Earth ChangesS


Fish

Deep sea oarfish washes up on Waiharakeke Beach, New Zealand

Sara Meij
Stuff
Tue, 31 Jan 2017 13:45 UTC
The oarfish that washed up on Waiharakeke Beach in Abel Tasman National Park.
The oarfish that washed up on Waiharakeke Beach in Abel Tasman National Park.
When Nelson friends Sharon Robinson and Jenny Cox went for a walk on an Abel Tasman Beach, they didn't expect to find a rare long, slimy oarfish.

The deep sea fish usually lives at depths of around 1000 meters and is the longest known living species of bony fish in the world.

Robinson said she was camping at Totaranui Campground in Abel Tasman National Park with her husband Nigel Robinson and a group of 12 friends and children.

The group had just come back from lunch at Awaroa on Thursday when they decided to go for a walk along nearby Waiharakeke Beach as it was low tide.

"We saw something shiny on the edge of the water and thought it was a piece of a boat and walked up and there it was.

"I've never seen anything like it. It looked like a huge lure, it was pretty spectacular."

Robinson said the oarfish was "too big" to try and carry back to the campground, so instead they went to the Department of Conservation office early the next morning to report their find.

Oarfish can reach a length of 17 meters and can weigh up to 270 kilograms.

The oarfish that washed up on the beach on Thursday was about three meters long and was "really heavy".
Read More...
Fish

Dead oarfish found off Mindanao, Philippines prior to seismic activity: Can animals predict earthquakes?


ABS-CBN News
Sat, 11 Feb 2017 13:11 UTC
Dead oarfish was caught by fishermen off the coast of Agusan del Norte
Dead oarfish was caught by fishermen off the coast of Agusan del Norte.
The earthquake that jolted Surigao del Norte on Friday night jogged the memory of some people on social media, who were saying an incident two days prior could've served as a sign for the disaster that was about to strike.

On Wednesday, a 10-foot-long dead oarfish was caught by fishermen off the coast of Agusan del Norte.

To some, deep-sea creatures such as oarfish that end up in shallow water are a good predictor of earthquakes. How true that is remains very much a debate?

"It's theoretically possible because when an earthquake occurs there can be a build-up of pressure in the rocks which can lead to electrostatic charges that cause electrically charged ions to be released into the water," Rachel Grant, a lecturer in animal biology, said in a report posted on the Independent news website in October 2013.

In an undated Japan Times article, seismologist Kiyoshi Wadatsumi said that "deep-sea fish living near the sea bottom are more sensitive to the movements of active faults than those near the surface of the sea."
Dead oarfish
Dead oarfish

Comment: See also: USGS: Earthquake measuring 6.7 hits south Philippines, no tsunami warning

Read More...
Attention

Millions of gallons of untreated effluent dumping into Puget Sound after heavy rainfall

Lewis Kamb
The Seattle Times
Thu, 09 Feb 2017 13:33 UTC
Puget Sound wastewater pollution
© Emily Eng / The Seattle Times
Millions of gallons of untreated wastewater and stormwater began dumping into Puget Sound Thursday after high tides and heavy rains overwhelmed a King County wastewater-treatment center in Seattle.

Flooding at West Point Treatment Plant in Magnolia's Discovery Park caused damage that apparently fried an electrical circuit and triggered a system shutdown, a spokesman said.

That has caused the county to operate the facility much of Thursday in "emergency bypass mode" — dumping untreated effluent directly into Puget Sound.

Officials were still calculating how much untreated wastewater had flowed into Puget Sound. Doug Williams, a spokesman for the county's Department of Natural Resources and Parks, estimated more than 150 million to 200 million gallons, with that number likely to grow.

By Thursday night, Williams said the plant was partially back on line and was providing initial treatment to some of the water which had been flowing untreated into the Sound or diverted to other treatment plants.

The dumped sewage is a mix of about 90 percent stormwater and 10 percent wastewater, he said.

The county has managed to divert nearly 200 million gallons of sewage water headed for West Point to four other treatment facilities, Williams said.

Chris Wilke, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper, an environmental watchdog group, said the amount of untreated sewage dumped so far comprises about one-fifth of the typical overflow amount for the area's sewers annually.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Major mudslide shuts down I-80 near Auburn, California

Jay Barmann
sfist
Fri, 10 Feb 2017 00:00 UTC
I-80 mudslide near Truckee CA 1
© CHP-Gold Run
A mudslide Friday morning caused the complete shutdown of eastbound and westbound I-80, leading to some serious delays and a detour for those who are Tahoe-bound. As ABC 7 reports, all truck traffic was being turned around at Colfax in the eastbound direction, and at Truckee in the westbound direction, while cars are being routed through Nevada City on Highway 49 and Highway 20. The slide happened between the SR-20 and Colfax exits in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

CHP in Truckee and Gold Run posted the photos above and below to Facebook at 10 a.m. Friday, and announced the road closure.
Read More...
Wolf

Toddler required 50 stitches after dog attack in Lincoln County, Kentucky


wkyt.com
Sat, 11 Feb 2017 19:57 UTC
dog attack
Doctors are treating a two-year old at Kentucky Children's Hospital after a pitbull bit the boy in the face.

The bite happened at a home in the East Moreland Trailer Park in Lincoln County..

Austin McClure, the toddler's father, said that doctors told him it was the worst dog bite injury they have seen on a child.

"Tore into his face and ripped his nose pretty much clean off his face. They said the dog was out to kill. It wasn't playing around."

The injured boy, named Trenton, received 50 stitches to his face. Doctors say he will have to stay at UK for at least a week for treatment.

McClure has a lot of questions surrounding what happened to his son. He says the toddler was in the care of his ex-girlfriend, the boy's mother, at the time of the attack.

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office did open an investigation, but the sheriff says the county attorney advised him that a report was not needed since the county dog warden already did one. County Attorney Darryl Day said that no one has inquired about filing charges.
Read More...
Attention

High winds in Wyoming knock tractor trailer onto police car - VIDEO


WILX News
Fri, 10 Feb 2017 04:41 UTC
Tractor trailer
The Wyoming highway patrol dash cam video shows what high winds can to to a tractor trailer - and anything in its path.

On Tuesday, near Elk Mountain on Interstate 80, three Wyoming state troopers were on scene providing care for motorists who were involved in wrecks.

Comment: See also: Storm shuts down Jackson Hole resort in Wyoming, knocks out power across area

Read More...
Attention

California's Anderson reservoir is so full it's seismically unsafe

Len Ramirez
CBS Local
Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:10 UTC
Anderson Dam
© Michael MooreThe outlet pipe at the bottom of Anderson Dam, pictured Feb. 9, has been wide open since early January.
South Bay water officials are urgently trying to lower a reservoir to reduce pressure on a shaky dam.

The Anderson Reservoir in Morgan Hill is just a couple of miles east of U.S. Highway 101.

The dam is especially vulnerable right now if an earthquake happens to strike.

Water gushes from the bottom of the Anderson Dam. The release valve is wide open and crowds are coming to see what looks like a water show.

Sean Barragan, of Morgan Hill, said, "It's pretty awesome. It's not a thing you see every day."

But it's not just for show.

The water district is trying to quickly lower the level of the reservoir, because it's not seismically safe to be as full as it is now.

A 2009 study found a large earthquake next to the dam could cause a failure.

Since then state regulators placed a cap on the dam at 68 percent of capacity.

But the recent rains have boosted the level to 91 percent of capacity.

Comment: State officials are also concerned with another California dam:

Read More...
Attention

Update: Another 240 whales strand at Farewell Spit, New Zealand; over 460 in 2 days

Sharon Marris
Sky News
Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:59 UTC
Dead whales new zealand
Dead whales new zealand
Just days after 416 pilot whales stranded themselves off New Zealand's South Island, a second pod of 240 has swum aground at the same spot.

In total, more than 650 of the animals have stranded themselves along a three-mile stretch of coastline at Farewell Spit in the past two days.

About 335 of the whales are dead, 220 remain stranded and 100 are back at sea.

Andrew Lamason, Department of Conservation Golden Bay operations manager, said he was sure the latest strandings were a new pod because all of the refloated whales from the previous group had been tagged.

Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Broken dam in northeast Nevada floods houses, farms and railroads

McKenzie Romero
Deseret News
Wed, 08 Feb 2017 15:32 UTC
21 Mile Dam
Breached 21 Mile Dam
A broken dam in Elko County, Nevada, flooded farmland and homes in the community of Montello, stopped Union Pacific trains nearby and prompted a warning to people in extreme northwest Utah to avoid the rural highway into the Silver State.

And while Utah has recently experienced a quick warmup after heavy snows, state water officials think a similar breach is unlikely in the Beehive State.

The National Weather Service reported Wednesday the failure of the 21 Mile Dam was sending water spilling out in a "dangerous and life-threatening situation."

"Water in the reservoir continues to rapidly empty and is heading downstream. Ongoing flash flooding will continue and could potentially get worse," the National Weather Service advised. A flash flood warning for Elko County has been issued through midnight Thursday.

As the water flows into the Dake Reservoir, there is a risk the dam there could overflow leading to more flooding, according to the warning.


Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

History says California could be overdue for biblical, catastrophic flooding

Katie Dowd
San Francisco Chronicle
Fri, 10 Feb 2017 15:19 UTC
1862 Sacramento California floods
Sacramento underwater due to floods in an 1862 rendering that ran in local papers.
Californians are always talking about the coming Big One, but what if the big one is a flood, not an earthquake?

With this recent cavalcade of rainstorms, there's been renewed interest in a 2011 USGS study on the so-called "ARkStorm." In it, the USGS lays out a case for a hypothetical "megastorm," one that could cause up to $725 billion in damage and impact a quarter of California's homes.

The ARkStorm would bring with it catastrophic rains, hurricane-force winds and hundreds of landslides. Central Valley flooding alone is projected to span 300 miles.

If that sounds far-fetched, there's historic precedent: Geological evidence indicates that California endures massive flooding caused by atmospheric rivers every 100-200 years. And settlers who moved to California after the Gold Rush soon found what the native population had known for centuries: Northern California is prime flooding territory.

The most prominent example is the Great Flood of 1862, a natural disaster that still ranks as the largest flood in the history of the American West. Between Dec. 1861 and Jan. 1862, the West Coast received a near-constant deluge of rain. Sacramento received a stunning 23 inches in that period, turning the city into a watery ghost town.

Comment:

Read More...