Earth Changes
The earthquake occurred at 3.09pm local time, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, roughly 74km north-northeast of L'Esperance Rock, one of several uninhabited islets in the Kermadec Islands, which are roughly 900km northeast of the North Island.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii has not issued a tsunami warning.
Sarah Oldham, 39, suffered a cardiac arrest after being hit by a lightning bolt as she sheltered under an umbrella when it started to rain on the course in Belek, on Turkeys south coast.
Mrs Oldham, from March, Cambridgeshire, was taken to hospital and eventually airlifted back to the UK, but died 12 days after the accident.
Mrs Oldham and her husband Alex, 36, had arrived in Turkey on November 17, and were enjoying their third round of golf in as many days when disaster struck.
Mr Oldham says he looked round after hearing 'an almighty crack of thunder', only to see his wife lying unconscious on the ground.
DIAMOND DUST SKI HALOS
Ski resorts are some of the best places to see sun halos--rings and pillars of light that surround the sun when ice crystals fill the air. The most sublime halos are caused by jewel-like crystals called "diamond dust." On Dec. 7th, Kameron Barge was skiing in Whitefish, Montana, when he saw these specimens:
"As we rode the chair down into the clouds today, we begin seeing all sorts of halos, and sundogs!" says Barge. "It was an unforgettable display."
The raw (unadjusted) data from three Indian Ocean gauges - Aden, Karachi and Mumbai - showed that local sea level trends in the last 140 years had been very gently rising, neutral or negative (ie sea levels had fallen).
But after the evidence had been adjusted by tidal records gatekeepers at the global databank Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) it suddenly showed a sharp and dramatic rise.

A firefighter is working on extinguishing the Lilac Fire, a fast moving wildfire, in Bonsall, California, US, December 7, 2017
Lilac Fire
The Lilac Fire was first reported at 11:20am Thursday on the southbound Interstate-15 freeway, near the connector to the State Route 76 freeway in North County, about 45 miles northeast of San Diego. State Route 76 has since been closed to traffic, according to KNSD.
The fire prompted California Governor Jerry Brown (D) to declare a state of emergency in San Diego County. The National Weather Service (NWS) said a wildfire risk in San Diego County is extreme Thursday, due to dry vegetation and Santa Ana conditions.
Humidity was in the range of 5-15 percent, and any new fires will have a high probability of becoming big in a short period of time, according to the US Forest Service, KNSD reported.
The last but one time Oraefajokull spewed ash into the sky, the area around it had to be abandoned for decades.
A long-dormant volcano in Iceland may be about to erupt, scientists fear.
The Oraefajokull volcano last spewed out ash and lava in 1728, but is showing renewed signs of activity.
A hole in the snow on the top of the mountain has been becoming 45cm deeper every day.
It is now more than 22 metres (72ft) lower than where it was before the activity began.
There has also been a recent increase in seismic activity and geothermal water leakage, volcanologists have said.
Experts at Iceland's Meteorological Office have detected 160 earthquakes in the region in the past week alone.
As a result, authorities have raised the volcano's alert safety code to yellow.
Comment: Bardarbunga, Iceland's biggest volcano is also being monitored after a series of earthquakes recently.
To calm a few panicking people, the Australian Government will pay for large fans to circulate water on a minuscule portion of the 2,300 kilometer long Great Barrier Reef. The reef creatures, which have been coping with higher temperatures and bleaching for two hundred million years, will hopefully avoid the moving parts. Marine life adapts to heatwaves by chucking out the symbionts that don't thrive in higher temperatures and replacing them up new inhabitants that do.
If the fans achieve anything, it may stop this natural process (called Symbiont Shuffling) thus possibly making small sections of the reef more vulnerable to future heatwaves and El Ninos. Who knows?
Mark this one up as a pagan symbolic idol that symbolizes our grandiose delusions of weather-control.

Snow filled roads Wednesday in Valdez, Alaska.
Perhaps you'd wonder if you were still watching a movie.
Well that's kind of what happened Wednesday at Alaska's Thompson Pass, just outside of the town of Valdez, when an incredible 10 inches of snow piled up in one hour — around 1.7 inches every 10 minutes. This is an absolutely incredible snowfall rate.
The furious storm dropped another 5 inches in 30 minutes, for a remarkable 15 inches in a brief hour and a half period. In the end, 40 inches of heavy wet snow accumulated in 12 hours.
The Thompson Pass storm ranks among the most intense snowfalls that we know of, according to a quick analysis by Weather Underground's weather historian, Christopher Burt.

Three hunters caught a 17-foot, 132-pound Burmese python in the Florida Everglades in southern Miami-Dade, a record for the program aimed at curbing the proliferation of the non-native species.
The giant snake was caught Friday at Big Cypress National Preserve, according to NBC 6 Miami.
"That snake could pretty much kill any full-grown man," said one of the hunters who caught the python, Jason Leon, to NBC 6. "If that snake was alive right now, it would probably take like three of us to be able to control that snake."
It's so far the largest snake to be caught under the South Florida Water Management District's python elimination program.

The Thomas Fire reaches the 101 Freeway north of Ventura Wednesday evening.
The map below shows active fires as of noon, Dec. 6.
If you look at the statistics below, they show a mere seven California fires that burned more than 300 acres when totaling December numbers from 2000 to 2015. The second lowest months were January and February with 11 such wildfires.
Comment: See also: 'Out of control' Southern California wildfire explodes as growing blazes force 27,000 to flee
Nearly 200,000 people have been told to evacuate the California wildfires. The Thomas fire has burned at least 90,000 acres. The Creek fire has burned at least 12,600 acres and the Rye fire destroyed at least 7,000 acres. The Skirball fire covered 475 acres as of Wednesday evening. So far the Thomas fire has destroyed at least 150 structures and the Creek fire has destroyed at least 30 structures.
More than 1,800 firefighters have battled the erratic Thomas fire, which is just 5% contained, according to the latest update by Cal Fire. The Creek fire is also 5% contained and the Skirball fire is 10% contained. Little Mountain Fire is now 100% contained.
This youtube video shows drivers heading down the 405 freeway, where they met giant flames from the several fires burning in Southern California.
Here's a downright scary look at what California drivers were faced with driving to work:
Keep in mind that right now is the 'wet season' in California, which is why December wildfires are so rare, yet no rain has arrived.












Comment: Here's how rare it is to have large California wildfires burning in December