Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

5.3-magnitude earthquake hits Japan's Fukushima


Associated Press
Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:26 UTC
A 5.3-magnitude earthquake has hit the Japanese prefecture that is home to the nuclear power plant crippled in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake struck early Friday at a depth of about 13 miles (22 kilometers) under Fukushima Prefecture and about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue an alert.

The Japanese news agency Kyodo News reported that the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., observed no abnormality in radiation or equipment after the quake.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday ordered TEPCO to scrap all six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and concentrate on tackling pressing issues like leaks of radioactive water.

The 2011 disaster caused three reactors to melt and damaged a fuel cooling pool at another. Officials have acknowledged that radiation-contaminated groundwater has been seeping into the Pacific Ocean since soon after the meltdowns.

The region lies on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. About 90 percent of the world's quakes occur in the region.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Earth's biggest deep earthquake still a mystery

Tia Ghose
LIveScience
Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:00 UTC
Sea of Okhotsk Quake
© USGSRecent earthquakes near the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia, including one of the deepest ever recorded.
It's confirmed: The largest deep earthquake ever recorded happened in May off the coast of Russia. But this massive temblor is still a mystery to scientists.

The magnitude-8.3 earthquake occurred on May 24, 2013, in the Sea of Okhotsk, deep within the Earth's mantle. The earthquake, described today (Sept. 19) in the journal Science, is perplexing because seismologists don't understand how massive earthquakes can happen at such depths.

"It's the biggest event we've ever seen," said study co-author Thorne Lay, a seismologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It looks so similar to shallow events, even though it's got 600 kilometers of rock on top of it. It's hard to understand how such an earthquake occurs at all under such huge pressure."
Read More...
Fish

Mass animal die-offs: Sea bass joins list of threatened fish

Fiona Harvey
Guardian
Wed, 18 Sep 2013 22:27 UTC
Image
© Scott Barbour/Getty ImagesA display of Sea bass for sale at Billingsgate Fish Market in London.
Scientists urge restrictions on fishing as stocks of the species sink to their lowest in the past 20 years

First it was the cod, then the haddock, the swordfish and even the anchovy - now sea bass looks likely to join the list of no-nos for eco-conscious dinner party menus.

Stocks of the palatable species have sunk to their lowest in the past 20 years, according to a new assessment by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas.

Sea bass - a white fish that can be farmed, and has a pleasant, while not over-powering, flavour and a bone structure that responds well to filleting - has been beloved of chefs and home cooks as warnings have been issued over other species. The firm flesh can withstand strong flavours such as chilli while bringing out subtle fragrances in delicate herbs, and over more than two decades has become a restaurant menu and dinner party staple in the UK.

As a result of the crash in stocks, scientists attending a conference run by the Blue Marine Foundation on Wednesday have urged a severe cut in the permitted catches of sea bass in the European Union. They believe that only by restricting wild catches by at least a third around the British Isles in the next year can stocks be allowed to recover, and they called for similar measures in other European waters.
Read More...
Cloud Precipitation

Boulder, Colorado registers wettest 24-hour period, and month, on record

Charlie Brennan and Elizabeth Mattern Clark
Daily Camera
Thu, 12 Sep 2013 21:56 UTC
Image
© Paul AikenCars sit abandoned on 28th Street just north of Pearl on Wednesday morning.
Devastating downpour now ranks as a 100-year flood ย

Boulder has set a record for its wettest 24-hour period. Ever.

Prior to Wednesday, the single wettest day on record was July 31, 1919, when 4.80 inches of rain were recorded, according to Bob Henson, a science writer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Henson said that the latest official readings for Boulder show that from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 9:15 a.m. today, 7.21 inches of rain have fallen in Boulder, with amounts likely varying from a bit lower in northeast areas of the city to higher than that to the southwest.

"We have never had anything this big," said Boulder meteorologist Matt Kelsch.

Additionally, the last three days of rain are more than Boulder has experienced in any month on record.

Since the rain kicked in late Monday afternoon, Boulder has officially recorded at least 9.61 inches of rain, topping the 9.59 inches recorded in the entire month of May 1995.

But the numbers, in fact, go higher
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole swallows smart car near Jacksonville, Florida


KUHT
Wed, 18 Sep 2013 11:15 UTC
A large sinkhole swallowed up a moving car in Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday.

The woman says she was driving through what looked like a water main break and didn't realize how saturated the ground really was. It only took a few seconds for her car to sink below the earth and fill up with water.

The road where it happened is now blocked off while crews investigate.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Cloud seeding not to blame for Colorado flooding

Laura Poppick
LiveScience
Mon, 16 Sep 2013 17:02 UTC
Colorado Flooding
© NOAAThis image from the Suomi NPP satellite's VIIRS sensor from the evening of September 11, 2013, shows the storm system that has devastated towns in the foothills of the Rockies in central Colorado.
Colorado's recent massive flooding, which has left hundreds of people unaccounted for, has been called an anomalous 100- or even 1,000-year event by the scientific community.

Such floods have a 1 percent and 0.1 percent chance of occurring, respectively, during any given year. While those odds make them rare events, they are the result of natural larger-scale weather and climate patterns, with perhaps an assist from climate change.

Still, some Internet users have voiced alternative views, suggesting that the destructive rainstorms were more directly human-induced, the result of Colorado's cloud-seeding program.

Cloud seeding, in which tiny silver iodide particles are sprayed into clouds to provide a core for ice crystals to form around, falls within the Colorado Weather Modification Program that is overseen by the Colorado Water Conservation Board and is used primarily by ski resorts to increase the snowpack during the winter.

The program - which has been reported to increase the snowpack by 10 to 15 percent each year - remains controversial among those concerned about the unknown repercussions of manipulating weather in this way.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Earth opens up and swallows U.S. Marine in Missouri

Betsey Bruce
Fox2Now St. Louis
Wed, 18 Sep 2013 15:42 UTC
Image
A young Marine based at Fort Leonard Wood in mid-Missouri was killed in what authorities call a "bizarre" accident. It happened at dusk Monday north of Buckhorn, MO.

Pulaski County Sheriff Ron Long said 31-year old Cortis Powelson fell into a sink hole as deep as a tall tree while returning home from deer hunting.

The county's deputy coroner Michael McCart repelled into the hole to reach the body. He said it was sixty to seventy feet deep and only about the size of a car at the top.

McCart, who describes himself as a life long deer hunter in the area, believes the sink hole is newly formed. "With all the rain and everything we've had just in the last month, it looks like it was a very freshly opened sink hole," he said Tuesday. Heavy rainfall caused flash flooding in the area in August that took two lives.

Read More...
Hourglass

Will the Dead Sea be eaten by sinkholes? Huge chasms are appearing in the region at a rate of one per day

Ellie Zolfagharifard
The Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 18 Sep 2013 14:12 UTC
The Dead Sea is drying up at a rate of one meter per year causing sinkholes

There are now over 3,000 sinkholes around the Dead Sea on the Israeli side

This compares to 40 in 1990, with the first sinkhole appearing in the 1980s

The Dead Sea is drying up at an incredible rate leaving huge chasms of empty space in its wake.

These chasms appear in the form of large, devastating sinkholes and are increasing in number throughout the region.

Experts claim they are now forming at a rate of nearly one a day, but have no way of knowing when or how they will show up.

Image
The Dead Sea is drying up at an incredible rate leaving huge chasms of empty space in its wake
Estimates by Moment magazine suggest that, on the Israeli side alone, there are now over 3,000 sinkholes around the Dead Sea.
Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Lightning strike, Cheyenne Wyoming 9-14-13

Colby Moore
Youtube
Sat, 14 Sep 2013 13:41 UTC
Lightning - right down the street from my house!
Read More...
Question

Another blackbuck dies, toll touches 18 in Lucknow zoo, India


The Times of India
Wed, 18 Sep 2013 13:29 UTC
Image
© Chinmayisk, Wikimedia CommonsA blackbuck adult stag.
Lucknow zoo authorities are yet to control the reasons taking a toll on the lives of blackbucks. On Tuesday, another of the specie died in the zoo taking the total toll to 18.

The female blackbuck was under supervision as it was not keeping well for the past two days. According to zoo authorities, its condition deteriorated on Monday night and it had to be put on oxygen. The animal died at 7.45 am on Tuesday.

Till Saturday, 17 blackbucks had died due to a mysterious ailment.

Zoo minister SP Yadav visited the zoo and warned authorities of action if laxity was found on their part. On the complaints that the animals caught infection through the feed and fodder, Yadav said, the government is now thinking of making another arrangements for the fodder at Kukrail forest.
Read More...