Earth ChangesS


Sherlock

Culprit in mysterious elk deaths found: It's pond scum

Benjamin Radford
Live Science
Fri, 08 Nov 2013 15:01 UTC
Image
© Bureau of Land Management ColoradoA big bull elk pauses to take a drink from a BLM watering hole.
A hunter stumbled upon a bizarre sight on a 75,000-acre ranch north of Las Vegas, N.M., on Aug. 27: the remains of more than 100 dead elk. Livestock deaths are not unusual, but so many animals dying off, and doing so in what seems to be under 24 hours, was puzzling to scientists.

Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish investigated the mysterious elk deaths and ruled out several possible causes for the elk deaths, including poachers, anthrax, lightning strikes, epizootic hemorrhagic disease (an often-fatal virus known to affect deer and other ruminants), botulism, poisonous plants, malicious poisoning and even some sort of indupond scumstrial or agricultural accident.

The investigation was hampered by the state of the elk: Scavengers, including bears and vultures, ate most of the bodies, with maggots and blowflies helping to reduce the elk herd to an eerie scattered sea of skeletons in the desert.

"We couldn't find anything (toxic) in their stomachs and no toxic plants on the landscape," said Kerry Mower, a wildlife disease specialist with New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, as quoted by the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper.
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Cloud Lightning

The most powerful typhoon in history: Nearly 720,000 forced to evacuate as 200mph winds spark landslides and destruction across the Philippines

Suzannah Hills
Daily Mail UK
Fri, 08 Nov 2013 08:28 UTC
The most intense typhoon on record continued to batter the Philippines today, killing three people and forcing almost 720,000 people to flee their homes. Super typhoon Haiyan smashed into coastal communities on the central island of Samar, 370 miles southeast of Manila, on Friday with maximum sustained winds of about 195 miles an hour and gusts of up to 235 miles per hour.

According to The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center, which measures average wind speed accurate to every minute, that makes Haiyan more powerful than the 1969 Hurricane Camille, which battered Mississippi in the United States with winds of 190mph.


The Filipino government said the storm has claimed three victims after one person was electrocuted by damaged power lines and another was crushed by a falling tree. It is unclear how the third died but another man is missing after he fell off a jeti in the central port of Cebu. According to authorities the death toll is expected to rise, with emergency services unable to immediately contact the worst affected areas and Haiyan only expected to leave the Philippines this evening.

Additional images
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Stock Up

Food prices surge in Brazil

Silvio Cascione
Reuters
Fri, 08 Nov 2013 06:57 UTC
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Brazil's annual inflation eased only slightly in October, while a surge in food prices suggested stubborn price pressures would keep inflation still close to the government's target ceiling.

Brazil's benchmark IPCA consumer price index rose 5.84 percent in the 12 months through October, nearly unchanged from its 5.87 percent 12-month advance through September, statistics agency IBGE said on Thursday.

The central bank targets inflation at 4.5 percent, with a tolerance margin of 2 percentage points. It was the fourth consecutive month of decline in the annual inflation rate after inflation peaked at 6.70 percent in June.

On a monthly basis, the IPCA index rose 0.57 percent, up from 0.35 percent in the prior month and close to the 0.60 percent median forecast of 31 economists.

Food prices jumped 1.03 percent from September, the most since March. Tomatoes, which symbolized a surge in food costs that pushed inflation above the government's target earlier this year, got 18.65 percent more expensive last month. Poultry and beef prices also rose more than 3 percent.
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Attention

Terrifying electrical fireball lights up Montreal in Canada - November 1, 2013


strangesounds.org
Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:21 UTC
Amazing video showing a huge electrical fireball passing by through Montreal after wind knocks out power lines

Last night, a huge wind storm knocked out power lines in Lachine, a suburb of Montreal. This amazing video captures an electrical fireball traveling down power lines outside of some very lucky (to survive) person's home.

This video of the electric fireball in Montreal suburb of Lachine, Canada, was recorded by Youtuber Huw Griffiths, Friday, November 1, 2013. Whatever the scientific explanation may be - it looks pretty scary and cool on video.

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Bizarro Earth

Super typhoon Haiyan makes landfall in the Philippines

Doyle Rice
USA Today
Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:29 UTC
Typhoon Haiyan
© Kit Recebido, epaFilipino residents sleep on the floor at a gymnasium turned into an evacuation center in Sorsogon City, Bicol region, Philippines, on Nov. 7.
It is one of the most intense storms in world history.

Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall early Friday morning in Guiuan, a small city in Samar province in the eastern Philippines.

It reached the fragile island chain as the most powerful typhoon or hurricane in recorded history, says meteorologist Jeff Masters of Weather Underground

Thousands of people evacuated villages in the central Philippines on Thursday Haiyan took aim the region, which was devastated by an earthquake last month.

Haiyan had intensified and accelerated as it moved closer to the country with sustained winds of 195 mph and gusts of 235 mph, according to the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

No Atlantic or eastern Pacific hurricane has ever been stronger than Haiyan (typhoons are the same type of storms as hurricanes).

About 10 million people live on the central Philippine islands and are most at risk from a direct strike from Haiyan.
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Cloud Lightning

Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of strongest storms ever, heads for central Philippines - 'significant loss of life' predicted

Jethro Mullen
CNN.com
Thu, 07 Nov 2013 13:36 UTC
Thousands of people in vulnerable areas of the Philippines are being relocated as one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever observed spins toward the country. With sustained winds of 315 kph (195 mph) and gusts as strong as 380 kph (235 mph), Super Typhoon Haiyan was churning across the Western Pacific toward the central Philippines.

Its wind strength makes it equivalent to an exceptionally strong Category 5 hurricane. The storm, known as Yolanda in the Philippines, is expected to still be a super typhoon, with winds in excess of 240 kph (149 mph), when it makes landfall Friday morning in the region of Eastern Visayas.

The storm is so large in diameter that clouds from it are affecting two-thirds of the country.

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Attention

'Wreck' of short-tailed shearwater as 200 birds found dead in New Zealand


tvnz.co.nz
Thu, 07 Nov 2013 05:24 UTC
Image
© Wikimedia CommonsThe short-tailed shearwater
Nearly 200 seabirds have been found dead along Waikato's west coast beaches.

A total of 184 short-tailed shearwater, a migratory bird that typically breeds on the islands between Tasmania and Victoria, have been washed ashore between Waikorea beach and Taharoa, south of Kawhia.

It is not known when the birds died and were washed ashore, but numbers are said to be "unusually large" by one expert.

Hugh Clifford, who organised the beach patrol on behalf of the Waikato branch of the Ornithological Society, said the number of short-tailed shearwater found this year was much higher than normal.

"There would be millions of them passing down through the Tasman Sea on the southern migration.

"Some of them were pushed closer to New Zealand and the food conditions may have been unfavourable, causing them to perish."

Each year during the southern hemisphere winter, the short-tailed shearwater migrate about 15,000 km to the Northern Pacific, before making their way back towards southern Australia to breed around October.
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Bizarro Earth

Malaysian angler catches bizarre fish


MSN News
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:04 UTC
Armored Gurnards
© BarcroftThe bizarre and unidentified fish, which the fisherman's family have taken to calling 'Armour Fish'.
A rare and mysterious fish has been caught in Malaysia, leaving locals baffled.

Forty-three year old Sapar Mansor from Permyjaya hooked the creature in the sea near the coastal village of Tudan. He told the Borneo Post: "This is the first time in my life that I have seen this type of fish."

The creature has two tusk-like spikes near its mouth and measures over one foot in length. The fisherman's family have taking to calling the creature an 'Armour Fish' due its sharp spines.

His wife added: "It is God's gift and I and my family will keep the fish."

Comment: Identified as Robust armoured-gurnard (Satyrichthys welchi).

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Bizarro Earth

Oklahoma earthquakes make a 'boom' sound

Chellie Mills
KFOR
Tue, 05 Nov 2013 15:09 UTC
Oklahoma Quakes
© KFOR

Oklahoma County - There was a lot of talk this weekend about those earthquakes. Many people reported not only feeling the rattle, but hearing a loud noise accompanying the quakes.

It's that boom which has many asking the question, why are Oklahoma earthquakes so loud.

Often when we think of earthquakes, we see videos of quakes around the world. The shaking of items off shelves and the knocking people down come to mind.

However, when it comes to Oklahoma earthquakes many people say it's not the shaking but the sound that is unnerving.

Doug Gregory, who lives close to where a number of the earthquakes happened over the weekend, said, "It's kind of like a thunderstorm going over but you know that's not happening."

Mr. Gregory said he felt several over the weekend.

Amie Gibson with the Oklahoma Geological Survey says so far this month Oklahoma has had at least 65 earthquakes. A couple of the largest earthquakes took place this weekend in the area of Memorial Road and Post Road.
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Bad Guys

Sinkhole swallows car in Montreal, Canada

Anne Sutherland
The Montreal Gazette
Mon, 04 Nov 2013 00:00 UTC
Broken water main on King Edward Ave. collapses road
Erdfall Montreal
© Dave Sidaway, The GazetteCity workers attend to a sinkhole that opened up and swallowed a car on Monday morning, Nov. 4, 2013, in Montreal.
Montreal - A hapless motorist discovered a broken water main in the worst possible way: the road collapsed as he drove over it Monday morning.

The broken main/sinkhole is on King Edward Ave. at Fielding Ave. in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. The road is closed to traffic as city workers have to remove the car before they can get at the pipe.
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