Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

New Britian Region: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - Papua New Guinea

PNG Quake_311010
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 16:38:49 UTC

Monday, November 01, 2010 at 02:38:49 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.604°S, 150.241°E

Depth:
5.6 km (3.5 miles)

Region:
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
90 km (55 miles) ESE of Kandrian, New Britain, PNG

115 km (75 miles) S of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

460 km (285 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2325 km (1450 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Bizarro Earth

Pacific: Earthquake Magnitude 6.4 - Antarctic Ridge

Pacific Quake_301010
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 15:18:38 UTC

Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 05:18:38 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
56.767°S, 142.613°W

Depth:
20 km (12.4 miles) set by location program

Region:
PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE

Distances:
3480 km (2160 miles) SE of WELLINGTON, New Zealand

Bizarro Earth

Russia hit by another natural disaster

Volcano eruption
© Press TV
The eruption of two volcanoes in the region of Kamchatka in eastern Russia has blanketed the town of Ust-Kamchatsk in ash.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Eurasia's highest active volcano which stands 4,750 meters (15,584 feet) high, started to spew ash on Ust-Kamchatsk on October 22.

Also Sopka Shiveluch began erupting on Thursday spewing ash approximately 6 miles into the air and the streaming down of lava.

More than 5,000 townspeople were forced to stay at home with their windows shut, while all public institutions, schools and businesses remained closed.

Fish

Newly Disclosed Government Documents Conclude GE Salmon Pose A Critical Threat To Marine Environments

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Expert fisheries agencies prohibit growing engineering salmon in open-water net pens under the Endangered Species Act. FDA declined to disclose evidence during September hearings on Aquabounty Salmon.

Adding a new twist to the controversy over genetically engineered (GE) salmon, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) revealed today that, in recent hearings on transgenic fish, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knowingly withheld a Federal Biological Opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) prohibiting the use of transgenic salmon in open-water net pens pursuant to the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).

"This adds further evidence that in fact GE salmon pose a serious threat to marine environments and is another compelling reason for the FDA not to approve the fish for commercial use," said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. "While the FDA applauded the company's choice of land-based containment as responsible, it never revealed that it is illegal in the U.S. to grow genetically engineered salmon in open-water net pens."

The Biological Opinion and supplemental information, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, challenge claims by AquaBounty Technologies, the developer of the GE salmon, that the transgenic fish pose no threat to marine environments. The GE Atlantic salmon under consideration was engineered with growth hormone genes from an unrelated Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and DNA from the anti-freeze genes of an eelpout (Zoarces americanus).

Phoenix

Indonesia's Mount Merapi Volcano Erupts Again

Mount Merapi volcano
© Getty ImagesMount Merapi volcano as seen from Balerante village in Klaten, Indonesia, 29 October Mount Merapi is the most active of Indonesia's volcanoes
Mount Merapi volcano has erupted for a third time, with local people reportedly saying this was louder and stronger than the previous eruption on Tuesday.

The latest eruption happened at around 0100 on Saturday (1800GMT Friday).

Agence France Presse reported that it caused panic, with hundreds of people, including police and soldiers, trying to flee in cars or on motorbikes.

Ash was raining down in Yogyakarta, about 30km (19 miles) away.

Matt Burgess, a photography student from Australia, is in Yogyakarta. He told the BBC: "I was in a nightclub when a friend called to say there was a load of ash. I went outside and saw ash falling like snow."

But authorities say Yogyakarta is safe. The head of the monitoring body has said the risk remains lmited to the 10km zone around the mountain.

Nearer that zone, though, people felt more in danger.

Bizarro Earth

Russia's Kamchatka Volcanoes Calm After Eruptions

Shiveluch Volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula
© AP Photo/RTR, via APTNSmoke rises from the Shiveluch volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula eastern Russia is this image taken from TV Thursday Oct. 28, 2010. Volcanic eruptions on Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula have tossed massive ash clouds into the air, forcing flights to divert and blanketing a town with ashes.
Two volcanoes that erupted on the far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, blanketing a town with dust and spreading ash clouds across the Pacific, have mostly stopped spewing ash and flights are no longer diverted, Russian officials said Friday.

Eurasia's highest active volcano, the Klyuchevskaya Sopka, was pumping out insignificant amounts of dust and the Shiveluch volcano, 45 miles (70 kilometers) northeast, had ceased all activity, the Emergencies Ministry reported on its website.

Ash clouds from the remote volcanoes had billowed up to 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) after they erupted Thursday and had spread east across the Pacific Ocean.

Schools in the vicinity of the volcanoes remained closed Friday due to ash buildup. The powder had coated the nearby town of Ust-Kamchatsk, reducing visibility to only a few feet (meters) and turning buildings ghostly white.

Binoculars

Starving Bears Resort to Digging Up Coffins and Eating Human Bodies in Russia

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© AP PhotoScavengers: Desperate brown bears in Russia have resorted to digging up human bodies in cemeteries and eating them
Starving bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries and eating bodies.

A scorching summer has destroyed the bears' natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, forcing them to look elsewhere.

Russian officials in the republic of Komi, which straddles the Arctic Circle, said that brown bears on several occasions had dug up coffins in rural cemeteries in a desperate search for food.

Two women in Vezhnya Tchova reported spotting the a figure they thought was wearing a fur coat leaning over a grave.

But when they approached, they realized it was a bear eating a human body and discovered the victims' clothes thrown across other graves.

Question

Mystery injury on seals caused by boats not sharks

Image
© UnknownSeals were found washed up with the horrific lacerations around the UK coast.
Seals washed up on the coast of Britain with mysterious 'corkscrew' injuries were not attacked by sharks, whales or fishermen, they were caught up in boats, according to scientists.

The bodies of seals have been washing up around the coast of Britain throughout the summer looking as if they have "been through a giant pencil sharpener".

The horrific injuries were such a concern that the police, scientists, the RSPCA and National Trust launched an investigation to find the culprit.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia Disaster Toll Hits 377 as Volcano Erupts Again

Mount Merapi, Indonesia
© Reuters/Andry PrasetyoMount Merapi is seen emitting smoke from Sidorejo village, in Klaten, Central Java October 28, 2010, two days after its eruption.
Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted on Thursday for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.

There were no immediate reports of new casualties after Merapi's second eruption. More than 40,000 people had fled or been evacuated from Merapi's slopes earlier in the week, but many started to return after the volcano appeared to become calmer.

Officials said the death toll from a tsunami that hit the remote western Mentawai islands on Monday had reached at least 343. The tsunami was triggered on Monday by a 7.5 magnitude quake. A day later, Mount Merapi on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city on Java island erupted, killing at least 34.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Mount Merapi erupts, thousands flee in panic

Mount Merapi
© UnknownMount Merapi erupted three times on Tuesday, emitting searing clouds and volcanic ash
Mount Merapi erupted three times on Tuesday, emitting searing clouds and volcanic ash, a volcanologist said.

Hot ash rained down from the smoke-covered crater, injuring at least 20 people.

"We heard three explosions around 06:00 pm (1100GMT) spewing volcanic material as high as 1.5 kilometres and sending heat clouds down the slopes," government volcanologist Surono told AFP.

Before the latest eruption, people living in the shadow of Indonesia's most active volcano had been warned to evacuate or risk being killed.

Authorities had put an area 10 kilometres around the crater of Mount Merapi on red alert Monday, ordering 19,000 people to flee.

"This eruption is certainly bigger than the 2006 eruption during which the heat clouds occurred for only seven minutes after the eruption," Surono said.