Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Indonesia: Dozens Injured In Bali Earthquake

Mark Dunphy
Irish Weather Online
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:25 UTC
A strong earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Bali on late Thursday morning, seismologists said, collapsing a number of buildings and injuring dozens of people. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake at 11.16 a.m. local time (0316 GMT) was centered about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Denpasar, the capital city of Bali. It struck about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to Indonesia's seismological agency (BMKG).

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale, estimated that some 641,000 people in the region may have felt moderate shaking. Another 4.6 million people may have felt light shaking.

Image
© Google/IWOEpicentre of Thursday's earthquake in Bali.
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Bizarro Earth

Clue to Climate-Changing Super Volcanic Eruptions Found


International Business Times
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:38 UTC
St.Helens Volcano
© ReutersFile photo from July 22, 1980 showing the eruption plume from Mount St. Helens.

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) claim to have found the possible cause for "super-eruptions" in massive volcanoes on the Earth that occur every 100,000 years and are known to induce planetary climate change.

A model presented by researchers at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis suggest that a combination of temperature influence and the geometrical configuration of the magma chamber is a potential cause for these super-eruptions, OSU said in a news release Wednesday.

According to Patricia Trish Gregg, the lead author of the modeling study, the creation of a ductile halo of rock around the magma chamber allows the pressure to build over tens of thousands of years, resulting in extensive uplifting in the roof above the magma chamber and eventually causing eruption.

Researchers of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, said the super-eruption of major volcanic systems on the Earth could trigger climate change by inducing Ice Ages and other impacts.
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Bizarro Earth

Canary Islands: Two New Eruptions Observed in Subsea Volcano

Mark Johanson
International Business Times
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:35 UTC
Image
© UnknownTwo new volcanic eruptions were confirmed on Wednesday off the south coast of the Canary Island of El Hierro.
Two new volcanic eruptions were confirmed on Wednesday off the south coast of the Canary Island of El Hierro.

Nearly 600 people from the southernmost village, La Restinga, remained out of their homes Thursday after they were evacuated on Tuesday.

Seismologists have found two separate fissures less than 2.3 miles and 1.7 miles from La Restinga.

"I confirm the existence of two points of volcanic eruption at El Hierro," Laura Otero, a spokeswoman for the local authorities, told AFP.

The first eruption occurred at a depth of 700 meters (2,300 feet) and the other at a depth of 200 meters (655 feet).

Scientists from ING, CSIC, and the University of Cadiz are trying to determine if the subsea volcanic vent is widening and, if so, if it is widening in the direction of El Hierro.
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Question

New Zealand: Is That a Geep? Ewe Must be Kidding... it's a Shoat

Sally Rae
Otago Daily Times
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:05 UTC
Geep
© Otago Daily TimesThe geep (front) has a lamb's body and a goat's head, legs and bleat.

No kidding - it's a geep.

When Taieri farmer Graeme Wallace brought a mob of ewes and lambs in for tailing this week, he thought the wool was being pulled over his eyes.

"I thought, 'what the hell is this? Is it a goat or is it a lamb?'

"No, it's a 50/50," Mr Wallace recalled. He thought fleetingly that the ewe mothering the mystery animal could have had a dead lamb and adopted a kid, but decided against it.

With the body of a lamb, but the head, legs and bleat of a goat, the rare male hybrid was definitely "a cross between the two".

Mr Wallace, who did not notice the animal during earlier daily lambing rounds - not that he was looking out for a geep - said it would have been sired by one of the many feral goats on the property, near Allanton.

His father told him there might be such a thing as a geep. So he looked it up on the internet that night and "sure enough" there was.

A report on the natural mating of a doe with a ram which produced a female hybrid - believed to be the first authenticated report of a sheep-goat hybrid in New Zealand - was published in the New Zealand Veterinary Journal in 1990.
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Bizarro Earth

Indonesia - Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - South of Bali


US Geological Survey
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:41 UTC
Bali Quake_131011
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 03:16:29 UTC

Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 11:16:29 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
9.378°S, 114.628°E

Depth:
35.1 km (21.8 miles)

Region:
SOUTH OF BALI, INDONESIA

Distances:
100 km (62 miles) SW of Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

168 km (104 miles) SE of Jember, Java, Indonesia

182 km (113 miles) WSW of Mataram, Lombok, Indonesia

931 km (578 miles) ESE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
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Bizarro Earth

Experts warn over Iceland volcano


The Independent
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:36 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Experts are warning that an eruption could be imminent at an even more powerful Icelandic volcano than the one that paralysed air traffic last year.

Seismologists are nervously watching rumblings beneath Katla which could spew an ash cloud dwarfing the 2010 eruption that cost airlines two billion dollars (£1.27 billion) and drove home how vulnerable modern society is to the whims of nature.

Brooding over rugged moss-covered hills on Iceland's southern edge, Katla is a much bigger beast than the nearby Eyjafjallajokul volcano, which blasted ash all over Europe for several weeks in an eruption that local scientist Pall Einarsson describes nonetheless as "small".

Named after an evil troll, Katla has a larger magma chamber than Eyjafjallajokul's.

Its last major eruption in 1918 continued more than a month, turning day into night, starving crops of sunlight and killing off some livestock.
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Cloud Lightning

Deadly storms swamp Mexico and Guatemala


MSNBC
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:30 UTC
Image
© Marco Ugarte / APFloodwaters from Hurricane Jova swamp a main intersection in Villa de las Garzas, Mexico, on Wednesday.
Beach areas get swamped, while mountain towns see flash floods

Hurricane Jova slammed into Mexico's Pacific coast as a Category 2 storm early Wednesday, killing at least five people and injuring six, while a tropical depression hit farther south and unleashed steady rains that contributed to 13 deaths across the border in Guatemala.

Jova came ashore west of the Mexican port of Manzanillo and the beach town of Barra de Navidad before dawn with 100 mph winds and heavy rains, before moving inland and weakening to a tropical depression by afternoon. It continued to dump rain over a large swath of northwest Mexico, including Jalisco state where rainfall this year had been low.

A 71-year-old woman drowned in Colima state after a strong current swept away the car in which she and her son were riding. Her son survived, Colima Gov. Mario Anguiano said.

In the neighboring state of Jalisco, Jova triggered a mudslide in the town of Cihuatlan, just inland from Barra de Navidad, that swept away a house on a hillside, killing a 21-year-old woman and her daughter, Jalisco civil protection officials said in a statement.

Farther northwest along the Mexican coast in the town of Tomatlan, about 12 miles from where Jova landed, a man and a teenage boy were killed when a wall of their home softened by heavy rains fell on them, officials said.
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Fish

US: In Alaska's Arctic, mysterious outbreak kills dozens of ringed seals

Alex DeMarban
Alaska Dispatch
Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:53 UTC
Ill ring seal
© North Slope BoroughAn ill ringed seal on the North Slope.
A mysterious and potentially widespread disease is thought to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of ringed seals along Alaska's Arctic coast. Scores more are sickened, some so ill that skin lesions bleed when touched.

The animals are an important subsistence food, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed listing them as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

In July, biologists with the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management began receiving reports of ringed seals hauled out on beaches, an unusual behavior since the animals usually prefer the water or ice. Since then, they've found at least 100 seals with telltale mangy hair and skin lesions, mostly while traveling by four-wheeler along 30 miles of Beaufort and Chukchi sea coastline outside Barrow.

At least 46 of those seals have been found dead, and experts aren't sure if the disease is killing them or if other infections and polar bears are proving fatal once the seals become feeble.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 5.3 - Oregon Coast


US Geological Survey
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:28 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 04:13:59 UTC

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 08:13:59 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
43.440°N, 127.155°W

Depth:
10.3 km (6.4 miles)

Region:
OFF THE COAST OF OREGON

Distances:
233 km (144 miles) W of Coos Bay, Oregon

277 km (172 miles) WSW of Newport, Oregon

277 km (172 miles) NW of Brookings, Oregon

365 km (226 miles) WSW of SALEM, Oregon
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Eye 1

New Zealand: Rena's wildlife victims die in oil-soaked misery

Isaac Davison
nzherald.co.nz
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:44 UTC
Image
© Photo / Joel FordAn oil-sodden bird dead on the beach at Mt Maunganui.

A large wandering albatross is among the latest victims in the soaring wildlife death toll caused by oil pollution from the stricken Rena off Tauranga's coast.

Rescuers are now moving larger animals from the area to prevent them being poisoned by the oil.

Cold weather has worsened the effects of the oil on seabirds. Many penguins, petrels and shearwaters have frozen to death because the oil blocked their ability to insulate themselves against cold.
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