Earth ChangesS


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2,000 earthquakes in a day off Canada coast suggest the ocean floor is ripping apart, scientists say

Record earthquake activity off the coast of Vancouver Island hints at the birth of new oceanic crust.
Victoria Harbor on Vancouver Island
© Paul Biris via Getty ImagesVictoria Harbor on Vancouver Island, Canada sits near the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where researchers recently measured nearly 2,000 earthquakes in a single day.

Almost 2,000 earthquakes rocked a spot off the coast of Canada in a single day earlier this month, which could be a sign that new oceanic crust is about to be birthed via a deep sea magmatic rupture.

The quakes aren't any threat to people. They're relatively small and centered on a spot called the Endeavour site, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) off the coast of Vancouver Island. This spot hosts a number of hydrothermal vents and sits on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where the ocean floor is spreading apart. This area is separate from the subduction zone — a region where one tectonic plate is sinking into the mantle underneath another plate — closer to the coast that can create large, destructive earthquakes, said Zoe Krauss, a doctoral candidate in marine geophysics in the University of Washington.

"Mid-ocean ridges aren't actually capable of producing that large of earthquakes, not too far above a magnitude five," Krauss told Live Science. "This is not going to trigger 'the big one' on the subduction zone."

The quakes are interesting scientifically because they can reveal details about how the ocean floor pulls apart and new crust forms, Krauss said. At the Endeavour site, the Pacific plate and the Juan de Fuca plate are pulling apart. This stretching creates long, linear fault lines and thins the crust, enabling magma to rise up. When the magma reaches the surface, it cools and hardens, becoming new ocean crust.

Attention

Climate The Movie: Watch Here

Climate the Movie
© Watts Up with That
This film exposes the climate alarm as an invented scare without any basis in science. It shows that mainstream studies and official data do not support the claim that we are witnessing an increase in extreme weather events - hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and all the rest. It emphatically counters the claim that current temperatures and levels of atmospheric CO2 are unusually and worryingly high. On the contrary, it is very clearly the case, as can be seen in all mainstream studies, that, compared to the last half billion years of earth's history, both current temperatures and CO2 levels are extremely and unusually low. We are currently in an ice age. It also shows that there is no evidence that changing levels of CO2 (it has changed many times) has ever 'driven' climate change in the past.

Why then, are we told, again and again, that 'catastrophic man-made climate-change' is an irrefutable fact? Why are we told that there is no evidence that contradicts it? Why are we told that anyone who questions 'climate chaos' is a 'flat-earther' and a 'science-denier'?

The film explores the nature of the consensus behind climate change. It describes the origins of the climate funding bandwagon, and the rise of the trillion-dollar climate industry. It describes the hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on the climate crisis. It explains the enormous pressure on scientists and others not to question the climate alarm: the withdrawal of funds, rejection by science journals, social ostracism.

But the climate alarm is much more than a funding and jobs bandwagon. The film explores the politics of climate. From the beginning, the climate scare was political. The culprit was free-market industrial capitalism. The solution was higher taxes and more regulation. From the start, the climate alarm appealed to, and has been adopted and promoted by, those groups who favour bigger government.

Cloud Precipitation

Thousands evacuate as river reaches record high in Uruguay - up to 6 inches of rain in 24 hours

Floods in Uruguay March 2024
© SINAEFloods in Uruguay March 2024
Flooding in the department of Florida in the south of Uruguay has displaced almost 2,000 people after the Santa Lucía Chico River reached record highs.

Six temporary evacuation centres have been set up to house those displaced. The hardest hit areas are in the city of Florida, departmental capital.

Local officials said 120 mm of rain fell in the city of Florida in 24 hours to 21 March 2024. This comes after an earlier period of rain that began around 14 March which also caused flooding in the city and forced almost 300 people to evacuate.

The latest bout of rain caused the Santa Lucía Chico River which runs along the outskirts of the city to jump to record highs. As of 21 March, officials reported the Santa Lucía Chico River stood at 10.56 metres, beating the previous high by 1.2 metres.


Doberman

Four-year-old girl dies after stray dog attack in Telangana, India

dog attack
A four-year old girl, who sustained serious injuries when a pack of stray dogs attacked her on March 2, died while undergoing treatment at a hospital here on Friday.

Bhukya Shanvi of Thatiguda village was admitted to a hospital in the district headquarters after she received grievous injuries in the stray dog attack.

She is the only daughter of Amar Singh, a farmer, while her mother Saritha is a home-maker.

Amar Singh requested the officials to take steps to address stray dogs menace and to prevent recurrence of similar incidents in the future.

Locals said that the dogs were attacking the children and elderly persons in several parts of Pembi mandal at regular intervals. They expressed concern over the safety of their kids and senior citizens.

Hardhat

Large hailstorm with 'golf ball sized' hail hits Spanish city of Zamora

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Residents of Zamora, in northwest Spain, compared the hailstones to golf balls as the storm hit overnight.


Cloud Precipitation

River overflows in Bolivian capital city of La Paz

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Excess rainfall has caused eight of the 10 reservoirs that supply water to La Paz and the neighbouring city of El Alto to overflow, flooding the city's low-lying neighbourhoods.


Seismograph

Shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake hits off Indonesia's Java island

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A magnitude-6.4 offshore earthquake hit near Indonesia's Java island on Friday, the United States Geological Survey said, with the tremor felt in the capital Jakarta.

The quake had a depth of approximately eight kilometres (five miles), and struck off Java island's northern coast near Bawean island at about 3:52 pm local time (0852 GMT), the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, and no tsunami warning was issued by local authorities.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Bizarro Earth

The Polar Vortex is spinning backwards

Earlier this month, atmospheric scientists noticed something unusual in the Arctic stratosphere. The polar vortex was spinning backward.

"The vortex changed direction around March 4th," reports Dr. Amy Butler, author of NOAA's Polar Vortex Blog. "It was a substantial reversal, reaching -20.5 m/s a few days ago, which puts it in the top 6 strongest such events since 1979."
Polar Vortex
© NOAA Climate Gov Data: Waugh et al 2017
Two weeks later, it is still spinning backwards. What's going on?

"Atmospheric planetary waves have been breaking in the polar stratosphere, increasing its temperature," says Butler. "We call this a 'Sudden Stratospheric Warming' event, and it can cause the vortex to change direction.'"

In recent years, many people have heard the phrase "polar vortex" because of the effect it can have on winter weather. When the polar vortex is strong and stable, it helps confine cold air to polar regions. When the vortex weakens or becomes disturbed, cold air spills out to lower latitudes.

Hardhat

Shocking images of large hail in the provinces of Buenos Aires and La Pampa, Argentina

The size of the hail almost like an apple
The size of the hail almost like an apple
A strong storm moving towards the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) affected the interior of the Buenos Aires territory on Tuesday afternoon, where in several locations there was damage to homes and public roads due to the fall of hail and winds of more than 100 kilometers per hour. A red alert has already been issued at the Ezeiza Airport.

The phenomenon, which is expected to reach the suburbs around night, caused roofs to fall and trees to fall in some cities.


Attention

Angry elephant lifts safari truck into the air, 'traumatizes' tourists in South Africa

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An angry bull elephant in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa attacked a safari truck, twice lifting it into the air and slamming it down as terrified tourists took cover between the seats.

Video posted on YouTube by iReport South Africa shows the attack from afar and from inside the truck.

The driver yelled at the elephant "hey, hey, move, move." He slammed the side of his door. But nothing worked.