Royal Dutch Shell said it is responding to a 10-mile oil sheen spotted near its platforms in the Gulf of Mexico about 130 miles from New Orleans.
Shell said the sheen is about a mile wide and 10 miles long and is between its Mars and Ursa drilling platforms in the middle of the gulf, CNNMoney reported Thursday.
Shell said Wednesday it reported the oil sheen to the National Response Center and activated an oil spill response vessel.
The company said it had "no current indication that the sheen originates from wells in either the Mars or Ursa projects."
Earth Changes
© USGS
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 07:15:48 UTC
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 12:15:48 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
28.790°N, 113.142°W
Depth:
10.3 km (6.4 miles)
Region:
GULF OF CALIFORNIA
Distances:
133 km (82 miles) NE of Guerrero Negro, Baja Calif. Sur, Mexico
179 km (111 miles) NNW of Santa Rosalia, Baja Calif. Sur, Mexico
215 km (133 miles) W of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
526 km (326 miles) SSW of PHOENIX, Arizona
Epicenter of earthquake off the coast of northern Sumatra.
The quake struck about 434 kilometers (270 miles) southwest of Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, and had a magnitude of 8.6, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It took place at a depth of 23 kilometers (14 miles).
A second large quake, with a magnitude of 8.2, occurred off the west coast of Sumatra about two hours later, the USGS said.
Gary Gibson from the Seismology Research Center in Melbourne, Australia, said the location of the second quake reduced the possibility of a tsunami.
There was also a series of smaller quakes off the west coast of northern Sumatra with magnitudes between 5.1 and 5.4.
There were no reports of destruction or deaths.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on local television that there were no reports of casualties or damage in Aceh.
Four people were slightly injured on Simeulue Island, off the coast of Aceh, the National Disaster Management Agency said Wednesday.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch for the entire Indian Ocean. And a few hours later, the center announced the tsunami watch was canceled.
"A significant tsunami was generated by this earthquake. However, sea level readings now indicate that the threat has diminished or is over for most areas," the center said.
- Thunderstorms, lightning and hail predicted for parts of Britain
- Snow forecast across Midlands, North and Scotland this week
- Another two weeks of wet weather for the rest of the country
Unsettled: Forecasters say there is a chance of funnel clouds forming over the next few days which can turn into tornadoes when they touch the ground, like this one in Coventry in 2005
Much-needed rain is set to fall across the whole country today, but could develop into thunderstorms, lightning and hail in some parts.
Cold winds passing over hot air rising from the ground is causing the unsettled weather that is going to last until after the weekend.
Snow has returned to County Durham and forecasts predict many northern areas of the UK will have more from today
The following Channel 4 (UK) documentary captures the dreadful moments when a devastating tsunami washed away a quarter of a million people in the Indian Ocean in December 2004.
© USGS
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 22:55:16 UTC
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 05:55:16 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
18.390°N, 102.652°W
Depth:
65.6 km (40.8 miles)
Region:
MICHOACAN, MEXICO
Distances:
69 km (42 miles) NW of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, Mexico
129 km (80 miles) SSW of Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico
143 km (88 miles) NW of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico
384 km (238 miles) WSW of MEXICO CITY, D.F., Mexico
© Matt Stroshane/Getty Images
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left , and Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut, in front of the Apollo 14 capsule at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Cunningham has signed a letter demanding that NASA stop endorsing global warming.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, left , and Walt Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut, in front of the Apollo 14 capsule at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Cunningham has signed a letter demanding that NASA stop endorsing global warming.
Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency "refrain from including unproven remarks" supporting global warming in the media.
"We feel that NASA's advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a
thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate
drivers is inappropriate," they wrote. "At risk is damage to the
exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA's current or former scientists and
employees, and even the reputation of science itself."
© USGS
The red star marks where the quake hit.
The red star marks where the quake hit.
However, this earthquake, which struck at 2:38 p.m. local time (4:38 a.m. ET), about 270 miles (435 kilometers) off the coast of the Indonesian island was a different animal altogether than the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people and left millions homeless.
"It was quite a bit smaller," said Julie Dutton, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The 2004 quake was a magnitude 9.1 - the third most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
Perhaps more significantly, today's earthquake was a different kind of quake all together. Instead of occurring at a plate boundary along an area called a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is diving beneath another, this earthquake occurred in the middle of an oceanic plate, where the faults in the crust essentially moved from side to side instead of up and down. These sorts of events are called strike-slip earthquakes.
"With a strike-slip event you don't have the same potential hazard for a tsunami as you do with a subduction event because the plates are moving adjacent to each other," Dutton told OurAmazingPlanet.
© AGS
Many of these earthquakes (magnitude ca. 1.6) occurred near Lake Mead. These are attributed to mining and quarrying, and also to crustal adjustments to water going into and out of the lake. The strongest earthquakes (magnitude ca. 3.6) occurred near Clarkdale in the central part of the state. The Survey says that these events are consistent with past behavior: "a propensity for deeper seismicity to occur in two pockets, the northwestern Utah-Arizona border and well within the Colorado Plateau in the northeast corner of the state" and "the highest concentration of energy release correlates well with the pattern of established Quaternary faulting, indicating that this portion of the crust continues to be an active area of strain release and of particular interest for hazard studies in Arizona." The strain is due to on-going crustal extension.
© USGS
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 08:38:37 UTC
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 02:38:37 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location:
2.311°N, 93.063°E
Depth:
22.9 km (14.2 miles)
Region:
OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA
Distances:
434 km (269 miles) SW of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia
550 km (341 miles) SW of Lhokseumawe, Sumatra, Indonesia
963 km (598 miles) W of KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
1797 km (1116 miles) WNW of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
