from its herd earlier this month near Barrow.

Center staff say the male calf, estimated to be four to six weeks old, was spotted by fishermen Saturday in North Salt Lagoon, after a large group of walrus passed Barrow on floating ice July 17. The calf was rescued by members of the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management after observation and approval by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, then placed under the care of a veterinarian.

Continue reading.

David Mosely / U.S. Coast Guard via AP

In this photo take Monday July 30, 2012, two U.S. Coast Guard crew members aboard a HC-130 Hercules airplane transfer a baby walrus from the plane to an Air Force truck at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska.

Kevin Wright / National Parks Service

On the second day of rescue efforts, climbers skirt the edge of the debris field from a June 14, avalanche that may have buried four Japanese climbers on the West Buttress route of Mount McKinley in Alaska in this June 15 photo.

National Park Service

Searchers examine flag belonging to Japanese climbers.

The missing climbers were identified as Yoshiaki Kato, 64; Masako Suda, 50; Michiko Suzuki, 56; and Tamao Suzuki, 63. A fifth climber, Hitoshi Ogi, 69, escaped the avalanche and descended to report the incident. 

All are from Miyagi Prefecture -- the same area devastated by the 2011 quake and tsunami -- and were descending the mountain when the avalanche hit.

If confirmed, the deaths would be the worst accident on McKinley since 1992, when four Canadian climbers died.

-- Reported by msnbc.com's Miguel Llanos

Read the full story.

National Park Service

National Park Rangers search for signs of Japanese climbers.

Kent Miller

The 11,200 foot camp.

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Ted S. Warren / AP

Alaska Airlines Capt. Trent Davey carries a 55-pound Copper River king salmon down a red carpet after he flew the annual first air shipment of the prized fish from Alaska to the Seattle area early Friday morning.

Ted S. Warren / AP

Alaska Airlines Capt. Trent Davey and first officer Andy Kullick hold up a 55-pound Copper River king salmon at Sea-Tac airport.

The first shipment of Alaska's prized Copper River salmon arrived early Friday morning at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport aboard an Alaska Airlines cargo flight from Cordova, Alaska.

Copper River salmon, known for its superiority in the culinary world, is prized for its high oil content and flavor. It typically brings the highest prices at restaurants and fish markets.

Related Links:

• Alaska's Copper River Salmon Season Begins in Cordova

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Ted S. Warren / AP

Executive chef Pat Donahue, of Anthony's Restaurants, executive chef Wayne Johnson, of Ray's Boathouse, Frankie Ragusa, general manger of Ocean Beauty Seafoods, and executive chef Jason Wilson, of Crush, walk with a 55-pound Copper River king salmon on May 18.

Yuriko Nakao / Reuters

The aurora borealis is seen over campers in the snow in Chugach mountain range, outside the town of Valdez, east of Anchorage on Saturday, April 21, 2012.

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Petty Officer 2Nd Class Charly H / AP

In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a plume of smoke rises from the derelict Japanese ship Ryou-Un Maru after it was hit by canon fire by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on Thursday.

Petty Officer 2Nd Class Charly H / AP

In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a plume of smoke rises from a derelict Japanese ship.

AP reports: The long, lonely voyage of the Japanese ghost ship is over.  A U.S. Coast Guard cutter unleashed cannon fire on the abandoned 164-foot Ryou-Un Maru on Thursday, ending a journey that began when last year's tsunami dislodged it and set it adrift across the Pacific Ocean.

It sank into waters more than 1,000 feet deep in the Gulf of Alaska, more than 150 miles from land.

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Sara Francis / U.S. Coast Guard via AP

In a photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard the unmanned Japanese fishing vessel Ryou-un Maru dirfts northwest in the Gulf of Alaska approximately 164 miles southwest of Baranof Island Wednesday April 4, 2012.

KING-TV reports: The ship is heading in the direction of the southeast Alaska town of Sitka 170 miles to the north, traveling at about one mile per hour, Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley said.

"Our main concern is maritime traffic," he said. "We're trying to minimize any safety concerns, alerting vessels. We don't want any vessels to run into it."

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Marc Lester / Anchorage Daily News via AP

Dallas Seavey reaches the finish line to claim victory in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, on March 13, 2012.

25-year-old Dallas Seavey won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday evening, becoming the youngest musher to win the nearly 1,000-mile race across Alaska, The Associated Press reports.

"They mean the world to me," Seavey said of his dogs.

"I could not be prouder of these guys. It's hard to not come to tears when they finally crossed under this arch in first place." Read more.

• See the best pictures from the race in our slideshow