Earth ChangesS


Fish

US: Viewer shocked at dead sea life along gulf coast

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Its been a little more than a year since the gulf oil spill..and but signs are still showing. Karen Johnson paid a visit to some beaches in Mississippi, and she was shocked at what she saw.

She says she saw all types of dead sea life, everything from dolphins..fish..turtles..near the shoreline.

She says some of the creatures were rotting and had been there for days.

She wants to know what's in the water..and hope someone tests the water soon so people are aware of what they are swimming in

Cloud Lightning

US: Mile Wide Wedge Tornado Going Through Downtown Birmingham Alabama

Spotters reporting EF4-EF5 type damage, so you may be looking at entire neighborhoods completely destroyed and some lives lost. If people took their precautions, they should survive but will have injuries. A tornado of this size and strength will destroy everything in its path.


Cloud Lightning

US: More severe storms to hit North Georgia Wednesday night

storm damage
© John Spink, jspink@ajc.comPower crews were out dealing with numerous outages caused by downed trees and power lines like this one at Marietta Road and Spring Avenue in Atlanta that hampered truck traffic trying to make deliveries to nearby businesses.
A new round of severe weather is expected to hit north Georgia Wednesday night after storms left a trail of widespread damage in northwest Georgia and killed five people in Alabama.

The National Weather Service says the next storm system should begin to approach the northwest Georgia border around 6 p.m.

Extensive wind damage was reported in Floyd, Gordon, Haralson and Dade counties, including damage on the campuses of Berry College and Shorter University near Rome.

Bizarro Earth

King Crabs Invade Antarctica

king crab
© University of Alabama at BirminghamIt's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.

"They are coming from the deep, somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000 feet down," said James McClintock, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology.

Shell-crushing crabs haven't been in Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, for hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of years, McClintock said. "They have trouble regulating magnesium ions in their body fluids and get kind of drunk at low temperatures."

But something has changed, and these crustaceans are poised to move by the droves up the slope and onto the shelf that surrounds Antarctica. McClintock and other marine researchers interested in the continent are sounding alarms because the vulnerable ecosystem could be wiped out, he said.

Bizarro Earth

Chile: Dark ash plume at Planchón-Peteroa

Planchón-Peteroa volcano
A webcam capture from Planchón-Peteroa in Chile, as seen at 4:29 PM (local time) on April 26, 2011.
Eruptions reader Gitta noted a fairly impressive ash plume at Chile's Planchón-Peteroa - at least seen on the webcam. The plume isn't especially tall (see below), at least not from the vantage point of the webcam, but it is rather dark and grey in complexion, suggesting a lot of fractured rock or new magma in the plume itself.

Planchón-Peteroa has been producing intermittent plumes for the past year or so, some as high as 4.6 km / 15,000 feet, but nothing in the way of a large eruption, which the volcano is definitely capable (see the VEI 4 eruption of 1762).

The activity has been fairly low as of late, with no SERNAGEOMIN update (spanish) on the volcano since last October. This current plume is likely just more of the same from Planchón-Peteroa, but at least today, the viewing is very nice to see the activity at the remote Chilean volcano.

Bizarro Earth

Ecuador: Residents evacuate as volcano spews ashes

Tungurahua volcano
© AFP/Getty ImagesAn explosion of Tungurahua volcano can be seen from Guadalupe observatory in Tungurahua province, Ecuador, Tuesday
Authorities in Ecuador closed schools and evacuated residents in areas near a volcano Tuesday after ashes spewing from its crater fell on homes and farms, state media reported.

Ashes from Tungurahua -- which means "throat of fire" in the native Quechua language -- rose more than 7 kilometers (4 miles) into the air Tuesday, the government news agency said.

Authorities issued an alert as monitors detected six eruptions, ranging from moderate to large, and a significant ash cloud Tuesday, state media said.

No Entry

US: Rain-swollen rivers threaten Midwest, force evacuation in Missouri town

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© Richard Rasmussen/The Sentinel-Record/Associated PressA resident of Garland County, Ark., looked for his cellphone yesterday in the remains of his home after a tornado hit the area.
A powerful storm system that spawned a deadly tornado in Arkansas caused rivers to swell yesterday across the Midwest, straining levees that protect thousands of homes and forcing panicked residents of one town to flee for higher ground.

Six inches of rain fell Monday in the southeastern Missouri community of Poplar Bluff, bringing the four-day total to 15 inches. The deluge caused the Black River to pour over a levee in 30 places and to break through in one spot, and about 1,000 homes were evacuated. Deputy Police Chief Jeff Rolland said it was a "miracle'' that the levee held until late morning.

The levee extends from Poplar Bluff to the town of Qulan downstream, in a sparsely populated area. Butler County Sheriff Mark Dodd said water pouring through a breach between the two towns was unlikely to make it far enough upstream to threaten Poplar Bluff, a town of 17,000 residents south of St. Louis.

Flooding in 2008 damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes in Poplar Bluff, raising questions about whether the levee was capable of protecting the town during times of heavy rainfall.

Radar

5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Residents Of Central Indonesia

An earthquake sent residents fleeing in central Indonesia.

An earthquake that hit waters off Indonesia's main island of Java sent panicked residents fleeing from their homes and office buildings.

No tsunami warning was issued, and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 and hit 88 miles south of Cirebon city.

It was centered nearly 50 miles beneath the ocean floor.

El Shinta radio reported the temblor triggered widespread panic in the nearby town of Garut.

Indonesia is on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Bizarro Earth

Taal volcano heats up, gets ready to rumble

taal,volcano
© Jason Gutierrez / AFP - Getty Images file
San Pedro, Laguna - The water temperature in the main crater of Taal volcano increased over the weekend, a sign that the volcano may be about to erupt.

Volcanologists raised alert level 2 over Taal early this month.

A bulletin released by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the temperature of crater waters rose from 30.5 degrees Celsius to 31.5 degrees Celsius over the weekend.

Nuke

The Nuclear Disaster That Could Destroy Japan ... and the World

japan earthquake
© n/a
Translated by Doug Lummis

The nuclear power plants in Japan are ageing rapidly; like cyborgs, they are barely kept in operation by a continuous replacement of parts. And now that Japan has entered a period of earthquake activity and a major accident could happen at any time, the people live in constant state of anxiety.

Seismologists and geologists agree that, after some fifty years of seismic inactivity, with the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake), the country has entered a period of seismic activity. In 2004, the Chuetsu Earthquake hit Niigata Prefecture, doing damage to the village of Yamakoshi. Three years later, in 2007, the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake severely damaged the nuclear reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. In 2008, there was an earthquake in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures, causing a whole mountain to disappear completely. Then in 2009 the Hamaoka nuclear plant was put in a state of emergency by the Suruga Bay Earthquake. And now, in 2011, we have the 3/11 earthquake offshore from the northeast coast. But the period of seismic activity is expected to continue for decades. From the perspective of seismology, a space of 10 or 15 years is but a moment in time.