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Some other links of recent interest to Pasty Cam watchers:
• Ancestors 2007   • New Arrivals 2007
• The Hut Inn Re-opens Eight years ago on the Pasty Cam: 05/02/99 ^{Printed on Recycled Internet}

On his commute from Eagle River to Michigan Tech on this day eight years ago, Jonathan spotted this scene of students hard at work. He figured the roof needed an inspection, so they all volunteered to get the job done.

Good Morning Pastyland

Good morning!
Happy Anniversary to the Weed's.

Mornin'

Good Morning, Everyone! It looks like they are watching for something from that roof. It also looks like a beautiful spring day back then.

Good morning! You go Beverly!

There's a new posting up at upbirders.org, showing that the spotters sighted 28 white pelicans and several tundra swans at the mouth of the Sturgeon in Houghton County. No posting for Baraga County this week, but there usually is. Today I'll be doing kindergarten testing for next year's kindergarteners.

Thanks Dad!!!

Where is Beverly going????

The first leg of the journey will take Bev all the way to tomorrow. From there I imagine she'll be heading on to Friday. I'm headed there myself. Rest of you want to come along? We're leaving right now!!

Lol, that is one of the true signs spring is here (or there); the TKE boys sitting on the front roof of their frat house......

Marsha, do you ever go to Richfield park in your area? We have some friends that live near there and take walks there. They have seen a pair of bald eagles there.

Good Morning, I can hear the birds out my office window. So happy spring is here.

Thumbgardener: I'm not too far from Richfield Park and will make it a point to drive through there now that I know there are bald eagles to be seen!

As her whimsy takes her, I suppose. :)

Geology Question Alert
On Yahoo there was an article about why there will continue to be earthquakes in Missouri due to a thing called the Farallon slab. Essentially, it is going down into the earth and every 500 years or so will release a very large amount of energy like it did in 1812 for the New Madrid quake. The interesting thing to me was the article talked about a failed rift, and casually mentioned one called "the Keweenawan Rift, a 1240-mile-long rift in the area surrounding Lake Superior." Does anyone know about this that can share?

Here is a link to the Yahoo article:
Major Earthquakes Discovered Beneath US Heartland

I imagine the "capt" is looking this one up. I guess he seems to know everything about everything, I guess........

The continent was going to split apart along the Keweenaw Rift, but then the Earth decided it needed a place to put a lot of fresh water and copper. As a result Lake Superior and the Keweenaw Peninsula came along. One to hold the water and the other to hold the copper. Rift started in upper Missouri and wended it's way to Ontario via Iowa, Wis. & the UP. Lines were real crooked years ago 'cause there weren't any good surveyors. One big event of this splitting was called the Greenstone flow. Largest or second largest lava flow on Earth. Ever. It was just one of many around that time. They cooled and relaxed. With the sigh that went along with the relaxation, the Lake Superior Basin came into being. Took a bunch of glaciers to refine the shape and fill it with water. Manitou thought "That's good, lets just stop there." That's when the North American continent quit splitting apart.

Once you hit perfection there really isn't any point in continuing.

I have a question that I haven't seen addressed here. We have a small family boat (not quite 16 ft); the outboard motor on it has a fairly deep draw, and it does not have power trim or tilt. My son wants us to bring it up there with us this summer when we go so he can go water skiing. (My son is a student at Mich Tech.) What inland lakes up there might be good candidates for a family day outing? Also, are the inland lakes having as big a problem with low water levels as Lake Superior is apparently having? (Translate, will that make it hard to even launch the boat, etc.?)

Hey Danbury--Do you read mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers?

Seismic tomography is a very interesting tool geologists can use to “see” inside the planet. A way to look at it would be that it is basically a CAT scan of the earth. Tomography can show us where older oceanic plates are subducting beneath other plates.

The Farallon Plate is a fascinating plate that helped create much of the beautiful scenery that can be seen in the American West. The Basin and Range of Nevada, the Colorado Plateau and all its national parks, even the Rocky Mountains are in some way tied to the descending Farallon Plate. Most plates, when they are subducted, descend into the asthenosphere (mantle) at an angle creating volcanoes like what are seen in the Cascades and the Andes. The Farallon, however, underwent what is called shallow subduction, in which it scraped just beneath the continental lithosphere (crust). This means the plate can travel great distances towards the interior of continents before getting very deep into the asthenosphere.

I’ve taken a look at the tomography and this is the most basic explanation I can think of to explain why the earthquakes could be happening. First, there are very old faults in the New Madrid region due a failed rift, creating a zone of weakness. Underneath this zone of weakness, the Farallon Plate is starting to sink. Just like a ship sinking will pull water and debris behind it, the sinking plate also exerts a force on the lithosphere above it. Since the lithosphere in that area already has faults, this force can induce stress on the faults resulting in earthquakes.

There are several rifts of varying ages in North America ranging from the Rio Grande Rift (still mildly active) to ancient ones such as the Midcontinent Rift (not active at all and hasn’t been active in about a billion years). All the rifts in North America are due to different geologic activities at different times.

The Midcontinent Rift almost split to the point of forming a new ocean basin, like what has occurred to form the Red Sea that exists today. But about 1 billion years ago, a continental block collided with North America, pushing the rift closed.

The New Madrid earthquakes are interesting because there were THREE large quakes within three months. These earthquakes altered the land surface, causing sand volcanoes, uplift in some places, and subsidence and flooding in others. There are places you can go to in Missouri where you can still see forests (actually dead forests) that were drowned by lakes created due to earthquake activity.

I could go on an on about the Midcontinent Rift, Rio Grande Rift, and other rifts for hours, no DAYS! I am allegedly a rift specialist. I wrote something like 300 pages on just the Rio Grande Rift alone... so maybe I should stop here. If you want to know more, take my class, send me an e-mail, or meet me at the Hut when I come home this summer!

Sheesh FJL, don't give me a complex!!! ;-)

Don't mean to do that "capt"....

To make life bearable with The Captain, I often recall something Socrates said (very roughly translated from the Greek, of course): "You need to know a lot to know you know nothing."

Have a question-maybe we missed something,but can we still order Toivo and Eino's Pasty Sauce somewhere? Tried phone number and web site but no luck. Hope someone can help, having pasties soon and only 1 tablespoon sauce left!

Just a quick update for those of you interested in What's UP with my nephew Kevin and the progress towards his bone marrow transplant...
He will be admitted at Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit on May 15th, to begin the process of getting him ready for the transplant. His donor is a 26 year old young man, so please keep Kevin and this young man in your prayers. Thank you!

Marsha/Genesee, Aura, Did you hear about the fire on the Baraga Plains Sunday? The DNR did a 'controlled' burn on Fri. and Sat. and thought it was out. The wind came up strong on Sunday and it rekindled and burned over 1,000 acres. We were at Covington Sunday aft. for the 45th anniversary of SUOMI KUTSUU on TV6. There sure was a LOT of smoke coming over the multi-purpose building. That cloud of smoke was visible all the way home to Cornell that evening! It's still not completely contained today. They're calling it the Baraga Bump Fire.

How'd you guess, kosk! :)))
Still better and wittier than most current writers, as far as I have read.

Seems like you've done some serious (re-)reading of her stories yourself, to catch the phrase I borrowed.

It's true. It was a sad day when I finished all of her mysteries.
Maybe it's time to do some re-reading. My other favorite mystery
writer is Edmund Crispin--especially "Glimpses of the Moon."
Gervase Fen, though no Lord Peter, is a fully drawn character.

I see that Dororthy Sayers died on the day after I was born in 1957. Her work sounds very interesting. I'll have to check it out.