Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magntitude 3.8 - Arkansas

Magnitude 4.4 Earthquake - Arkansas
© USGS
Date-Time
Friday, October 15, 2010 at 10:20:19 UTC

Friday, October 15, 2010 at 05:20:19 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
35.276°N, 92.323°W

Depth:
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region:
ARKANSAS

Distances:
25 km (15 miles) NNE of Conway, Arkansas

55 km (35 miles) W of Searcy, Arkansas

60 km (35 miles) N of LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas

70 km (40 miles) SSW of Mountain View, Arkansas

Igloo

Global Warming Causes Snow to hit Britain!

Image
© PASnow could fall on high ground
Winter will come early to Britain next week as snow is forecast for the north while the south will shiver in frosty sub-zero nights.

The cold snap will seem worse after temperatures soared to 75F (23C) last weekend.

Forecasters warned snow is due in Scotland and possibly northern England next week, with frost as far south as southern England, which will see bitter 48F (9C) daytime maximum temperatures.

"A northerly air stream in the middle part of next week means coldest conditions will probably be in Scotland, with sleet or snow showers and snow settling on higher ground," said forecaster Brian Gaze of independent forecasters The Weather Outlook.

"Even southern England will feel distinctly chilly."

Forecasters Positive Weather Solutions have already predicted a 'white-out' winter almost as harsh as last winter - with widespread snow, temperatures down to -4F (-20C) and transport chaos.

The Weather Outlook, which has an accurate seasonal forecasting record, warned the UK is now being gripped by a bitter series of winters comparable with the harsh 1939-42 winters which made conditions so horrendous during the Second World War.

Question

A Whale of a Journey, Captured in Photos

Brazilian Whale Journey
© F. Johansen, via Associated PressThe image above, taken in 2001, was used to identify a female humpback whale who traveled more than 6,000 miles from Brazil to Madagascar.

If you cruise the Web you can find long-lost friends, high school sweethearts and ... far-traveling humpback whales.

With the help of Flickr, a photo-sharing site, Peter Stevick, a biologist at the College of the Atlantic, in Bar Harbor, Me., and colleagues have identified a whale that made an unprecedented journey, an epic 6,000 miles from Brazil to Madagascar, about 10 years ago. The whale's adventure is described in Biology Letters.

Carole Carlson, an author of the paper and a researcher at the College of the Atlantic, often checks Flickr for whale photos because humpbacks can be identified by their tails, which are as individual as fingerprints. An amateur photographer had taken a photo on a film camera in 2001 and only recently posted it. That photo matched one taken by researchers of a whale off the coast of Brazil in 1999.

Brick Wall

Photo shows leak in reservoir months before Hungarian sludge spill

Sludge Leak
© BAKO GABOR/AP PHOTO/INTERSPECTPicture taken in June 2010 by Hungarian air photo company Interspect shows the dam of the reservoir in Kolontar, Hungary, with red stains that allegedly indicate red sludge leaking through - nearly four months before the wall broke on October 4 killing at least eight people .
An aerial photo taken months before a gigantic reservoir unleashed torrents of toxic sludge shows a faint red trail trickling through the container wall - part of a growing body of evidence that inspectors who gave the pit a clean bill of health may have missed warning signs.

Police were examining the photo Tuesday as part of an investigation into how part of the wall containing the 10 million cubic metres of caustic slurry could have given way without structural weaknesses being detected by a team of inspectors from the government environmental agency who inspected the container pond less then two weeks before the spill. The flood of red sludge killed eight people.

Red Flag

Hurricane gains strength as it heads to Mexican coast

Hurricane Paula
© APStrong winds have already hit Mexico
Hurricane Paula is gaining strength as it is heading towards Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The hurricane intensified to a category-two storm with winds of up to 160km/h (100 mph), forecasters at the US National Hurricane Center said.

It has brought strong winds and heavy rain to north-east Honduras and damaged homes in Honduras, officials said.

The centre of the hurricane was expected to hit the Mexican coast early on Wednesday.

Cloud Lightning

Brooklyn hail storm produces rivers of ice (VIDEO)

Hailstorm in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn New York.


Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magntitude 4.5 - Oklahoma

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 14:06:29 UTC

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 09:06:29 AM at epicenter

Location:
35.206°N, 97.307°W

Depth:
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region:
OKLAHOMA

Distances:
10 km (10 miles) E of Norman, Oklahoma

35 km (20 miles) SSE of OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma

35 km (25 miles) WSW of Shawnee, Oklahoma

60 km (35 miles) ENE of Chickasha, Oklahoma

Bizarro Earth

Menominee County Shakeup was an Earthquake, says Tech Researcher

Image
© UnknownClose up shows crack from Menominee County earthquake on October 4.
That shaking and loud noise experienced recently in Menominee County of Upper Michigan was indeed an earthquake, albeit a small one, according to a Michigan Tech researcher.

"The large crack and ridge were created most probably by a magnitude 1 or 2 earthquake," said Wayne Pennington, chair of geological and mining engineering and sciences, of the events that took place Monday, October 4.

The ridge and crack are 361 feet long, and the ridge is 4 to 5 feet high and 20 to 30 feet wide at its largest point, Pennington said after visiting the site. The crack is 2 feet wide and 4 to 5 feet deep at its largest point. Trees are tipped away from the crack at about 14 degrees on either side, showing that the surface is now tipping, having formed the ridge.

Bizarro Earth

Ten Killed in Indonesia Landslide

At least 10 people have been killed and another three were feared dead after they were buried in a landslide on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, police said Wednesday.

A steep part of a hill in the Morowali district of Central Sulawesi province collapsed on Tuesday and engulfed dozens of people working for a local palm oil company, local police chief Suhirman told AFP.

"The workers were taking a lunch break on the hill's slope when the incident happened," he said.

Heavy rains as well as excavation work to build an access road for the plantation company may have been partly to blame for the landslide, he said, adding that 18 people were also injured, most suffering broken bones.

Search and rescue teams were trying to locate the three missing people using heavy machinery but hopes were slim of finding them alive as they were buried in about five metres of earth, Suhirman said.

Bad Guys

GM Corn Pesticides Found in Indiana Streams

Indiana Corn Field
© National Geographic
Pesticides produced by genetically modified (GM) corn have been found dissolved in streams in Indiana, raising new questions about whether GM foods could have impacts beyond immediate food safety, a new study reports.

Jennifer Tank of Indiana's University of Notre Dame and colleagues sampled 217 streams in a 400-square-mile (1,053-square-kilometer) area in northwestern Indiana, six months after the corn harvest. Of those streams, 28 had corn "detritus" (that would be husks, cobs, leaves, and so on for those playing along at home) containing the Cry1Ab protein, which is produced by so-called GM "Bt corn" to ward off the European corn borer, an invasive pest.

The researchers, whose work was published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found Cry1Ab protein in the water of another 50 of the 217 test stream sites, even though there were no corn husks in the water. However, all 50 of those streams were located within 1,640 feet (500 meters)--or roughly five football fields--from a cornfield.