Earth ChangesS


Binoculars

Red River floodwaters head to Canadian province

Rod Nickel
Reuters
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:26 UTC
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - Manitoba's biggest city of Winnipeg will defend itself against the Red River's highest crest without its prized floodway, an C$858 million ($692 million) ditch designed to channel floodwater around the provincial capital.

Backhoes and specialized ice-breaking machines have instead assembled along the river as the first of two crests, caused by ice jams on the north-flowing river, hits Winnipeg as early as Tuesday.
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Fish

Huge Sea Worm Captured in Britain


Daily Mail (UK)
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:27 UTC
Aquarium staff have unearthed a 'giant sea' worm that was attacking coral reef and prize fish.

The 4ft long monster, named Barry, had launched a sustained attack on the reef in a display tank at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium over recent months.

Workers at the Cornwall-based attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and - in some cases - cut in half.
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Red Flag

Concerns Raised About Coastal Levels Of Flame-Retardant Chemicals

Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:12 UTC
U.S. study finds widespread, high concentrations near Southern California and Chicago, as well as Alaska.

Flame-retardant chemicals that have been linked to reproductive and neurological problems in animals have seeped into coastal environments even in remote regions and have been found in high concentrations off populated areas such as Chicago and Southern California, a federal study revealed Tuesday.

"This is a wake-up call for Americans concerned about the health of our coastal waters and their personal health," said John H. Dunnigan, assistant administrator of the National Ocean Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which released the report.
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Cloud Lightning

Hurricane speed reveals where storm surges will strike


New Scientist
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:50 UTC
The speed at which a hurricane progresses across the ocean may help forecasters predict which areas are at risk from flooding by storm surges.

When hurricanes strike, flooding causes more damage than the wind, and kills more people. To predict the severity of a surge, forecasters tend to rely on factors such as the size and the intensity of the storm. Now Joao Rego and Chunyan Li of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge have calculated that a hurricane's forward speed influences the peak height and inland "reach" of surges.

The pair fed measurements from 30 sites in Louisiana and Texas hit by hurricane Rita in 2005 into a computer model that relates the severity of a surge to the hurricane's speed of travel. When they raised the speed in their model to the maximum realistic value, the peak of the surge was 7 per cent higher than Rita's, and the volume of water pushed inland fell by up to 40 per cent. This meant areas close to the coast were hit harder, but sites further inland were left unscathed. For the slowest storms, the opposite happened: peak surge was lower, but inland reach increased (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: link).
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Fish

Code red: How deep reef fish keep in touch

Stephanie Pain
New Scientist
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:05 UTC

On the face of it, what Nico Michiels did was rather pointless and a bit dangerous. Michiels, an evolutionary ecologist from the University of Tübingen in Germany, spends part of each year in Egypt where he dives in the Red Sea, observing life on its coral reefs. In September 2007 he decided to find out how far red light could penetrate the depths, so he attached a piece of red filter foil to his dive mask and began to descend. In theory, once he reached about 15 metres, he should have been plunged into darkness. Instead, something totally unexpected happened.

Like any experienced diver, Michiels knew that seawater selectively absorbs longer wavelengths of light so that somewhere below about 10 to 15 metres - depending on the clarity of the water - red light is all but extinguished, and anything that looks red at the surface fades to grey or black. His red filter would block out all wavelengths except red, revealing the depth at which red disappeared on this particular reef. Sure enough, 20 metres down it was as dark as night and quite disorienting. "All the fish disappeared. With no light from the surface they were effectively black and had become invisible," he says. But it didn't stay black for long. "Then I saw a group of gobies with bright red eyes lit up against the background. After that red spots began to show up all over the reef."
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Attention

Italian earthquake death toll rises to 100


RIA Novosti
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:17 UTC
Italian quake
© Unknown
Over 100 people have been killed after a powerful quake hit the mountainous region of Abruzzo in central Italy, the Apcom news agency said on Monday.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said at a news conference in L'Aquila, the region's capital and close to the quake's epicenter, that about 1,500 people had been injured when the earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, struck in the early hours.

He added that the death toll "topped 50 people," but it was likely to rise as rescuers continue their search of the debris.
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Radar

Italian earthquake: expert's warnings were dismissed as scaremongering

Nick Squires in L'Aquila and Gordon Rayner
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:32 UTC
Image
© Unknown
An Italian scientist, Giampaolo Giuliani, predicted the earthquake which has killed at least 90 people in the Abruzzo region but he was reported to the police for scaremongering, it has emerged.

Mr Giuliani told locals to evacuate their houses and posted a video on YouTube in which he said a build-up of radon gas around the seismically active area suggested a major earthquake was imminent.

Several tremors had been felt in the medieval city of L'Aquila, around 60 miles east of Rome, from mid-January onwards, and vans with loudspeakers had driven around the city spreading the warning.

But instead of heeding Mr Giuliani's warnings, the local authorities reported him to police for "spreading alarm" and he was told to remove his findings from the internet.

The predicted earthquake hit L'Aquila at 3.32am local time today, killing at least 90 people and leaving up to 50,000 homeless.
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Target

Update: Strong quake kills 27 in Italy


Press TV
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:05 UTC
earthquake Italy
© Associated Press/Pier Paolo CitoFirefighters remove debris in the city of L'Aquila, after a strong earthquake rocked central Italy, early Monday, April 6, 2009
A strong earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale has rocked central Italy, killing at least 27 people and causing severe damage.

The early Monday temblor was centered in the Abruzzo region's capital l'Aquila, about 95 Kilometers (60miles) northeast of the capital Rome at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey.

Among the dead are an elderly woman and a baby girl who were crushed in a building in the medieval town of Fossa and four other children who died in l'Aquila when their house collapsed, local media reports said.

Police also confirmed that five other people were killed in the small town of Castelnuovo.
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X

Scottish fish farmers 'conducting secret seal slaughter'

Auslan Cramb
The Telegraph
Sun, 05 Apr 2009 07:52 UTC
seal
© Unknown
Animal rights campaigners claim that a "secret slaughter" of seals was being carried out by fish farmers around the Scottish coast.

The Seal Protection Action Group said as many as 5,000 of the mammals were shot every year.

However, the industry claims the figure is nearer 500, and insists that seals have to be controlled to protect commercial stocks.
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Bizarro Earth

Venezuela - Earthquake Magnitude 4.5


US Gelogical Survey
Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:57 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time

* Monday, April 06, 2009 at 00:26:45 UTC

* Sunday, April 05, 2009 at 08:26:45 PM at epicenter

Location 10.665°N, 69.472°W

Depth 38.8 km (24.1 miles)

Distances 70 km (45 miles) NNW of Barquisimeto, Venezuela

90 km (55 miles) SSE of Coro, Venezuela

280 km (170 miles) W of CARACAS, Venezuela

2010 km (1250 miles) SE of Miami, Florida
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