Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Massive Oil Spill Moves Toward Nigerian Coast

Musikilu Mojeed and Leslie Kaufman
New York Times
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:15 UTC
oil spill, nigeria
© SkyTruthEnvisat ASAR image analyzed by SkyTruth - data courtesy European Space Agency

Lagos - An oil slick roughly 350 square miles in size from a Royal Dutch Shell platform is slowly making its way toward the southern Nigerian coast, threatening wildlife and widespread shore pollution, Nigerian officials said Thursday.

Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that the deepwater spill occurred on Tuesday during what the company called a "routine transfer" of crude from a floating storage device in the Bonga oil fields 75 miles offshore to a tanker; a leak in one of the transfer lines caused the spill.

The company said that at most about 40,000 barrels had been lost, which would be less than one percent of the oil thought to have spurted from the well beneath the Deepwater Horizon during the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010. The company also said that 50 percent of the oil had already evaporated into the air or been dispersed by wave action.
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Bizarro Earth

Pakistan: Earthquake Magnitude 5.0 Near Jacobabad


US Geological Survey
Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:12 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Friday, December 23, 2011 at 12:02:06 UTC

Friday, December 23, 2011 at 05:02:06 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
28.933°N, 68.332°E

Depth:
34 km (21.1 miles)

Region:
PAKISTAN

Distances:
72 km (44 miles) N of Jacobabad, Pakistan

146 km (90 miles) NNW of Sukkur, Pakistan

170 km (105 miles) E of Kalat, Pakistan

698 km (433 miles) SW of ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
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Bizarro Earth

Series of strong quakes hits New Zealand city still recovering from killer quake


MSNBC
Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:00 UTC
Christchurch - A series of strong earthquakes struck the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Friday, rattling buildings, sending goods tumbling from shelves and prompting terrified holiday shoppers to flee into the streets. There was no tsunami alert issued and the city appeared to have been spared major damage.

Initial reports said one person was injured at a city mall and was taken to a hospital, and four people had to be rescued after being trapped by a rock fall. But there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or widespread damage in the city, which is still recovering from a devastating February earthquake that killed 182 people and destroyed much of the downtown area.

Image
© Stringer/New Zealand/ReutersDust rises from rocks falling from a cliff in the Christchurch suburb of Sumner moments after the earthquake struck.
The first 5.8-magnitude quake struck Friday afternoon, 16 miles (26 kilometers) north of Christchurch and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Minutes later, a 5.3-magnitude aftershock hit. About an hour after that, the city was shaken by another 5.8-magnitude temblor, the U.S.G.S. said, though New Zealand's geological agency GNS Science recorded that aftershock as a magnitude-6.0. Both aftershocks were less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) deep.

Updated: USGS aftershock data here
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Eye 1

Creepy Cloud Formation Hovering Over England


IBTimes
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:52 UTC
A creepy cloud formation was reportedly photographed today hovering over England and users on the social news Web site Reddit began spreading the picture.
cloud
© Photo: Twitter / @slyconWhat is this creepy cloud hovering over England? This sky formation was reportedly photographed on Thursday, Dec. 22.
User "chriswalkerb," from Yorkshire, England, posted the photograph and asked other Redditors: "Creepy cloud hovering over england can anyone explain?" In return, he receieved 712 comments and counting. However, no one had an exact answer.

"As an air mass blows across a mountain range at perpendicular angle to the range, it creates a standing wave, much like a river running over an underwater rock have standing waves. As the air rises, the temperature decreases and the moisture saturates the air to create the standing lenticular cloud. It gets it shape as a cigar, because air descends rapidly on the other side when it loses temperature again (loss of thermal energy in the formation of droplets). So it re-enforces the strength of the wave, making it exponentially stronger rather than weaker (like in a river). Thus you can often see lenticular clouds in formation, up to tens of miles downwind of the mountain range," replied one verbose user.
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Bizarro Earth

Yemen Volcano Erupts in Red Sea


Earth Week
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:04 UTC
A fresh eruption at one of the volcanic islands off Yemen's Red Sea coast began on Dec. 19.

Fishermen report the eruption occurred near Saba, one of the Al-Zubair archipelago's small islands, located about 35 miles west of Yemen's port of As-Salif.

Image
© NASA - MODIS Rapid Response System
Lava was said to be spewing 65 to 100 feet into the air. The fishermen said they had never seen an eruption in that area before.
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Snowflake

US: Rescuers dig out Texas family buried in snow

Susan Montoya Bryan
Associated Press
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:00 UTC
Image
© New Mexico Search And RescueRescuers on Wednesday pulled a Texas family from an SUV that had been buried in a snowdrift on a rural New Mexico highway for nearly two days. State police said rescuers had to dig through 4 feet of ice and snow to free the Higgins family, whose red GMC Yukon got stuck on U.S. 56 near Springer when a blizzard moved through the area Monday.
Albuquerque - Rescuers on Wednesday pulled a Texas family from an SUV that had been buried in a snowdrift on a rural New Mexico highway for nearly two days.

State police said rescuers had to dig through 4 feet of ice and snow to free the Higgins family, whose red GMC Yukon got stuck on U.S. 56 near Springer when a blizzard moved through the area Monday.

Rescuers found David and Yvonne Higgins and their 5-year-old daughter Hannah clinging to each other and lethargic early Wednesday morning. The family is recovering at Miners Colfax Medical Center in Raton.

David Higgins told The Associated Press he and his wife both have pneumonia but his daughter is fine. He said he was glad to be able to talk about his ordeal because he had feared that he and his family might not be found.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Strong winds start to pick up across Southern California


MSNBC
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:46 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesHigh winds cause extensive damage in Pasadena.
With a forecast of winds up to 70 mph on Thursday and Friday, drivers and residents across Southern California were on their guard.

Winds knocked over a big rig early Thursday in San Bernardino County below the Cajon Pass, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. No injuries were reported.

While this week's winds could be a serious hazard, they weren't forecast to approach the magnitude of a storm on Nov. 30 that spawned gusts approaching 100 mph. In that storm, trees were toppled, power poles snapped, homes were damaged and electricity was cut to nearly 650,000 homes and businesses.

This time around, northeast winds could reach 65 mph in many mountain areas and 40 mph in the valleys, the National Weather Service warned.

High-wind warnings were in effect from 1 a.m. PT Thursday to 1 p.m. PT Friday in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, it said.

Isolated gusts greater than 70 mph were possible below the Cajon and Banning passes in the Santa Ana Mountains, the weather service added.

"The winds will make driving difficult, especially for motorists with high profile vehicles. ... Watch for broken tree limbs and downed power lines," it said.

Southern California Edison on Wednesday night alerted customers to take precautions because of powerful winds that are expected to blow across Southern California, the LA Times reported.

In the Pasadena area, one of the hardest hit by the November storm, crews are still clearing debris. "Work crews are working in 12-hour shifts," said city spokeswoman Ann Erdman. "They continue, night and day, to get the debris picked up. ... We have a ways to go."
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Nuke

Nuke Expert/MD: Japan Government Was Lying Through its Teeth About Fukushima... and Probably Still Is


ENE News
Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:35 UTC
Japanese child being screened for radiation.
© n/aJapanese child being screened for radiation.
CMAJ: Public Health Fallout from Japanese Quake, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 21, 2011:

A "culture of cover up" and inadequate cleanup efforts have combined to leave Japanese people exposed to "unconscionable" health risks nine months after last year's meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, health experts say. Although the Japanese government has declared the plant virtually stable, some experts are calling for evacuation of people from a wider area, which they say is contaminated with radioactive fallout.

They're also calling for the Japanese government to reinstate internationally-approved radiation exposure limits for members of the public and are slagging government officials for "extreme lack of transparent, timely and comprehensive communication."

But temperatures inside the Fukushima power station's three melted cores have achieved a "cold shutdown condition," while the release of radioactive materials is "under control," according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That means government may soon allow some of the more than 100,000 evacuees from the area around the plant to return to their homes. They were evacuated from the region after it was struck with an 8.9magnitude earthquake and a tsunami last March 11.
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Nuke

Japan Predicts 40 Years for Nuke Plant Cleanup


CBS News
Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:08 UTC
The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi
© GettyThe crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is seen through a bus window in Okuma on November 12, 2011.
Tokyo - Japan's government said Wednesday that it could take 40 years to clean up and fully decommission a nuclear plant that went into meltdown after it was struck by a huge tsunami.

Nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono suggested that the timetable was ambitious, acknowledging that decommissioning three reactors with severely melted fuel plus spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was an "unprecedented project," and that the process was not "totally foreseeable."

"But we must do it even though we may face difficulties along the way," Hosono told a news conference.

Under a detailed roadmap approved earlier Wednesday following consultation with experts and nuclear regulators, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start removing spent fuel rods within two to three years from their pools located on the top floor of each of their reactor buildings.
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X

New England, US: Flu is blamed for mysterious seal deaths

Kay Lazar
The Boston Globe
Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:50 UTC
Image
© New England AquariumDead harbor seals were seen on New Hampshire beaches earlier this year.
A flu virus similar to one found in birds but not previously detected in harbor seals was the cause of five of 162 recent deaths of the marine animals off the New England coast, federal and state officials said yesterday.

The influenza virus, known as H3N8, appears to have a low risk for transmission to humans, they said. But officials are urging the public to be cautious about approaching stranded seals to reduce the potential risk of spreading the infection to people or their unleashed dogs.

"Influenza that poses a risk to people are human strains of influenza. . . . but there have been documented cases in people of transmission from other species,'' said Dr. Catherine M. Brown, public health veterinarian for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Other viruses that caused global disease outbreaks in years past, such as avian and swine flu, jumped from birds and pigs to humans, usually through the animals' caretakers, Brown said. She said there has been an increasing number of instances in the past decade of flu viruses jumping from one species to another.
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