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More mysterious and rare sea creatures washing up along US west coast this summer

Joel Landau
NY Daily News
Thu, 21 Aug 2014 13:22 UTC
Thousands of Velella velella, also known as 'by-the-wind sailors' have been appearing on the beach from Washington to Southern California. The organisms are usually only found in the middle of the ocean, and the phenomenon has drawn a lot of excitement as people have been discovering them for the first time.
Image
© CNN
Thousands of Velella velella sea creatures are washing ashore on beaches along the West Coast this summer.
Thousands of members of a mysterious and rarely seen sea creature have begun popping up on the California shore, creating new attention to the jelly-like species.

Velella velella, a blue sea creature that bears some resemblance of a jellyfish, is about the size of a hand and usually remains in the water. They can be seen washed ashore in this CNN video.

But a shift in the currents and winds have brought thousands of them onto the West Coast this summer, creating an excitement over an animal of the ocean that is usually kept hidden from the public.

Comment: Something strange and worrying is definitely going on, since Velella velella is only one out of many mysterious and rare creatures that were either caught or spotted in the recent times: Creatures from the deep signal major Earth Changes: Is anyone paying attention?

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Bandaid

Minneapolis girl attacked and chased by otter in Wisconsin lake

Andy Rathbun
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:50 UTC
Image
It was a fun time at the lake -- until the otter arrived.

After spending about an hour swimming with friends in Bone Lake near Luck, Wis., on Saturday, Rory Kliewer began to climb a ladder onto a dock when she suddenly felt something bite her backside and thigh.

"I thought it was a northern pike," the 12-year-old Minneapolis girl said Wednesday. "I thought a fish was after me."

As she threw the creature off of her, she realized that the animal was an otter -- later estimated at 3 1/2 feet long and about 40 pounds.

"It was a big, nasty one," said Rory, who had been staying at a friend's family cabin over the weekend.

The otter then bit Rory's head and pulled itself onto her, scratching her face.

Image
© Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi
12-year-old Rory Kliewer shows the scratches on her face and ear Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014, at her home in Minneapolis after being attacked by an otter while swimming Saturday, Aug. 9, at Bone Lake in Polk County, Wis. Kliewer sustained bites, scratches and bruises during the attack.

Comment: There appears to have been a spate of unusually aggressive animal attacks on humans of late including some by species normally thought of as being wary and retiring when encountering people, see also: Giant anteaters kill Brazilian hunters!

Bear attacks kill at least three people with many others injured in Siberia and far-east Russia

Boy and grandmother attacked and injured by river otter on Pilchuck River, Washington

Paddling family of three attacked by a beaver in Austria

400 pound alligator attacks 9-year-old boy, Florida

Crocodile kills fisherman in front of his wife in Northern Territory, Australia

Man mauled by bear in Italian wood

The interested reader might wish to look at the chart below for animal events over the period 2007 to the present, which include reports of not only mass die-offs and strange behaviour but also includes abnormal migrations and gatherings. Note that the number of records this year have already surpassed the 2013 total.



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Attention

Giant sinkhole consumes Indiana couple's backyard


ABC News
Mon, 25 Aug 2014 07:39 UTC
Indiana sinkhole

An Indiana couple's backyard features a sinkhole that's 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep.
An Indiana couple's backyard turned into a huge sinkhole -- and it was unclear over who was responsible to fix it.

The sinkhole in Frank and Letitia Casto's yard used to be about four feet wide and six feet deep. It now measures about 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep.

"It just keeps dropping and swallowing trees, and this is where we are at," Letitia Casto told ABC News station WLS.

The hole was initially filled with rocks and covered with grass, but it kept growing, swallowing up trees.

"We've been complaining to different people for all this time, and everybody just keeps kind of ignoring us," Frank Casto told WLS. "It could have been a little problem, but it's turned into a monster, at this point."

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Fish

Rare creatures left stranded by stormy seas in Queensland, Australia

Jon Coghill and Rob Blackmore
abc.net.au
Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:16 UTC
Image
© Jo Joyce
Jo Joyce photographed this sea snake near Pincushion Island on the Sunshine Coast. It was about 50cm long..
The Sunshine Coast played host to a handful of odd and rare animals after last weekend's deluge. Marine biologist Julian Pepperell was called on to investigate.

Sunshine Coast locals have noticed a plethora of strange creatures washed up on beaches and lost from home.

Red stinky blob

Debbie Higgs of Mt Coolum found a "weird red blob-like creature" on Mudjimba Beach.

"It's 25cms long roughly. It's oval-shaped, frilly and it's got a peculiar pattern down its back. [It was] cold, squishy and had that really gluggy type feeling like a jellyfish. It had vibrant dark red around it in a frill," she said.

"When I found it, it was still pulsing. I didn't want to touch it in case it was poisonous. I've never seen anything like it.

Debbie says she put a photo on twitter and linked it to Instagram and "suddenly all these people started contacting me."

Since, the story has been published worldwide.

"We contacted a museum and we've been told it's a Spanish dancer usually found in Indian waters or off Bali," Debbie said.
Image
© Debbie Higgs
Debbie Higgs found this suspected Spanish Dancer on Mudjimba Beach.

Comment: See also: Australian students discover rare fish dead on beach

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Attention

Persistently high methane concentrations show up over Beaufort Sea in the Arctic


arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk
Tue, 19 Aug 2014 09:18 UTC
Image

High methane concentrations have been showing up over Beaufort Sea over the past few days, as shown on the image above. This follows the recent high methane concentrations over the East Siberian Sea.

The persistent character of these very high methane concentrations over the Arctic Ocean indicates that methane has started to erupt from clathrates under the seabed, triggered by very warm water reaching the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.


Comment: Perhaps the true trigger is seismic activity, which then also warms the water at the bottom of the ocean, see : Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, sinkholes and flooding all in one: Iceland examines Bardarbunga volcano 'cauldrons'


Methane eruptions from hydrates in sediments under the Arctic Ocean helped mean methane levels reach new records, with mean global methane readings as high as 1835 parts per billion recorded at several altitudes on August 17, 2014.

Comment: See also: Hundreds of methane plumes erupting along U.S. Atlantic coast

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Question

Tide that flooded Sagar Island, India in July a mystery

Prithvijit Mitra
The Times of India
Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:30 UTC
Sagar island, india
Are climate change fears coming true in the Sunderbans? An unexpected high tide has left a major portion of Sagar Island flooded, leaving environmentalists worried about its future.

Sea water gushed into the island through Muriganga river on July 14, causing extensive damage to crops and destroying homes. Around 10 villages were affected and they continue to be submerged by the untimely rise in water level, which could have been triggered by a change in climate in the region, fear experts.

It is usually the shara-sharir baan (neap tide) that hits Sunderbans twice a year - in April and September. But it rarely triggers a flood. This sudden influx of water was not neap tide, say locals and experts. It was much fiercer and struck at least two months ahead of the neap tide, they say.

Comment: Climate change may be the answer, yet extremes in weather may not be the best explanation. Strange events are happening in the worlds oceans, such as Major seismic event imminent ? Strange glowing lights seen by pilots over part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and massive aquatic life die off. Geological events such as underwater volcanos or other explanations such as methane explosions and a changing planet may point to a better assessment of what might have caused the unusual and unseasonal tide.

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Sun

Guatemala declares state of calamity in 17 drought-hit regions


Shanghai Daily
Tue, 26 Aug 2014 00:00 UTC
Guatemala drought
© Daniel Leclair/Reuters
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina on Monday declared a state of calamity in 17 of the country's 22 departments, where as many as 200,000 rural and indigenous families whose livelihoods depend solely on farming are said to have been afflicted by a severe drought in those areas and a potential famine.

"At a cabinet meeting this Monday, we signed a governmental decree that declares a State of Calamity in 17 departments as a result of the effects on agriculture of the prolonged drought," the president said in a tweet.

The decree, which requires legislative approval, would allow emergency assistance and humanitarian aid to be delivered to families in the affected regions which have been without rainfall for two months and suffered crop losses.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, sinkholes and flooding all in one: Iceland examines Bardarbunga volcano 'cauldrons'


BBC
Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:09 UTC
barbarbunga cauldrons
Scientists in Iceland say they are examining several 'cauldrons' found near Bardarbunga volcano, which could potentially be a sign of an eruption.

The cauldrons, depressions in the volcano's surface, each between 10-15m (49 ft) deep and 1km (0.6 miles) wide, were seen during a flight on Wednesday.

Iceland's Met Office said they were formed "as a result of melting, possibly a sub-glacial eruption."

Bardarbunga volcano has been hit by several recent tremors.

The area experienced a magnitude 5.7 earthquake on Tuesday. Experts say these earthquakes are caused as magma flows beneath the ground, cracking the rocks as it moves.

The Met Office has kept its aviation warning level - indicating the potential threat of volcanic activity to air travel - at orange, its second-highest.

Comment: Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano: Magma moving towards new volcanic system

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Attention

Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano: Magma moving towards new volcanic system

Rebecca Morelle
BBC News
Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:00 UTC
monitoring volcano

The University of Cambridge is monitoring the area with 70 seismometers
The magma from Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano could be moving towards another large volcanic system.

Data recorded by a team from the University of Cambridge suggests that 50 million cubic metres of molten rock has moved in the last 24 hours.

If it continues on a northern trajectory it could feed into the Askja volcanic system, potentially triggering a large eruption.

Prof Bob White said: "It's headed straight for it."

But he cautioned that volcanoes were hard to predict.

"It's moving at about 4km a day towards Askja, and if it keeps going it will get there in a few days," he told BBC News.

"We know there is a lot of molten rock sitting under the ground beneath Askja, which is a major volcanic system. If this molten rock hits that, we know it is likely to trigger it to erupt.

"But who knows, it may just stop. It is still at 5km-depth, and it is possible it could freeze there and not a lot more will happen. That is perfectly plausible."

Comment: Click Play below to see the volcanic activity around the world map for the month of August. The Ring of Fire is active as well as the "usual suspects" in Europe:



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Attention

Major seismic event imminent? Strange glowing lights seen by pilots over part of the Pacific Ring of Fire

Jonathan O'Callaghan
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 26 Aug 2014 13:06 UTC
Image

Strange lights have been spotted near the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka (image by Dutch pilot JPC van Heijst). The sighting was made by pilots flying from Hong Kong to Alaska. The glow came about 20 minutes after a vertical lightning bolt was seen
* Strange lights have been spotted near the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka

* The sighting was made by pilots flying from Hong Kong to Alaska

* The glow came about 20 minutes after a vertical lightning bolt was seen

* Dutch pilot van Heijst ruled out squid-fishing-boats as the origin

* He says the cause may have been an underwater volcano

* An ongoing investigation is taking place to find out what happened

A pilot and his co-pilot have spotted a mysterious orange and red glow over the Pacific Ocean.

The strange lights were spotted south of the Russian peninsula Kamchatka during the flight of a Boeing 747-8 from Hong Kong to Anchorage, Alaska.

And while no explanation has yet been given, it's thought that they may have originated from the explosion of a huge volcano under the surface of the ocean.

Comment: Note that the pilots saw "an intense flash of light like a lightning bolt, directed vertically up in the distance". While there was no thunderstorm in the area, this does not preclude some form of electrical discharge event, which can and have occurred in virtually cloudless skies. A photo of a 'blue jet', or sprite, was photographed above Australia a few days later.

What could the red blobs be then?

Note that they occurred at the same time as the string of strong earthquakes hit the western side of the Americas (California, Peru, and Chile, on August 24th). So these lights may be another form of 'earthquake lights' that appear with episodes of subterranean stress, pockets of illuminated plasma between charged layers of the atmosphere.

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