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Bizarro Earth

The Giant, Underestimated Earthquake Threat to North America

Jerry Thompson
Discover Magazine
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:30 UTC
Just over one year ago, a magnitude-9 earthquake hit the Tohoku region of northeastern Japan, triggering one of the most destructive tsunamis in a thousand years. The Japanese - the most earthquake-prepared, seismically savvy people on the planet - were caught off-guard by the Tohoku quake's savage power. Over 15,000 people died.

Now scientists are calling attention to a dangerous area on the opposite side of the Ring of Fire, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a fault that runs parallel to the Pacific coast of North America, from northern California to Vancouver Island. This tectonic time bomb is alarmingly similar to Tohoku, capable of generating a megathrust earthquake at or above magnitude 9, and about as close to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver as the Tohoku fault is to Japan's coast. Decades of geological sleuthing recently established that although it appears quiet, this fault has ripped open again and again, sending vast earthquakes throughout the Pacific Northwest and tsunamis that reach across the Pacific.

What happened in Japan will probably happen in North America. The big question is when.
Image
© Brian Atwate/USGS
The "ghost forest" of dead cedar trees at the Copalis River on the Washington coast is evidence of a major quake three centuries ago.
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Cloud Lightning

NASA sees double tropical trouble in northern Australia


PhysOrg.com
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:11 UTC
When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over northern Australia on March 12 at 1711 UTC and March 13 at 0539 UTC it captured the two tropical disturbances close enough to appear on one image. Tropical Cyclone Lau appears on the left side of both days of satellite imagery, while System 96P appears on the right side of the images. Lua is located in the Southern Indian Ocean, while System 96P is in the Southern Pacific Ocean. Both systems seemed to grow closer over the two days and both are affecting coastal areas in northern Australia on March 13.

Aqua captured an infrared image of both storms' cloud top temperatures using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. AIRS data showed that the coldest cloud top temperatures were colder than -63F/-52.7C around the center of circulation in both systems.
Image
© NASA/JPL, Ed Olsen
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Bizarro Earth

Japan's Sakurajima volcano experiences its most violent eruption in 3 years


Telegraph.co.uk/video
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:01 UTC
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Attention

Nitrogen Contamination Found in California Water


MyHealthNewsDaily
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:27 UTC
Californian Farm
© Shutterstock
California farm.

One in 10 people living in a productive agricultural area of central California is at risk for nitrate contamination in their drinking water, according to a new report.

The report detailed the levels and of sources of nitrate contamination in the Tulare Lake Basin, which includes Fresno and Bakersfield, and the Salinas Valley.

Nitrogen in organic and synthetic fertilizers has dramatically increased crop production in California in recent decades. However, excess nitrate in groundwater has been linked to thyroid illnesses, reproductive problems and some cancers. The contamination seen now has likely been accumulating for decades and could pose a risk for years to come, the report said.

In the new report, researchers from the University of California, Davis examined data from wastewater treatment plants, septic systems, parks, lawns, golf courses, and farms, and from samples from more than 17,000 wells in the region.

The report found that 10 percent of the 2.6 million people in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley rely on groundwater that may have more nitrate than the standard of 45 milligrams per liter set by the California Department of Public Health for public water systems. About 34,000 people in the region use water from private wells or largely unregulated water systems, the report said.
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Cloud Lightning

Louisiana: 15 inches of rain in five hours


MSNBC
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:20 UTC

States of emergency were in force Tuesday in four Louisiana parishes after torrential rain left homes and roads under several feet of water. Hundreds fled their homes and dozens of motorists had to be rescued.

Flooding closed the major highway through St. Landry Parish, and many roads across the four parishes remained closed on Tuesday.

"In my 28 years in law enforcement I have never seen the interstate closed," St. Landry Sheriff's Capt. Jimmy Darbonne told weather.com.

Dozens of homes in Carencro, a town in Lafayette Parish, were evacuated on Monday when some 15 inches of rain fell within five hours.

"We had up to 7 feet of water on some streets," said Capt. Kip Judice, the local sheriff's spokesman. "We had no deaths or injuries but a lot of near calls."
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Magnify

Study Shows: Monsanto's Roundup Ravaging Butterfly Populations

Mike Barrett
Truthout
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:07 UTC
Image
© Arturo / Flickr
Monsanto's Roundup, containing the active ingredient glyphosate, has been tied to more health and environmental problems than you could imagine. Similar to how pesticides have been contributing to the bee decline, Monsanto's Roundup has been tied to the decrease in the population of monarch butterflies by killing the very plants that the butterflies rely on for habitat and food. What's been shown to be an even greater threat to the population, though, is Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn and soybeans.
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Nuke

Fukushima's Dangerous Myths

Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman
Counterpunch
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:35 UTC
Fukushima
© AP/Tokyo Electric Power Co. via Kyodo News
Exposing the "No Harm" Mantra

The myth that Fukushima radiation levels were too low to harm humans persists, a year after the meltdown. A March 2, 2012 New York Times article quoted Vanderbilt University professor John Boice: "there's no opportunity for conducting epidemiological studies that have any chance for success - the doses are just too low." Wolfgang Weiss of the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation also recently said doses observed in screening of Japanese people "are very low."

Views like these are political, not scientific, virtually identical to what the nuclear industry cheerleaders claim. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesperson Tony Pietrangelo issued a statement in June that "no health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima."

In their haste to choke off all consideration of harm from Fukushima radiation, nuclear plant owners and their willing dupes in the scientific community built a castle against invaders - those open-minded researchers who would first conduct objective research BEFORE rushing to judgment. The pro-nuclear chants of "no harm" and "no studies needed" are intended to be permanent, as part of damage control created by a dangerous technology that has produced yet another catastrophe.

But just one year after Fukushima, the "no harm" mantra is now being crowded by evidence - evidence to the contrary.
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Compass

Earthquake Enigma: Can Science Really Predict Disaster?


RT.com
Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:31 UTC
Seismic intensity map of Tohoku earthquake
© n/a
Seismic intensity map of Tohoku earthquake, March 3, 2011
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the subsequent tsunami that devastated Japan's east coast exactly one year ago were not supposed to happen. At least if seismic hazard maps are not cheating. But can modern science really predict such disasters?

­As Joel Achenbach noted quite rightly in his Washington Post article, Earth paid no heed to scientific orthodoxy. And while geologists were theorizing, a massive slab of our planet's crust moved 55 meters (180 feet) eastwards. It lifted the ocean bed almost 5 meters up (15 feet), and that brought all the might of the waters of the Pacific upon Japan's eastern coast.

The Tohoku area of Japan's main island of Honshu suffered the most. The quake and the tsunami killed about 20,000 people and wiped out entire towns in several coastal prefectures. And yet no other consequence of this natural catastrophe inflicted so much horror around the world as the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

When the tsunami hit the Tohoku area, the destruction it caused led to wide-scale power outages. The latter caused failure of cooling systems of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and, eventually, a meltdown of the radioactive fuel inside the plant's nuclear reactors.­
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Meteor

Meteor Strike Hazard: All US Nuclear Plants Facing Upgrades

John Murawski
newsobserver.com
Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:16 UTC
Image

Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, as seen from space
Progress Energy's chief nuclear officer announced this week that every U.S. nuclear plant will add an extra layer of emergency equipment this year to deal with unforeseen natural disasters - such as earthquakes, tornadoes and even meteor strikes.

The announcement comes just ahead of the one-year anniversary of Japan's Fukushima disaster.

But nuclear watchdogs immediately expressed skepticism that the industry effort would do much good. Critics warned instead that unless the new machinery and equipment were safeguarded, the costly upgrades would likely be disabled by the same catastrophe if it obliterated a nuclear plant's primary emergency equipment.

Jim Scarola, Progress Energy's chief nuclear officer, said Friday that nuclear plants in this country will be adding pumps, generators and other safety equipment to deal with a total loss of onsite power, which led to Japan's nuclear crisis.

Comment: "Even a meteor strike", eh?

Maybe they are taking note of the incredible number of fireballs entering the atmosphere:

9 March: Fireball Spotted Over North Georgia

4 March: Meteor Shower Dazzles Victorians Lucky Enough to See It

4 March: Thousands Witness Spectacular Fireball Streak Over UK

2 March: Fireball seen from southern Norway and Sweden

2 March: Green Fireball Seen All Over Southeastern Canada

1 March: Green Object Reported in the Sky Over Newfoundland

29 February: What Was The Bright Flash In The Sky Tuesday Night?

22 February: "Huge fireball" streaks through Edmonton sky

22 February: Meteor Rain in China

14 February: Exploding UFO Wakes Thousands in South Carolina

12 February: Exploding Fireball recorded over Okayama, Japan

5 February: Fireball with huge tail seen over Western Australia

5 February: Fireball Photographed Over Corfu, Greece

4 February: East coast of US lights up as another enormous fireball streaks through sky

2 February: Huge Fireball Over Tokyo, 2 February 2012

1 February: Wednesday night's Texas meteor so bright it was seen in Kansas

1 February: Halifax 'fireball' probably a meteor

British nuclear plants are also being upgraded against anticipated effects of 'climate change':
UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding, report shows
The Guardian
Wednesday 7 March 2012

As many as 12 of Britain's 19 civil nuclear sites are at risk of flooding and coastal erosion because of climate change, according to an unpublished government analysis obtained by the Guardian.


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Bizarro Earth

Rare Tornado Touches Down on Oahu


MSNBC
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:00 UTC
Tornado Damage
© Craig T. Kojima / staradvertiser.com
A home in Lanikai was severely damaged by a waterspout that came ashore in Oahu on Friday, March 9. The front and back of home was damaged.
A rare tornado blew roofs off homes and left other damage in its path through the Hawaiian communities of Lanikai and Enchanted Lake on Oahu, weather officials confirmed Friday.

A National Weather Service team surveying damage and talking to witnesses determined a waterspout came ashore and was reclassified as a tornado in Lanikai about 7:30 a.m. The 20-yard-wide tornado traveled about 1.5 miles in 15 minutes to Enchanted Lake with wind speeds reaching 60 to 70 mph before dissipating, officials said.

Hawaii, known for its famous sunshine, has been hit with unusually harsh weather for about a week.

A 30-minute hail storm on Friday in Oahu was "unprecedented ," Tom Birchard, senior meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, told the Associated Press. Some of the hail stones have been unusually large for the islands -- the size of marbles and discs more than a half inch long, weather.com reported.
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