Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Earthquake with Magnitude of 6.0 Hits Off Coast of Honshu, Japan

A powerful 6.0-magnitude tremor has stuck near the eastern coast of Japan's Honshu Island.

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The US Geological Survey website says the earthquake occurred at 10:12 am GMT on Saturday at a depth of 38.9km, 160km east of the city of Morioka. There have been no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The latest tremor comes along the series of aftershocks that followed the March 11 mega earthquake and ensuing tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast.

Cloud Lightning

US: Reported tornado hits St. Louis, Missouri airport

Heavy winds from a severe storm caused significant damage, shattered windows and sent debris raining down on passengers at an airport in St. Louis Friday night.


The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is closed indefinitely while officials investigate the damage, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told reporters.

"There was a reported sighting of a tornado. Although that has not been confirmed, that storm caused significant damage to the airport," he said.

Bizarro Earth

US: Shark deaths in Redwood City, California spur search for cause

leopard shark
© Lance Iversen / The ChronicleA dying leopard shark thrashes around in a Redwood Shores slough. At least a dozen such sharks have been found.

At least a dozen leopard sharks have been found dead or dying within the past several days in bayfront lagoons in Redwood City, putting local researchers on alert for some kind of infection or toxic discharge in San Francisco Bay.

The deaths, including both juvenile and adult sharks, appear isolated and far less serious than previous die-offs in 2006 and 2007, which left shark carcasses strewn all over the bay, officials said. Shark experts fear there may be more of the strikingly patterned creatures floundering in Bay Area waterways and succumbing to pollution and disease.

"In the last decade, we've seen an increase in the animals trapped in culverts and pumps that used to be tidal canals or poisoned by periodic pollution events," said Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz group that tracks sharks in Monterey and San Francisco bays.

Bizarro Earth

Solomon Islands - Earthquake Magnitude 6.9

Solomon Quake_230411
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 04:16:55 UTC

Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 03:16:55 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
10.349°S, 161.233°E

Depth:
81.6 km (50.7 miles)

Region:
SOLOMON ISLANDS

Distances:
76 km (47 miles) W of Kira Kira, San Cristobal, Solomon Isl.

173 km (107 miles) SE of HONIARA, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

184 km (114 miles) SSE of Auki, Malaita, Solomon Islands

2084 km (1294 miles) NNE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Bizarro Earth

US: 15 dead sharks wash ashore in Manatee County, Florida

dead sharks
© Photo/Anna Maria Island SunThree of the sharks found dead on Manatee County beaches.

A mystery is brewing on Manatee County's beautiful beaches -- researchers are trying to figure out why sharks are washing ashore dead.

Recently more than a dozen dead sharks were found on the north ends of Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island.

"There were no real indicators of what went wrong with them," Dr. Nick Whitney, Staff Scientist for the Center for Shark Research at MOTE Marine Laboratory said. "There are no obvious signs of damage from fishing or net damage or anything like that."

Cloud Lightning

US: Storms hit St. Louis airport, injuries reported

A vicious storm that included a possible tornado ripped through the St. Louis area on Friday night, closing down the city's airport where flying glass and blowing debris reportedly caused several injuries.

"We've had several reports of damage," said National Weather Service meteorologist Ben Miller. "We know the airport is closed. We're assuming that (a tornado) is what it was."

Video of the Lambert Airport in St. Louis shown on the Weather Channel showed an airport shuttle bus teetering over the ledge of a parking garage where it apparently was blown.

Flights from Lambert were being diverted to other airports.

Fish

US: Odd Animal Deaths, Deformities Linked to Gulf Oil Spill?

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© AnonymousA red snapper recently caught in the Gulf of Mexico displaying abnormal black markings.
Scientists befuddled by dolphin deaths, diseased fish.

On the first anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, scientists are observing strange deaths and deformities in animals that could be related to the disaster, experts say.

In the past six months, the numbers of dolphin and sea turtle deaths in the Gulf of Mexico (map) have risen, and some fish that inhabit the Gulf's coral reefs have developed abnormalities.

Yet projects to document and measure the oil's effects on Gulf marine life are still in the very early stages, scientists caution. Preliminary results may not be available for months, and it may be several years before any kind of scientific consensus is reached.

Such uncertainty is not unusual for oil-spill studies, noted William Patterson, a marine biologist at the University of West Florida (UWF) in Pensacola.

"If you look at the literature surrounding the Exxon Valdez oil spill [in 1989], there are still some unknowns associated with that," Patterson said.

Bizarro Earth

Europe Prays for Easter Rain in Worst Drought for a Century

Draught_1
© Yahoo NewsA farmer works on a field in his tractor.

The Dutch have banned barbecues, camp fires and outdoor smoking this Easter, while the Swiss are forecasting potentially the worst drought in Europe for more than a century.

Either way, prayers in Europe this Easter holiday weekend are as likely to call for rain as anything else -- with serious fears over the wheat harvest, its impact on already sky-high global food prices and, of course, devastating brush fires.

A year ago, it was Russia that bore the brunt of global warming, and with the price of benchmark wheat futures jumping by more than a fifth since the spring in the global market hub of Chicago, farmers everywhere are busy scanning the skies for soothing signs.

Traditional Easter fairs in the east and the north of the Netherlands have been cancelled because of the risk of fires posed by the extraordinarily dry weather affecting northern Europe, Dutch news agency ANP said.

In the eastern half of the country, one of Europe's biggest traders, outdoor family barbecues, smoking and camp fires are a strict no-no.

Alarm Clock

Earth opening up: Video of ground shifting during 3.7 earthquake in Japan April 10


Alarm Clock

Google Earth maps show populations at risk near nuclear plants

In a novel use of existing technology and data, Nature News in conjunction with Columbia University, has created a Google Earth map that shows the different population sizes surrounding nuclear power plants; ostensibly, to demonstrate the danger threshold of other plants worldwide, compared to the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

nuclear plant risks
© UnknownGoogle Earth maps show populations at risk near nuclear plants
Working with the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) database run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to pinpoint the location and size of nuclear plants, both existing and under construction, and Columbia University's NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, which runs the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, to nail down accurate population numbers, the team was able to put together a Google Earth map that very clearly shows, via colored circles, population density around nuclear facilities.

Because Google Earth maps render the globe in a 3-D like image, it's easy to skim around and very quickly get a feeling for where the dangers lie. For example, the United States, Europe (including Russia and former members of the USSR), India and China quite obviously have the bulk of nuclear plants, while the entire continents of Africa and South America have just one each, and Australia has none.

Comment: It's a telling sign that the article ends on a dismissive tone regarding the safety of human beings. This small piece of knowledge will, perhaps, allow some of those who are awake and paying attention to make choices that will protect them and their loved ones, just as those who were awake and paying attention left the Gulf Coast early on after the oil spill.