Earth ChangesS


Radar

USA: Tiny amounts of Japan's radiation reach California

Vienna - Japan's radioactive fallout has reached Southern California but first readings are "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," a diplomat with access to United Nations' radiation tracking said Friday.

The diplomat, who asked for anonymity Friday because the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization does not make its data public, cited readings Friday from one of the U.N.'s California-based measuring station.

IAEA officials and independent experts have emphasized that the radiation level was already low outside of the immediate vicinity of the crippled reactor.

They said it would dissipate so strongly by the time it reached the U.S. coastlines that it would pose no health risk whatsoever to residents there.

Any detectable radiation on Friday "could be coming from your own reactors in California," said physics Prof. Paddy Regan at the University of Surrey at Guildford in Britain.

A senior IAEA official who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, noted that even in Tokyo, "radiation was at background levels."


Bizarro Earth

Record Low Ozone in the Arctic

Ozone Layer
© Ross SalawitchArctic polar stratospheric clouds like these lead to ozone destruction.

The ozone hole over the south pole is a well-known phenomenon, opening up every spring, letting excess ultraviolet light stream in from the sun and driving up skin cancer risk down under.

But this year, ozone levels at the opposite pole are poised to reach record lows thanks to the right weather patterns and possibly a contribution from the changing climate.

"Don't panic," said Markus Rex of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany. "It's nothing which is a reason for great concern. Still people should have in mind that when they are outside in spring, sunburn times can drop to 20 minutes. People don't expect that in late March. You wouldn't expect to get a sunburn in the northern U.S. then."

While the ozone-depleted area is currently centered over the Arctic, the zone will shift as weather patterns change, and will pass over more populated areas as far south as about 45 degrees north -- roughly through Oregon, Minnesota and the New York-Canada border in North America -- and possibly even further.

"That system is moving around," Rex said. "Those air masses will sooner or later appear right over our own heads." The team predicts the low-levels will hover over eastern Russia by late March and will move on from there.

Rex and a global team of researchers monitoring satellite readings of ozone and temperature released the findings this week. In the past two weeks, ozone levels in the most ozone-rich part of the stratosphere have dropped by about 50 percent, Rex said, and about 30 percent overall, which is about as low as it has ever been.

Bizarro Earth

Australia: Stranded Whales Back at Sea

Stranded Whales
© Parks and WildlifeRescuers worked by moonlight to move the stranded whales beach back into the water.

The surviving whales from a pod of 30 which stranded on Bruny Island in southern Tasmanian have been returned to the water.

Parks and wildlife rescuers worked under the light of a full moon to free 11 long-finned pilot whales on a beach on South Bruny Island.

The Parks and Wildlife Service's Rosemary Gales says the animals were returned to the water about 4:30am (AEDT) and have swum away.

"There's just been a sighting of some live whales that they're going to check out to determine if they're the same ones," she said.

Alarm Clock

40ft Section Of California Highway Falls Into Pacific Ocean

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Part of the highway that fell into the Pacific ocean on March 16th 2011
A stretch of California's coastal highway is closed to traffic indefinitely after a chunk of the road fell into the Pacific Ocean.

State transportation workers are scrambling to repair Highway 1 in Monterey County near Rocky Creek Bridge.

A 40-foot section of the two-lane highway crumbled just after 5 p.m. Wednesday following several days of rainy weather. All of the southbound lane is gone, and the soil under the northbound lane also is giving way.

The California Highway Patrol says no one was injured in the slide.

It's not immediately clear what caused the slide or how long the highway will be closed.


Comment: If people in the California area are not awake enough to take these VERY strong indicators that the West Coast of the USA is next in line for a major quake then what can ANYONE do to help them?


Telescope

Super Full Moon Coming Soon

Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It's a super "perigee moon"--the biggest in almost 20 years.

"The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. "I'd say it's worth a look."

Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon's orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit.


"The full Moon of March 19th occurs less than one hour away from perigee--a near-perfect coincidence1 that happens only 18 years or so," adds Chester.

A perigee full Moon brings with it extra-high "perigean tides," but this is nothing to worry about, according to NOAA. In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)--not exactly a great flood.

Question

Australia: Mystery stink bogs down authorities

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© UnknownRobert Burnett shows the source of the smells near Edgars Creek in Coburg North
Authorities have been unable to determine the cause of a mysterious smelly bog near Edgars Creek.

Friends of Edgars Creek environment group have raised the alarm over a "sewage" stench emitting from the permanently wet grassy slope on Moreland Council land near the former Kodak site.

Former president Stephen Northey said what was a small boggy patch two years ago had expanded into a 150m bog.

To date, its appearance and growth has baffled environmental and water authorities.

Moreland Council said tests by its officers, the EPA, Yarra Valley Water and Melbourne Water had failed to determine the cause.

Question

Another case of outgassing? UK: Mystery surrounds Llanelli chemical alert

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© UnknownPeople were allowed to return to their homes at about 2200 GMT on Wednesday
Mystery surrounds the cause of strong gas smells which caused a mass evacuation of houses and a care home in Llanelli.

Hundreds were allowed to return home at about 2200 GMT on Wednesday after people had been moved to safety because of a suspected chemical leak.

Tests by environmental health and Welsh Water did not detect chemicals.

A precautionary cordon had been set up around homes within a square mile of Thomas Street.

Firefighters were called to Felinfoel Road in Llanelli at 1755 GMT by Dyfed-Powys Police.

Evil Rays

Geologists say fault in central Arkanzas, site of hundreds of earthquakes, is longer than thought

Geologists say a fault in central Arkansas where hundreds of earthquakes have been recorded in recent months is longer and potentially more destructive than initially believed.

Scientists had thought the fault is 3.7 miles long. Now they estimate it to be 6 to 7.5 miles long.

Arkansas Geological Survey geohazard supervisor Scott Ausbrooks told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the length is a concern because a longer fault could trigger bigger earthquakes.

Nuke

Pools Storing Spent Fuel May Present Worst Risk at Damaged Fukushima Plant

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All cooling water is gone from the spent-fuel pool at one of the crippled nuclear reactors in Japan, causing the release of high levels of radiation, Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told members of Congress.

Jaczko's testimony followed warnings by the International Atomic Energy Agency, physicians and nuclear engineers that the greatest threat to public health from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is spent fuel in pools of water atop of the plant's six reactors.

Radioactivity has been heating the pools at three of the plant's reactors since the plant's cooling systems were disabled by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami, officials said. Exposed, the spent fuel rods can catch fire and melt, spewing radiation into the atmosphere, said Robert Kelley, an engineer in Vienna who used to lead the Nuclear Emergency Response at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Unlike the plant's reactors, the pools aren't encased by steel and concrete.

Attention

Canada: 4.3-Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Western Quebec

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© unknownSeismologist Fiona Ann Darbyshire says the area around western Quebec and eastern Ontario experience hundreds of small earthquakes a year, but they're usually quite smaller.
A 4.3-magnitude earthquake struck an area covering eastern Ontario and western Quebec Wednesday afternoon, with people from Ottawa to the Greater Montreal Region reporting that they felt the temblor.

Natural Resources Canada says the quake was centered in Hawkesbury, Ont. -- not Lachute, Que., as had earlier been reported. It struck at about 1:36 p.m. ET and lasted about 10 seconds.

There were no reports so far of any damage.

Viewers from across the region have been emailing CTV.ca to say they felt the earth shake beneath their feet. One reader sent an email to CTV News saying she felt a tremor in Ste-Adele, Ste-Anne de Lacs in the Laurentians. Another said she felt a "deep rumble" around 1:35 p.m. in Orleans, Ont., that lasted a "full minute."

Last summer, a 5.0-magnitude quake rattled Ontario, Quebec, and parts of the northeastern United States, sending some residents running into the streets. That quake's epicentre was about 56 kilometres northeast of Ottawa.

Just like last year's shaker, Wednesday's earthquake brought down the website for Earthquakes Canada as Canadians rushed to the site for information.