Earth ChangesS

Blackbox

Mystery of the mystery noise continues: The Verde Valley booms heard around the country, world

Camp Verde, Arizona - Noises sounding similar to the mysterious ones heard across the Verde Valley on Tuesday afternoon have been reported around the country. And one reporter at a Rhode Island newspaper says she has heard reports from as far away as London, England, of a similar phenomenon.

The Corsica Daily Sun newspaper in Corsica, Texas, reported mysterious tremors and noises beginning around 3 p.m. local time, 2 p.m. Arizona time. Reporter Janet Jacobs reports that the Navarro County emergency coordinator, Eric Myers, received calls of "tremors being felt along with a rumbling type of noise." Two hours later, heavier tremors were felt along with descriptions of "popping and shaking." After the notice was posted on the department's Facebook page, additional reports indicated the phenomenon was felt along a line 50 to 60 miles long.

"They didn't act like any other thing except perhaps earthquake booms, which are low, shallow sometimes undetectable tremors similar to what's been happening locally," Jacobs reported. The Auburn Plainsman, a student newspaper at Auburn University, reported loud noises around midnight on Tuesday.

Residents in the area of the university reported the sound was "far too loud" to have been a gunshot. Campus police responded but found nothing unusual.

Comment:
Mysterious noises heard across Verde Valley, Arizona


Blackbox

Columbia County Georgia mystery 'boom' not attributable to earthquake, blasting or military jets

Residents of Columbia County are wondering what, or whom, is responsible for the boom. Residents on and near Louisville Road near Appling reported hearing, and feeling, a loud boom early this morning. "It woke me out of a dead sleep," said Terry Glasscock. "You could feel the vibration. It wasn't like the whole house shook, but you could feel it."

He said he went outside to see if a transformer had blown to discover his neighbors outside as well, also investigating the noise. "I know the rock quarry blast. We hear the siren and can sometimes feel that, but this was a little different." He said he felt something similar about six weeks ago, but did not report it.
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Columbia County Emergency and Operations Division Director Pam Tucker said the proximity of the reports to the Easter Piedmont Fault initially indicated it might be an earthquake. After following up with seismologists, that has been ruled out. She also said there has been no blasting at area quarries. A spokesman from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C. said the base had no aircraft flying at that time.

Comment: Mystery of the mystery noise continues: The Verde Valley booms heard around the country, world


Blackbox

New Strange Sounds from the Sky in Bayonne, New Jersey, USA, December 8 2012

These Strange Sounds from the Sky recorded in Bayonne, New Jersey are very loud and scary. They are similar to an airplane flying by or as the recorder says as a sort of ship coming from no where. Really nice records. Actually, people in this area seem to be very familiar with this strange and unexplained phenomenon since the weird noises were recorded several times last month and this month over there! A sign? But of what? Thank you for your following and for your postings!


Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 7.1 - 229km NW of Saumlaki, Indonesia

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© USGS
Event Time:
2012-12-10 16:53:09 UTC
2012-12-11 01:53:09 UTC+09:00 at epicenter

Location:
6.522ยฐS 129.813ยฐE depth=157.7km (98.0mi)

Nearby Cities:
229km (142mi) NW of Saumlaki, Indonesia
338km (210mi) WSW of Tual, Indonesia
361km (224mi) SSE of Ambon, Indonesia
366km (227mi) SSE of Amahai, Indonesia
519km (322mi) ENE of Dili, East Timor

Ice Cube

Southern Ontario gets first bout of winter

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© CBC NewsDrivers awoke to snow and freezing rain on the streets of Montreal on Monday.
A low pressure system from the U.S. will bring the first significant bout of winter to areas in southern Ontario Sunday evening and Monday morning, according to Environment Canada.

While the system crosses the region and the Great Lakes, the weather agency has predicted snowfall up to 10 centimetres overnight. The snow will then turn to freezing rain early Monday morning.

Areas further east near Ottawa will see freezing rain later in the day on Monday.

A glaze of ice has coated some areas from Lake Huron to the Greater Toronto Area.

Warnings from Environment Canada state that drivers should take extra caution with morning commutes, and should take extra time for travel.

Also, due to the freezing rain, they have also cautioned pedestrians to walk carefully on roads and sidewalks not treated for slippery conditions in the affected regions.

Source: CBC News

Snowflake Cold

Five die as heavy snowfall hits the Balkan countries

At least five people have been killed in the Balkans after freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall caused travel chaos across the region.

Four people have died in Croatia and one in Serbia as a result of blizzards in the region of south-western Europe over the weekend, according to officials.

Airports and roads have been closed during the bad weather, with public transport in a lot of the major cities also being affected.

Bizarro Earth

Amazing stratospheric clouds over Europe

When the sun set over the UK on Dec. 9th, sky watchers were stunned by an unexpected apparition of super-colorful stratospheric clouds. "They were amazing to see and a dream come true to photograph," reports Lesley Jennings of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. "There were all sorts of colors. I've never see the like before!" added Rachael Taylor also from Aberdeenshire. Nigel Feilden photographed this specimen from Inverurie, Scotland:
High Clouds
© Nigel FeildenTaken by Nigel Feilden on December 9, 2012 @ Near Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
"These are nacreous clouds," explains atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. "Of all Earth's clouds they are most spectacular, and a very rare treat for skywatchers."

Snowflake Cold

UK endures coldest autumn since 1993

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© Crown copyright
The UK Met Office report that the UK has just had its coldest autumn for nineteen years, leaving 2012 on course to be second coldest year since 1996.

Mean temperature in November was 0.4C below the 1981-2010 average, the third month in a row when temperatures have been well down on normal.

The average temperature for the autumn in the UK was 8.6C, compared to the long term average of 9.5C and the coldest since 1993. It is also the sixth coldest autumn in the last 50 years.

The year as a whole is currently running as the second coldest since 1996, beaten only by the exceptionally cold year of 2010. Temperatures so far in December are 2 degrees below normal, and the Met Office are forecasting that this will continue for the foreseeable future.

One of the features this autumn is just how persistent the cold weather has been. There have not been any exceptionally cold interludes, as, for instance, we saw with the heavy snow in November 2010. Instead, the weather has just been consistently cold.
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Figure 1

Radar

Powerful earthquake injures 13 in Japan, 1 still missing

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© Xinhua/Ma PingPhoto taken on Dec. 7, 2012 shows the scene of Japan's Tokyo after an earthquake. A 7.3-magnitude earthquake jolted off the east coast of Honshu of Japan, resulting in a tsunami warning for the country's northeastern coastal areas, according to Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
Tokyo - About 13 people were injured and one still missing after a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted off eastern coast of Japan Friday. Two seniors were found injured in Aomori and Miyagi Prefectures respectively Saturday morning, local police said. The rest 11 injured were reported Friday after the quake, which also triggered tsunami up to one meter high along parts of Japan's Pacific coast. Iwate authorities said they are still searching for a senior, who went missing after evacuating in a boat from Kuji port in the prefecture in response to tsunami alerts.

Info

Big, old trees in decline worldwide

General Sherman
© Linda & Dr. Dick BuscherThis photo shows the General Sherman Tree found in Sequoia National Park, believed to be the world's largest tree by volume. Large trees like this are in decline, according to a new study.
Big, old trees are in decline throughout the world, which spells trouble for the forests in which they play such an important role, a new study finds.

These elders of the forest do many things that smaller, younger trees cannot; for example, providing homes for many types of animals, providing space for other plants to grow in tropical rainforests and producing large amounts of seeds that serve as food for other animals and replenish tree populations, according to the study, published today (Dec. 6) in the journal Science.

Old trees also store an enormous amount of carbon and continue to sequester it as they grow, even in their old age, said study co-author David Lindenmayer, a researcher at Australian National University. One study published in PLoS ONE in May found that although big trees, with a diameter of more than 3 feet (1 meter) at chest height, made up only 1 percent of trees in a study plot in California's Yosemite National Park, they accounted for 50 percent of the area's biomass.