Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Wisconsin man's driveway split by apparent frost quake

Sharon Roznik
FDL Reporter
Sun, 12 Jan 2014 12:07 UTC
Frost Quake
© Aileen Andrews/Action Reporter MediaDennis Olsen of Waupun measures a giant crack, maybe an inch wide and 8 to 10-inches deep, apparently caused by a frost quake. The giant crack ran across the driveway and the length of the driveway.
It was dark and cold, as if hell were freezing over.

Then came the booming sounds that shook the earth and sent area residents running to their windows.

The cracking sound, like an explosion, was heard about 6 p.m. Jan. 7 around Waupun, Fairwater, Brandon, Markesan, Oakfield and Campbellsport.

Dennis Olsen of Waupun thought perhaps his garage had blown up as he peered out into the winter night.

Nope. Everything was quiet.

Then he went to the basement to see if any of his walls had split open.

"Things looked fine. Strange, because it was so loud," he said.

But the next morning, Olsen's grandson was coming up the gravel driveway to visit and came upon a strange sight.

"First time I've ever seen something like this. It was a giant crack, maybe an inch wide and a good eight to 10 inches deep when I stuck a ruler down," Olsen said.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake shakes Southern California


LiveScience
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 08:28 UTC
SOCAL Earthquake
© USGSMap of earthquake location today (Jan. 15, 2014) near Los Angeles, California.
An earthquake of preliminary magnitude 4.4 struck southern California early today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The earthquake's epicenter was 3 miles (5 km) north of Fontana in San Bernardino County. It originated 3.2 miles (5.2 km) deep and struck at 1:35 a.m. local time (9:35 UTC).

Residents reported light to moderate shaking in the area, as far away as Long Beach and Los Angeles, according to the USGS, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

Earthquakes of this size tend to be felt by people in the area but typically do not cause significant damage, other than possibly broken windows and falling dishes or the toppling of unstable objects. But the damage caused by any single event depends on the quake's depth, proximity to populated areas, building standards in the region, as well as the type of earthquake. The USGS frequently updates the magnitude of an event after more data is analyzed.

An earthquake's magnitude is a measure of the energy released at the source. It is just one predictor of the shaking that may ensue, which is affected by local and regional geology. Scientists know in a general sense what causes earthquakes but are unable to predict specific quakes.
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Stop

48 reindeer killed by train in Sweden

Fredrik Rosendahl
Times of India
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:25 UTC
Image
Forty-eight reindeer have been killed in northern Sweden, struck by a speeding train they tried in vain to outrun, transport officials said Tuesday.

"It wasn't pretty to see," one reindeer rancher, Ingmar Blind, told state television network SVT.

The animals, which provide a livelihood for many in remote northern Sweden, met their fate on Saturday near the village of Kaitum in the country's Laponia region.

Near-misses by railways are common as herds migrate during winter in search of food.

But in this case it appeared the herd had wandered onto snow-covered tracks and were startled by the train, the regional transport official in charge of maintenance, Fredrik Rosendahl said.

The reindeer instinctively all ran along the tracks before the train, which crushed them.

"If you follow a reindeer in a car, for instance, it will tend to run in front of the car, it won't go to one side," Rosendahl explained. "So just imagine what happens with a train that needs more than a kilometre (1.2 miles) to come to a stop."
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Black Cat

Killer tiger preying on Indian villages claims its seventh victim in 12 days

John Hall
Dail Mail, UK
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:07 UTC
Image
Man-eater: Police in India are hunting a tiger which is believed to have killed seven people over two weeks
  • Woman's body was found in a forest in Uttar Pradesh, India yesterday
  • The tiger believed to have strayed from the Jim Corbett National Park
  • Authorities trying to have it categorised as a 'man-eater' so it can be killed
Police in India are hunting a man-eating tiger that is believed to have killed seven villagers in two weeks after escaping from an animal reserve.

The tiger's latest victim was an unidentified woman who was found in a forest Tuesday in Uttar Pradesh, India yesterday.

The female tiger is believed to be prowling over an area covering around 80 miles and is considered to be far more dangerous than others in the area due to a lack of hunting experience that forces the desperate cat to move closer to human occupation.
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Eye 2

Three-foot python startles employees of Richmond cellphone store, Canada

Stephanie Ip
The Province
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 09:25 UTC
Image
This three-foot-long ball python was found by store staff inside Wind Mobile at Richmond’s Lansdowne Mall on Monday.
A three-foot-long snake was found slithering through a cellphone store Monday evening in Richmond, leaving store staff surprised and slightly scared.

Employees at Lansdowne Mall's Wind Mobile were preparing to close just before 6 p.m. Monday when a staff member walked into the store's back room and spotted a snake near a microwave oven.

Val Lofvendahl of Richmond-based Reptile Rescue was called in to handle the situation.

"First thing we do is, because we don't know what we're dealing with, we grab a container and a pair of gloves and hope that it's nothing - but prepare for possibly something aggressive," she told the Province.

Lofvendahl and her daughter arrived shortly after being called and were escorted by security through the closed mall to Wind Mobile, where two frightened employees were waiting outside the store front.

Inside, Lofvendahl found the snake on top of a cardboard box.
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Arrow Down

Mandatory sinkhole insurance coverage proposed in Missouri State Senate bill

Laura Kennedy
ozarksfirst.com
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

A Missouri lawmaker lays the groundwork for homeowners to get sinkhole insurance.

Our entire region is at risk for sinkholes because of the porous limestone and Karst formations under the Ozarks.

But most insurance companies exclude sinkholes from coverage.

That's a gap Senate Bill 691 seeks to fill.

Springfield homeowner Mark Hill is still paying for a near disaster that happened one year ago.

"We had a collapse between the two houses which was not a sinkhole, but was an old mine shaft," he said.

When the mine shaft opened up it went well under the corner of his neighbor's house and extended eight feet underneath his house.

"My air conditioning unit fell into the hole," he said.
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Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole eats up trash truck in Philadelphia!

NBC Philadelphia
Source
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:57 UTC
Image
© SkyForce10
A large sinkhole partially swallowed up a sanitation truck in Philadelphia, causing a Center City street to be blocked off this morning.

The hole on the 1300 block of Kater Street (near Broad Street) left the Waste Management truck stuck.

Police taped off the area around the truck a little after noon as utility crews responded to the scene. The sinkhole also appeared to swallow up some of the sidewalk on the north side of the street.

A tow truck freed the trash truck, which was able to drive away. No one was hurt.Workers at the scene inspected water and gas lines below the street for damage.
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Question

Something stinks in Hong Kong 'mystery' as hundreds of rotting dead fish wash up on beach

Sofia Mitra-Thakur
South China Morning Post
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 19:51 UTC
Dead Fishes
© Sam TsangThe smell of fish washed up at Mo Tat Wan has engulfed the village.
Hundreds of dead and rotting fish that washed up on a beach have caused a stink for Lamma Island villagers - and experts say fish farms are probably to blame.

Villagers woke on Monday to find the narrow beach at Mo Tat Wan strewn with the carcasses of large fish. Scores more decaying fish were to be seen floating by the village pier.

Residents were stunned by the quantity of fish, which measured up to two feet and were identified by experts as sea bass, cobia and croaker - species common in Hong Kong fish farms. They said the smell of the decaying fish had engulfed the entire village.

One resident, who asked not to be named, described seeing "bloated, rotting carcasses" on the beach, along with the "usual piles of litter".

"The beach was littered with dead fish, with even more dead fish floating in the water near the pier," she said. "It's sad. It appears the Lamma channel gets used as a dumping ground for lots of things, a great deal of which gets washed up at Mo Tat Wan. Nothing ever seems to be done about it."
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Igloo

Daring tourists queue up to climb frozen waterfall in China

Ben Burrows
Mirror.co.uk
Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:04 UTC
The wall of ice in the Miyun district is perfect for a spot of climbing, providing you have a head for heights

Frozen Waterfall
© RexFrozen Waterfall.
It is so cold in the Miyun District that a waterfall has actually frozen solid.

The sub zero conditions have caused havoc in places, but not in China where they're using the plummeting temperatures to their advantage.

Any ice cool tourists brave enough can scale the usually raging torrent with the help of some crampons and a pickax.

Freezing weather conditions have battered much of the globe with parts of America dropping to -60 thanks to Winter Storm Hercules.

Conditions in the north of America are so historically low that the world-famous Niagara Falls actually froze spawning some truly amazing snaps.

Lake Michigan steamed because the water was warmer than the surrounding air, and the small town of Hell froze over - for real.
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Phoenix

256 wildfires suddenly break out in Victoria, Australia amid heatwave

Angus Thompson, James Dowling, Michelle Ainsworth
Herald Sun
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:52 UTC
fire ban sign
© Unknown
Crews have worked throughout the night extinguishing hundreds of fires in the driest parts of Victoria sparked by dry lightning from electrical storms.

CFA state duty officer Scott Purdy told 3AW radio crews responded to 256 fires between 5pm and 12am.

The Mallee and Wimmera received the most strikes as electrical storms hit the region and continued to other parts of the state including the central Victorian towns of Castlemaine, Daylesford, Woodend, Macedon, and metropolitan Melbourne.

There are still 22 fires burning in the Mallee. Waterbombing helicopters are monitoring the region and central Victoria to identify strikes before conditions worsen later in the week.

The CFA fears more dry lightning, which means lightning with not enough rain to combat its effect, will hit the state today.

The CFA battled several grass fires yesterday, with the most serious at Kangaroo Ground which is now under control.

There is a total fire ban across the state.

Comment: Dry lightning? Maybe. But then there's also this coming down from overhead:

Breaking News: NSW, Australia - Meteor spotted, 12 January 2014

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