Earth ChangesS


Seismograph

Earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes off Papua New Guinea

Chart
© Reuters
An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck 182 km (113 miles) southeast of Rabaul in the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea, on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

It was initially reported as magnitude of 5.9.

There was no immediate tsunami warning, or reports of damage or casualties from the quake, which struck at a depth of 57 km (35 miles).

Source: Reuters

Fish

Biologists monitoring mass fish kill in Pointe aux Chenes, Louisiana; second recent incident for the area

Aaron LaRose found a whole lot of dead fish while trying his luck on Poine aux Chenes Wildlife Management Area this weekend.
© Aaron LaRoseAaron LaRose found a whole lot of dead fish while trying his luck on Poine aux Chenes Wildlife Management Area this weekend.
Aaron LaRose had his fishing trip ruined Sunday when he ran across a considerable fish kill in the coastal marshes of Terrebonne Parish. The kill, which was on Pointe aux Chenes Wildlife Management Area, included baitfish, rough fish and some game fish, LaRose said.

"I was amazed and saddened how many flounder were dead," he said.

The kill was centered north of Island Road within the boundary of the WMA, LaRose said.

Jason Adriance, a fisheries biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said the agency became aware of the kill this weekend, and has been monitoring it.

Comment: Over the same weekend and a few miles to the south-west of the above location a similar event occurred: Thousands of dead fish found in Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana


Fish

Thousands of dead fish found in Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

Thousands of dead fish
© Chris HellerWhat looks like a sandy beach is actually thousands of dead fish that collected Tuesday along the shore near Island Road in Isle de Jean Charles.
Thousands of dead fish have accumulated in the water alongside Island Road in Isle de Jean Charles, and officials suspect low dissolved oxygen levels are the cause.

Bourg resident Rita Chaisson said she noticed the fish Saturday afternoon when she and her family went to go fishing and crabbing.

"You couldn't even count them," she said. "They were about five feet wide from the bank. Redfish, flounder, speckled trout, catfish, some perch, drum, all kinds of fish."

Jason Adriance, finfish program manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said the fish kill was reported to the department and officials are monitoring the situation.

He believes an algal bloom, or a rapid increase or accumulation in the algae population, caused a drop in the water's oxygen level.

Attention

8 dolphins dead after stranding on shore in Boyd's Cove, Newfoundland

Seven dolphins, including this one, died onshore in Boyd's Cove after possibly becoming disoriented by storm conditions during Hurricane Matthew.
© Fisheries and Oceans CanadaSeven dolphins, including this one, died onshore in Boyd's Cove after possibly becoming disoriented by storm conditions during Hurricane Matthew.
Several dolphins are dead after being stranded on the shore in Boyd's Cove near Lewisporte.

A spokesperson from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) said the white-sided dolphins may have been feeding on mackerel in the area and became disoriented by storm conditions.

Eight washed ashore. Local residents pushed some of the dolphins back into the water, but the mammals became stranded once again. By the time DFO arrived, seven were dead and one had survived. That surviving dolphin later died as well.
Our scientist Dr. Jack Lawson says the dolphins do not appear sick. They likely beached after becoming disoriented in storm conditions.

— @DFO_NL
Wayne Ledwell of animal rescue group Whale Release and Strandings said it's difficult to know what caused the dolphins to strand.

Attention

Whale carcass found on beach in Nigeria

Dead whale found in Akwa Ibom seashore
Dead whale found in Akwa Ibom seashore
The carcass of a whale has been found on a beach in Akwa Ibom State, south south of Nigeria, off the Atlantic Ocean.

Villagers in Okpo Ita, Ibeno local government area of the state, said they saw the dead whale in the morning of September 15, according to Edem Eniang, a biodiversity conservationist from the University of Uyo.

Some of the villagers had started cutting off the body parts for meat before Mr. Eniang and his team of researchers, and the local authorities got to the scene, several days after it was found.

Mr. Eniang said the carcass is about 16 metres in length.

"I observed that something close to four metres was missing," Mr. Eniang told Premium Times, Wednesday. "That is a part of what was cut off by the villagers."

Attention

Surfer attacked by shark off Ecola State Park, Oregon

Shark attacks
A surfer was attacked by a shark at Ecola State Park on Monday afternoon.

Oregon State Police said 29-year-old Joseph Tanner was surfing at Indian Beach on October 10 when the attacked happened. He and Steve Gehrig were sitting on their boards out in the ocean when Gehrig noticed Tanner had gone under.

"He kind of just lurched real funny - it looked like he had slipped off his board but a little more violently than you would see someone slip and I was like, did he just slip or was that something different?" Gehrig told KOIN.

They tried to make it back to shore, but the shark bit Tanner on his upper thigh and lower leg.

"I saw the back. The dorsal fin was like this big, it kind of came up over and whipped around and it was just real fast," Gehrig said.

29-year-old Joseph Tanner was bitten by a shark at Indian Beach in the Ecola State Park on October 10, 2016.
29-year-old Joseph Tanner was bitten by a shark at Indian Beach in the Ecola State Park on October 10, 2016.

Cloud Lightning

One fisherman killed, three others critically injured by lightning strike in Odisha, India

lightning
© 123RF
One fisherman was killed and three others were critically injured today in a lightning strike while they were fishing in Devi river near Astaranga in Odisha's Puri district.

The three critically injured fishermen have been shifted to the nearby Upgraded Public Health Centre (UPHC) at Charichhak.

The deceased fisherman has been identified as Abhay Behera of Balidia village under Astaranga block.

Police have seized Abhay's and have sent it to Charichhak UPHC for post-mortem.

Tragedy struck these fishermen while eight of them were returning home in their boat through Devi river after fishing in the sea.

Camera

More mysterious light flashes recorded over Pacific ocean (Update - Lens flare)

flashing lights over Pacific
© YouTube/LadyInKY (screen capture)
On Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th October mysterious flashing lights illuminated the skies over the Pacific ocean, captured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is located atop the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The Cloud Camera is an experimental high sensitivity camera mounted to the catwalk of CFHT. The purpose of the camera is to take pictures of clouds and other weather at night, even on moonless nights. It only operates from sunset to sunrise.

The camera takes a picture every 30 seconds and compiles time-lapse movies from those pictures. As such airplanes appear as streaks and ships appear to move quite quickly.

The following YouTube video from LadyInKY shows the strange phenomena with slow motion included.


The original video can be viewed here courtesy of the CFHT.

Comment: Some other possible plasma type discharge events in recent times include: Update: 4 November 2016

We came across other videos of timelapse from this same camera on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, and they contain the exact same light anomalies. This suggests that the flashes are artifacts of the technology, not something that is actually happening out over the Pacific Ocean.


Tornado1

Hurricane Nicole targets Bermuda, may impact Canada

Hurricane Nicole
© National Weather ServiceHurricane Nicole was the only named storm in the Atlantic on Tuesday night.
Nicole continues to strengthen in the central Atlantic Ocean as a category 1 hurricane. All eyes are on Bermuda, with the storm expected to approach the island by Wednesday night. The storm has been slowly moving north since it formed on October 4th.

On October 6, against all odds, with strong wind shear conditions in the area it developed into a Category 1 hurricane and just a day later into stronger Category 2, becoming the first time since 1964 that two hurricanes (Matthew and Nicole) at or above Category 2 existed in the western Atlantic Ocean (65°W) simultaneously.

Soon after, Nicole had again weakened into a tropical storm. However, a large storm system moving over the northeast U.S. is not only helping pull what is left of Matthew away from the east coast, but will also drag Nicole to the north at a greater speed than during these past few days, bringing it directly towards Bermuda.

As a result, the Bermuda Weather Service has issued a hurricane warning for the island.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Nicole is to the south of Bermuda, with wind speeds near 120 km/h. The storm is slowly tracking northwest at roughly 7 km/h.

"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next day or two," according to the NHC.

SOTT Logo Media

SOTT Focus: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - September 2016: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

earth changes video september 2016
© Sott.netSuper-typhoon Meranti damages an ancient temple in Taiwan
As the Empire crumples under its own hubris, and as the flames of discontent spread amid rumors of world war, planetary upheaval continues unabated. This month's Hurricane Matthew will probably be remembered as the year's worst storm event in the US (and elsewhere), but in September two other storms, Hermine and Julia - one of them Florida's first hurricane since 2005, and the other the first such storm to ever form directly over the Sunshine State - inundated the coastal US Southeast.

A series of cyclones also brought wave after wave of flooding to southeastern Australia, breaking rainfall records dating back to the country's foundation in the 19th century, and bringing the country as a whole its third wettest winter on record. Meanwhile multiple typhoons in the northwest Pacific battered the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Korea and Japan. 50% stronger today than 40 years ago, the strongest of these cyclonic storms - Category 5 Meranti - was the strongest anywhere in the world so far this year, and second only to 2013's Typhoon Haiyan in the record books.

In addition to the walls of water brought by these large storms, local downbursts brought record-breaking rainfall, causing severe flash-flooding that washed away cars, homes and people in parts of the US, Mexico, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, India, Indonesia, and China. Oklahoma, which never experienced earthquakes until recently, last month felt its strongest yet. A record-strong earthquake also hit South Korea, while a strong quake in Skopje, Macedonia, damaged buildings and sent residents into a panic.

Multiple volcanic eruptions, mass fish kills, whale beachings and meteor fireball events round off another eventful month of Earth Changes...