Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Happy Feet? Emperor penguin found far from Antarctic home

A young Emperor penguin took a rare wrong turn from the Antarctic and ended up stranded on a New Zealand beach - the first time in 44 years the aquatic bird has been sighted in the wild in the South Pacific country.
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© Richard Gill / APThis Emperor penguin got lost while hunting for food and ended up stranded on Peka Peka Beach in New Zealand on Monday.

Local resident Christine Wilton was taking her miniature Schnauzer dog Millie for a walk on Peka Peka Beach on the North Island's western coast when she discovered the bird Monday evening.

"It was out-of-this-world to see it ... like someone just dropped it from the sky," Wilton said. "It looked like Happy Feet - it was totally in the wrong place," Wilton said, referring to the 2006 animated musical featuring a young penguin who finds himself far from home.

Conservation experts say the penguin is about 10 months old and stands about 32 inches high. Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand, said the bird was likely born during the last Antarctic winter. It may have been searching for squid and krill when it took a wrong turn.

Sun

Sunspot Complex 1236 C7-Class Solar Flare Heading This Way

Magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1236 erupted during the early hours of June 21st, producing a C7-class solar flare and a full-halo CME. The expanding cloud appears to be heading almost directly toward Earth:


Alarm Clock

India - Cracks in Uttar Pradesh plains need monitoring, warns scientist

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© Unknown
Long widespread cracks observed in several places in the Indo-Gangetic plains could be due to motion of a massive granitic body underneath, an Indian scientist in the United States has cautioned.

"It is my sincere appeal to the government of India to monitor seismic activities in the area before any major disaster takes place," Ramesh Singh, who had extensively studied the seismology in that region, said in a statement as concern mounted over cracks being formed in several districts of Uttar Pradesh.

"If the orientations of such long cracks are in the east-west direction, then the cracks could be due to stress on the surface of the earth due to motion of this massive craton (granitic body) which is exposed near Jhansi," Singh said.

Singh, who was a senior professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K), is now professor at George Mason University in Washington and vice chair of GeoRisk Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

He said this massive body underlying the region is inclined towards northeast with depth reaching 300-500 m near Kanpur and 1,200 m in Lucknow. He said he and his colleagues at IIT-K had studied the configuration of this craton in 1990 using magnetotelluric method.

Bizarro Earth

US: Geologists - Volcanic Eruption Near San Diego County Possible

San Diego -- Comments from the U.S. Geological Survey are sparking questions about a potential volcanic eruption in Imperial Valley that could bring clouds of ash to San Diego County.

"Most definitely... Volcanic activity is possible," said geologist Pat Abbott.

Abbott was part of a research group that collected footage of muddy pits and volcanic gasses about 100 miles east on the southern end of the Salton Sea. The area is the home of four buttes that are several hundred feet tall.

The buttes are small volcanoes with an explosive past. Miles below them is a pool of magma that is 15 miles wide. About 8,000 years ago, the buttes erupted, causing magma to flow which cooled into obsidian rock.

Bizarro Earth

Santa Cruz Islands - Earthquake Magnitude 6.1

Santa Cruz Quake_210611
© USGSEarthquake location.
Date-Time:
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 02:04:15 UTC

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 01:04:15 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
11.510°S, 165.548°E

Depth:
13.5 km (8.4 miles)

Region:
SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

Distances:
93 km (57 miles) SSW of Lata, Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Isl.

414 km (257 miles) ESE of Kira Kira, San Cristobal, Solomon Isl.

654 km (406 miles) ESE of HONIARA, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands

2202 km (1368 miles) NE of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Attention

China: 5.2-Magnitude Quake Hits Yunnan, Injuring Four

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© XinhuaRescuers search for signs of life after a 5.2-magnitude earthquake hit Tengchong County near the city of Baoshan in Southwest China's Yunnan Province June 20, 2011.
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake hit Tengchong County near the city of Baoshan in Southwest China's Yunnan Province at 6:16 pm Monday, according to the China Earthquake Network Center.

The quake has injured four people as of 10 pm, according to the provincial department of civil affairs.

The provincial seismological bureau said the tremor was acutely felt in 18 townships administered by Tengchong, and damaged some houses there.

The epicenter of the tremor was recorded in Mangbang township, located more than 40 km away from the county seat of Tengchong.

Bizarro Earth

Chile - Earthquake Magnitude 6.5 - Antofagasta

Antofagasta Quake_200611
© USGSEarthquake Location.
Date-Time:
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 16:35:59 UTC

Monday, June 20, 2011 at 12:35:59 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
21.898°S, 68.299°W

Depth:
117 km (72.7 miles)

Region:
ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

Distances:
87 km (54 miles) NE of Calama, Antofagasta, Chile

196 km (121 miles) E of Tocopilla, Antofagasta, Chile

224 km (139 miles) SW of Uyuni, Bolivia

1297 km (805 miles) N of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Cloud Lightning

Our changing atmosphere: Photos and video footage of gigantic rotating 'Roll Clouds'

Sometimes, the pictures come to you. A wedding photographer managed to be lucky enough to step outside his front door and witnesses this incredible scene. Rob Sharrock snapped up his Nikon D300 and dashed out to capture this monstrous roll cloud which seems to go on forever.
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© Rob SharrockAn incredible roll cloud dominates the skies above the photographer's house in Australia. Roll clouds ocurr ahead of storm fronts

Mr Sharrock , from Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia, lives in the house with the awning to the left of the frame. The roll cloud is a subtype of arcus cloud - the funnel is horizontal and does not connect to the ground.The other subtype of arcus is a shelf cloud, which also often appear to precede storm fronts.

These rare long clouds sometimes form near advancing cold fronts. A downdraft from an advancing storm front can cause moist warm air to rise, cool below its dew point, and so form a cloud. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may form.

Mr Sharrock said: 'It was amazing. I couldn't believe my luck in getting something like this right outside my own home. 'I just looked up in the sky and said "Bloody hell, what on earth is that? It seemed to go on for miles. It was truly incredible."

Nuke

US: River Falls Short of Nebraska Nuke Plant Shutdown

Missouri river flood
© APMissouri National Guard soldiers, Staff Sergeant Kevin Ackley, left and Staff Sergeant Allen Godsey look at floodwaters from the Missouri river overtop a levy near Brownville, Neb., Sunday, June, 19, 2011.
The bloated Missouri River rose to within 18 inches of forcing the shutdown of a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska but stopped and ebbed slightly Monday, after several levees in northern Missouri failed to hold back the surging waterway.

The river has to hit 902 feet above sea level at Brownville before officials will shut down the Cooper Nuclear Plant, which sits at 903 feet, Nebraska Public Power District spokesman Mark Becker said.

Flooding is a concern all along the river because of the massive amounts of water that the Army Corps of Engineers has released from six dams. Any significant rain could worsen the flooding especially if it falls in Nebraska, Iowa or Missouri, which are downstream of the dams.

The river is expected to rise as much as 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in much of Nebraska and Iowa and as much as 10 feet over flood stage in parts of Missouri. The corps predicts the river will remain that high until at least August.

Cloud Lightning

Atlanta, US: Falling trees disrupt power, kill Cobb woman; 16,000 residents are reportedly without power statewide

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© Jason Getz, jgetz@ajc.comAtlanta Braves fans stand under cover in the upper deck as rain falls on Turner Field during a rain delay in the top of the 5th inning of their game against the Texas Rangers Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, Ga., June 18, 2011.
The woman slammed on the car brakes, desperately trying to avoid the large tree falling into her path on Powers Ferry Road.

But witnesses told police that Shufen Yang was too late.

Whether it was heavy rain, slippery roads or unusually gloomy conditions, Yang could not get out of the way Saturday evening as the tree crashed on her 1993 Honda Accord.

The 55-year-old Marietta woman was pronounced dead at the scene, the only reported fatality resulting from a round of thunderstorms that swept through the area Saturday afternoon.

"It's one of those freak things," said Cobb County police spokesman Officer Mike Bowman. "I can't think of anything [similar] that I can recall that we've handled before."