Up and down

Radar observations from the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite reveal that the jellybean-shaped Yellowstone caldera-a giant depression caused by past volcanic explosions-began to rise in 1995.

Although the caldera floor started to sink in late 1997, part of the north rim, called the north rim uplift anomaly (NUA) continued rising until 2003.

Molten rock called magma rises from the Earth's core under Sour Creek dome, a major feature in the eastern section of the caldera. When the magma reaches the mantle layer, six to 12 miles below the surface, it spreads like a pancake before branching off into several tunnels.

Magma flow is controlled by natural valves-one at Sour Creek dome that lets magma enter the system, and others that allow it to flow out. The outflow valve below the north rim uplift anomaly, however, can only pass so much magma at once.

"Magma's always coming up in Sour Creek dome and going through the system," USGS research geophysicist Charles Wicks told LiveScience. "But maybe there are pulses when more comes up. That may be what causes the surface to rise."

The research is detailed in the March 2 issue of the journal Nature.

The pulses might be more than the outflow valve can handle-like trying to squeeze all the toothpaste out of the tube at once. As the molten material pushes out on the surrounding rock, the ground around the valve expands and cracks.

This could explain why the uplift anomaly has risen and the Norris Geyser Basin has become more active, Wicks said. Another explanation is that nearby geothermic changes and seismic activity altered the shape of the valve, perhaps narrowing it. However, previous studies have indicated that no such alterations have occurred, and that changes in flow rate more likely cause these deformations.

Big changes

The five-inch increase at the uplift anomaly probably wasn't noticed by many tourists, but the changes in the Norris Geyser Basin were easily spotted by some. After a nine year period of inactivity, Steamboat Geyser erupted in May, 2000, and has erupted five times since. Reaching more than 300 feet in the air, Steamboat produces the highest plumes of any geyser in the world.

Since 1989, Pork Chop geyser was active only as a hot spring, but in the summer of 2003 it reawakened as a geyser. Also that summer, several footpaths near the Norris Geyser Basin were closed because of near-boiling ground temperatures.

And a 250-foot line of new fumaroles, holes venting hot smoke and gases, formed near Nymph Lake to the north of the uplift anomaly.

"But when the [uplift anomaly] quit inflating in 2002 and 2003, the thermal unrest died off too," Wicks said. "So we think there's pretty good evidence for tying these events together."

Despite these changes, Wicks doesn't believe that Yellowstone is ready to erupt.

"This is probably an ongoing feature in Yellowstone. We've only been able to study it like this for 10 years, so we're still not sure what's normal and what's not," Wicks said. "But there's no evidence yet to suspect an eruption."

Also, the magma pancake serves as a thermal buffer that helps stabilize the volcanic system against potentially dangerous sudden changes in temperature.

Comment: Back on February 10, a 5.2 earthquake struck in the Gulf of Mexico about 160 miles South of New Orleans.

According to Elaine Meinel Supkis:

This is where it is geologically pretty stable. It is also right next to the huge salt domes where much of the oil and gas is being extracted. A retired geologist, Mr. Jack M. Reed, theorized there has to be a hidden tectonic plate segment in this spot and it is not only geologically active but is responsible for triggering the New Madrid Quakes.

That's not all.

Reed, a retired Texaco geologist-geophysicist who has been studying the region's geology for over 40 years, says the accepted theory of a quiet geologic evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Basin is fundamentally flawed and needs to be revised.

According to him, the Gulf was and is tectonically active -- and it is the likely origin for not only the New Madrid seismic activity, but also for the Middleton Place-Summerville seismic zone near Charleston, S.C.

I grew up around geologists working with my dad on siting observatories. One puzzle they all liked to chew over at leisure is the riddle of the New Madrid Fault. It made no sense.

Today's earthquake, no small one, was an eye-opener which is why, the minute I saw it in today's data, I jumped on it.
From the good geologist:

"This northeast trending earthquake zone appears to connect with the northeast trending Monroe Uplift, the LaSalle Arch and, possibly, to an active seismic zone located in and around Sabine Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border," he said.

This complex of doming and seismic centers is similar to another Cretaceous age triple juncture located in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico Basin. Doming of the DeSoto Canyon High during the Jurassic to Cretaceous created this triple juncture, which includes the Cretaceous Shelf Edge, the Suwannee Strait and the West Florida Escarpment.

If the New Madrid seismic zone is indeed part of a triple juncture, he continued, there should be an expression of this limb trending along a line in a northeast direction.

So Reed conducted a study using data from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center and the USGS map "Earthquakes in the Conterminous United States." He only studied earthquakes measuring at least magnitude 5, and found that while most of the earthquake centers are random with no alignment, there is a well-defined earthquake trend extending northeastward from the New Madrid seismic zone across the United States to Canada, where it joins with the St. Lawrence River seismic zone.

Within the boundaries of this earthquake alignment there are:

Sixty-one seismic points that have a magnitude of 5 and greater.

Several large earthquakes dating to the early 1800s, all measuring over magnitude 8, all occurring within a couple of months of each other, all centered in a northeast trending line.

The two 5+ earthquakes that occurred earlier this year in northern New York state and southern Indiana.

"There is definitely some form of movement occurring along this trend," Reed said, "and it appears to be active today."

Well, it really was active today! I bet he is happy as a lark, seeing more evidence his personal theory is correct. I hope this gets good coverage for it is a major geological "find"! Indeed. Congratulations, Mr. Reed! Take a bow.

Click here for raw data. Click here for the earthquake world map. I have noticed over the last year or so, many earthquakes like to happen at 10.0 km. Whether under water or on land. It is like the earth's crust has this blanket on top that operates independent of the lower layers. Some of our nastiest quakes occur at this depth, the earth's blanket being shaken and tugged like Mother Nature is straightening out the bed.

The geology where this happened is interesting because it isn't all that prone to earthquakes. Just last week, I noted there was a much gentler earthquake right in New Orleans just when tornadoes were hitting that poor city! The New Madrid Fault has been shaking a bit, lately. As if it were trembling, waiting for something.

The continental shelf falls rapidly where today's quake happened and maybe the entire Mississippi valley is ready for some serious alterations. The Mid-Atlantic ridge had a 4.6 mag earthquake right next to Iceland which is the volcanic island erupting out of the northern end of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. It, too, was at the interesting depth of 10.0km. Santiago, Chile, had a 4.2 quake at pretty much the same time. I noted this morning that the earth was very quiet for the previous 24 hrs and said to myself, "There are going to be some interesting shakes today," for these quakes are tending to swarm across great distances, like the earth is shuddering still from the side effects of the big blow out last winter.

The geological stability of this part of the Gulf is very important for us since we have deep drilling going on there and if the earth shifts, the various layers shift at different rates so a pipe going straight down can get displaces and cease working as a well.OCSBBS:

There have been significant new discoveries (such as Great White, Trident, Chinook, St. Malo, and Cascade) in the ultra-deep waters of Walker Ridge and Alaminos Canyon. These discoveries open up a whole new geologic play with exciting potential.

Industry has made great technological achievements in recent years. Examples include polyester mooring, composite risers, cell spars, and 15,000-psi subsea trees.

There was a 51 percent increase in the number of producing deepwater projects over the past 2 years.

Deepwater production has risen more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and over 400 million cubic feet per day (MMCFPD) each year since 1997. (Production volumes were only available through 2002 at the time of writing due to the production data lag.)

Subsea gas production has increased 90 percent since December 2000.

Since the start of 2000, new deepwater drilling has added over 4.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).

We aren't awash in gas or oil, much of this deep water drilling simply replaces well heads that are beginning to fail.

From Priweb.org:

Just onshore, in south eastern Texas and southern Louisiana, the flowage of salt domes has been the predominant mechanism for creating traps for oil. Salt of Jurassic age occurs here. When it is put under immense pressure by overlying rocks, this salt, which is less dense than the rocks surrounding it, will begin to flow upward. As it does so, it displaces, folds, and faults the rocks around it. In this way, traps can be created.

The Louann Salt is more than 200 million years old, and is located at great depths along the Gulf of Mexico's shoreline. In some places, however, this salt has moved due to the enormous pressure being put on it from the rocks above.

This all takes us back to the beginning, namely, the great Permian age when living things began to rapidly evolve and creatures crawled out of the teeming seas and plants colonized the earth and the atmosphere filled with oxygen and it all came crashing down, as we talked about, this week.

The great salt flats covered over all the rich plant and animal life, the hot seas evaporated in the various shallow seas, tons of salt built up over millions of years as the planet slowly readjusted and life forms began to slowly recolonize the previously dead regions. All that stuff is what we are pumping out today and you might say, the ghosts of these once living creatures are now looming over us all.

The city declared a state of emergency today for Windward Oahu because of severe flooding from heavy rain over the past three days.

Gov. Linda Lingle issued an emergency proclamation covering the period from Feb. 20, through today to help residents and businesses recover from flooding and mudslides.

The National Weather Service forecast improving weather as the storm system socking Oahu and Kauai with heavy rain the past three days is moving slowly to the west.

"Tradewinds are, in fact, trying to return," said lead forecaster Tim Craig. 'It's a slow process and once they become more established, later today or tonight, we should be entirely out of the woods."

Oahu was under a flash-flood warning this morning with rains continuing to soak the Koolau Mountains and Windward Coast, from Punaluu to Waimanalo.

Oahu, Kauai and Niihau were also under a flash-flood watch, in effect through this afternoon.

Heavy rain overnight forced the closure of Kamehameha Highway in Waikane and Punaluu. The highway was reopened at about 8:20 a.m.

Police also closed the Kailua-bound lanes of the Pali Highway at about 4:20 a.m. because of a waterfall that was dumping debris and rocks onto the highway outside the second tunnel.

Kapaa Quarry Road was also closed because of flooding.

Craig said there are "subtle hints" that the storm has peaked and "we're on the improving side."

Typical tradewind weather is predicted tomorrow with partly cloudy skies, possible showers over windward and mauka sections and 10 to 15 mph winds.

While the storm is passing, however, the returning sun could lead to what is called "afternoon convection" because the atmosphere is still moist, Craig said.

If the sun pokes through the clouds for any length of time, it will heat the land, which will heat the air above it and the air "will rise like a hot air balloon, " he said.

"It will cool and all that moisture will become clouds and heavy showers again. It's just a lot of moisture in the air."

Torrential rain from Waiahole to Kahuku flooded roadways and homes, closed schools and caused at least two landslides yesterday.

The storm stranded many Windward Oahu residents for hours in their cars and spurred others to wage a battle against Mother Nature to clean out storm drains and save their property.

Last night, officials were closely watching a Kaaawa home that was in danger of crumbling into a stream and blocking a nearby bridge, potentially sending floodwaters onto roadways and into other homes.

State Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa said an embankment behind the home on Huamalani Street was significantly eroded by rising, fast-moving water.

Over the course of yesterday, firefighters responded to reports of minor flooding at more than 32 homes, fire spokesman Kenison Tejada said. During the heaviest rainfall, fire engines were called in from Waikele and downtown Honolulu to help.

Fire officials said they responded to three water evacuations after midnight.

Starting as early as 7 a.m. yesterday, flooding closed roadways up and down the Windward Coast, while two mudslides at Kualoa Point and Kaaawa also snarled traffic.

Also, two city buses that were stranded for hours at Swanzy Beach Park were able to start traveling on the cleared highway, Oahu Civil Defense said. The buses had about 25 passengers on board.

"Who left the water running? Turn it off," quipped Kaaawa resident Hilary Rillamas yesterday as rain tap-danced on her large umbrella. "This is the worst I've seen it."

During a break in the heaviest rain, Rillamas, friend Karen Joanou and their children sloshed through ankle-deep water along Kamehameha Highway in Kaaawa looking for backed-up waterways to clear. They were not alone.

After securing their own homes, several groups of residents worked together to clear streams and other waterways up and down Kaaawa in hopes of guarding against more flooding. At Kaaawa Elementary School, James Kahele joined a few neighbors to cut vegetation and rusted chain-link fencing blocking a drainage culvert.

"We're clearing the debris so the water can just flow," Kahele said.

After they had finished, the water swept through the drainage canal and toward the ocean.

The weather service said the rain, which started Wednesday on the Windward Coast, was associated with a low-pressure trough several hundred miles off Oahu coupled with southeasterly winds.

Over the 72-hour period ending at 5 a.m. today, Punaluu saw 22.84 inches of rain. Kahuku was not far behind at 12.26.

With rain in the forecast today, state Education Department officials decided to close five schools on Windward Oahu, said spokesman Gregg Knudsen. Four public schools were closed yesterday because of the rains, and officials reported minor flooding at several of the campuses, including Kahuku High and Intermediate.

At Kaaawa Elementary School, fields of high grass were nearly submerged.

Rain also closed the Polynesian Cultural Center and Malaekahana State Park, where a foot of water was reported in the parking lot.

"This is crazy," said Michele Pouvave, a Kaaawa resident whose downstairs laundry room was under a foot of water. "All my clothing is floating around down there."

While it was still pouring outside, Craig Long struggled to free an exercise mat that had lodged in a culvert fronting his Kaaawa home. The mat was clogging the drain that led to the ocean across the highway, causing water to rise around his elevated home.

"The mattress got stuck," Long said as he watched it float out to sea in water the color of chocolate milk. "It's now on its way to California."

On Kauai the rain caused some minor flooding, rockslides and a treated-sewage spill at a popular small-boat harbor near Waimea. Waste-water officials said they released the waste water at the Waimea plant into the ocean after flooding overloaded the system.

Also on Kauai's leeward side, flooding and a minor rockslide caused lane closures of the main thoroughfares through the Kalaheo-Eleele area early yesterday morning. The problem spots were cleared by daybreak yesterday, said Kauai Civil Defense administrator Gregg Morishige.

The rain spurred the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to stop issuing camping permits for Kauai state parks, along with Malaekahana State Recreation Area and Kahana Valley State Park on Oahu, until the bad weather subsides.

"We advise the public to avoid trails or streams during the stormy conditions," said DLNR Chairman Peter Young.

This morning, a police helicopter was expected to fly over Windward Oahu and the North Shore to find any trouble spots that might have developed overnight.

The city's declaration, issued by Managing Director Wayne Hashiro, allows it to apply for federal disaster relief assistance. Hashiro is acting mayor because Mayor Mufi Hannemann is out of state.

Rain runoff also caused sewage spills, including an estimated 150,000-gallon overflow at the Kaneohe Wastewater Pre-Treatment Facility. Much smaller spills were reported at the Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant, the Waimanalo treatment plant, and a few manholes in Kaneohe and Kailua.

Rain also forced the closure of Ala Wai and Pali golf courses today.

Lingle's proclamation activates programs to provide personal and commercial loans to people whose homes and businesses were damaged by the rain, according to a Department of Defense news release.

It also activates the state's Major Disaster Fund to speed relief and authorizes use of National Guard troops to help civilian authorities, if necessary, with disaster relief and removal of debris.

Teams from the Hawaii Chapter of the American Red Cross will work with State Civil Defense and the Oahu Civl Defense Agency to assess the flooding and mudslide damage.

In a press release, the Geneva-based agency said temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific had been between 0.5 and 1.0 C (0.9 and 1.8 F) below normal since the start of the 2006.

"Combined with broader tropical Pacific ocean and atmosphere conditions, this is consistent with the early stages of a basin-wide La Nina event," it said.

"(...) It is unprecedented in the historical record for a La Nina of substantial intensity or duration to develop so early in the year."

La Nina, which has the opposite effects to the more notorious El Nino, last occurred from mid-1998 to early 2001.

Under La Nina, the sea-surface temperature in the central and eastern tropical Pacific falls below normal.

This typically brings far dryer weather to the southwestern United States, Florida and western Latin America and above-average rainfall to Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But there can also be a knock-on much further afield, with an increase to monsoon rainfall in South Asia, unusual coolness in tropical West Africa, Southeast Africa, Japan and the Korean peninsula.

La Nina usually lasts nine to 12 months, although "some episodes may persist for as long as two years," the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says on its website.

The WMO sounded a note of caution.

The buildup of this La Nina was so exceptionally swift and intense that it was impossible at the moment to infer what the impact would be, and how long the phenomenon would last, it warned.

"Most models and expert interpretations favour the event dissipating quite rapidly over the next three to six months," the UN's weather agency said.

"Nonetheless, neither a continuation of La Nina beyond mid-year, nor the development of El Nino in the second half of 2006, can be ruled out as possible outcomes from the current prevailing situation."

El Nino, which last ran from 2002-3, occurs when warm water builds up in the western tropical Pacific and creeps eastwards, again causing huge disruption to classic patterns of rainfall and wind.

Both El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring cycles, although there is much speculation among climate scientists that man-made global warming may make them more frequent and more vicious and that this trend may have already started.

El Nino means "the little boy" in Spanish. Its name is attributed to fishermen off the coast of South America who noted the appearance of warmer water, often around Christmas. La Nina means "the little girl."

The study is detailed today in the online version of the journal Science.

Other studies have documented rapid melting, unprecedented in modern times, in Greenland and around the North Pole. And rapid melting of individual glaciers has been noted in Antarctica.

For now, the newly measured melting might seem like a small quantity. The loss of ice in Antarctica amounts to about 0.4 millimeters of global sea rise annually, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimeters, the study concludes. There are about 25 millimeters in an inch.

However, computer models run in 2001 predicted Antarctica would gain ice during the 21st century due to increased precipitation in a warming climate. But the new study, based on satellite measurements between 2002 and 2005, shows the opposite.

Antarctica is twice as large as Australia. The ice sheet, which covers about 98 percent of the continent, has an average thickness of about 6,500 feet-more than a mile.

Antarctica has been called "a slumbering giant" by a climate scientist who predicts that if all the ice melted, sea levels would rise by 200 feet. Other scientists believe that such a thing won't happen, but new studies show that the slumbering giant has started to stir.

Melting at Both Ends Recent studies have confirmed that the North Pole and the South Pole have started melting.

Experts have long predicted that global warming would start to melt Greenland's two-mile-thick ice sheet, but they also thought the more massive ice sheet covering Antarctica would increase in the 21st century.

It seems they were wrong.

Two new studies find that despite the increasing snowfall that comes with global warming as a result of the increased moisture in the air, Antarctica's ice sheets are losing far more than the snow is adding.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last century, with accelerated warming during the last two decades. Most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities through the buildup of greenhouse gases -- primarily carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Although the heat-trapping property of these gases is undisputed, uncertainties exist about exactly how Earth's climate responds to them.

"The warming ocean comes underneath the ice shelves and melts them from the bottom, and warmer air from the top melts them from the top," said NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally. "So they're thinning and eventually they get to a point where they go poof!"

Zwally explains that the ice shelves, which the Antarctic ice cap pushes out into the ocean, are responding more than they expected to Earth's warming air and water. If the melting speeds up to a rapid runaway process called a "collapse," coastal cities and villages could be in danger.

James Hansen, director of NASA's Earth Science Research, said that disaster could probably be avoided, but that it would require dramatically cutting emission outputs. If the proper actions aren't taken, Hansen said, the sea level could rise as much as 80 feet by the time today's children reach middle age.

"We now must choose between a serious problem that we can probably handle and, if we don't act soon, unmitigated disaster down the road," Hansen said.

Scientists looking at ice cores can now read Earth's temperatures from past millennia and match them to sea levels from those eras.

"Based on the history of the Earth, if we can keep the warming less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit, I think we can avoid disastrous ice sheet collapse," Hansen said.

Hansen and other scientists point out that a rise of at least 1 degree Fahrenheit -- and another few feet of sea level -- seem virtually certain to happen because of the carbon that mankind has already put in the atmosphere.

March 2, 2006

Copyright 2006 ABCNEWS.com

These are estimates, of course, but clear trends emerge from the data behind them.

Population profile

A report issued by the Bureau in March 2004 noted that world population hit the 6-billion mark in June 1999. "This figure is over 3.5 times the size of the Earth's population at the beginning of the 20th century and roughly double its size in 1960," the study explained.

Even more striking is that the time required for the global population to grow from 5 billion to 6 billion-just a dozen years-was shorter than the interval between any of the previous billions.

On average, 4.4 people are born every second.

The population on Earth today is nearly four times the number in 1900 [graph]. Behind that phenomenal global increase is a vast gulf in birth and death rates among the world's countries. But according to population experts, this gulf is not a simple divide that perpetuates the status quo among the have and have-not nations.

Birth dearth

"What is worrisome about this demographic divide is not the differences among nations' population growth rates, but the disparities associated with these trends ... disparities in living standards, health, and economic prospects," explained Mary Kent, co-author along with Carl Haub, of a Population Reference Bureau report issued last month titled "Global Demographic Divide."

Kent, editor of the Population Bulletin, and Haub, a senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, reported that news of declining population in Europe fueled concern about a global "birth dearth," but there is continuing population growth in developing countries. The question, they asked, is which demographic trend is the world facing?

"The reality is that both trends are occurring," Haub said. "The dramatic fertility decline during the 20th century coincided with improved health, access to family planning, economic development, and urbanization."

Kent and Haub also reported that most countries will experience population growth through 2050, as the world adds a projected 3 billion more people to the total.

Remarkably, despite the many new developments over the past 50 years, one fact looks very much the same, explained Kent and Haub: Populations are growing most rapidly where such growth can be afforded the least-an observation that has changed little over time, they said.

The crater was discovered in satellite images by Boston University researchers Farouk El-Baz and Eman Ghoneim.

El-Baz named the crater "Kebira," which means "large" in Arabic and also relates to its location on the northern tip of the Gilf Kebir region in southwestern Egypt.

"Kebira may have escaped recognition because it is so large-bigger than the area of 125 football fields, or the total expanse of the Cairo urban region from its airport in the northeast to the Pyramids of Giza in the southwest," El-Baz said today. "Also, the search for craters typically concentrates on small features, especially those that can be identified on the ground. The advantage of a view from space is that it allows us to see regional patterns and the big picture."

The crater has two rings, a common configuration. Over time, it has been eroded by wind and water to make it unrecognizable to the untrained eye.

"The courses of two ancient rivers run through it from the east and west," Ghoneim said.

The timing of the impact has not been determined.

The impact that carved Kebira might have created an extensive field of yellow-green silica fragments, known as desert glass and found on the surface between the giant dunes of the Great Sand Sea in southwestern Egypt, the researchers said.