Earth Changes
On Apr 3, dead birds fell from the sky in Norman, Oklahoma. Even though state wildlife officials say "there's no cause for concern," residents are alarmed, and with good reason. Dead birds falling from the sky is not an everyday occurrence anywhere, let alone in Oklahoma, with its loud booms, rumbling, and shaking.
On Thursday, Becki Miller, a homeowner near Highway 9 and Interstate 35, heard a thump and saw that a dead bird had fallen to the ground. During the next 24 hours, at least a dozen more birds dropped "dead from the skies" into her yard. Also, according to The Oklahoman, a TV station reported another 20 birds were found the same day within a square mile of Miller's home.
Dead birds aside for a moment, there are good reasons why Oklahomans should be alarmed about the unusual happenings in their state.
A sinkhole opened up on Pine Tree Lane just off of Brewster Road in the Grayson Valley area of Birmingham. Police say the hole is about 6 feet deep.
Traffic has been blocked off so if you drive in that area you'll need to find another way around. The worry is that the water coming out from under the road will soon make the whole street collapse.

Cleanup continued Tuesday on the Mount Washington hillside after a landslide.
Pittsburgh officials also ordered a precautionary closure of LeMont restaurant above the slide zone, but an engineer said a visual inspection found no signs of instability around that structure.

The newer part of the island - Niijima - is now larger than the older portion, which last expanded in 1973-74
The merged island lies some 1,000km (621mi) south of Tokyo, the result of eruptions on the seafloor that have spewed enough material to rise above the water line.
In November 2013, a new island sprouted near to Nishino-shima, another volcanic landmass that last expanded in the 70s.
Four months later, the new and old islands are one island.

Dr. Craig Rowles stands with hogs in one of his Carroll, Iowa, hog buildings.
Estimates vary, but one economist believes case data indicate more than 6 million piglets in 27 states have died since porcine epidemic diarrhea showed up in the U.S. last May. A more conservative estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the nation's pig herd has shrunk at least 3 percent to about 63 million pigs since the disease appeared.
Scientists think the virus, which does not infect humans or other animals, came from China, but they don't know how it got into the country. The federal government is looking into how such viruses might spread, while the pork industry, wary of future outbreaks, has committed $1.7 million to research the disease.

Firefighters rescue a family from their home, surrounded by floodwaters, in a mobile home park in Pelham, Ala., on Monday, April 7, 2014. Overnight storms dumped torrential rains in central Alabama, causing flooding across a wide area.
In Mississippi, a 9-year-old girl was swept away and killed after the storms dropped nearly 7 inches of rain there over the last two days. A possible tornado in another part of the state damaged homes and hurt seven people, and a motorist in metro Atlanta was found dead after driving into a creek swollen with rainwater.
Strong winds downed trees, power lines and snarled rush hour commutes. National Weather Service forecasters in North Carolina say video indicates a tornado touched down near the town of Belhaven in the eastern part of the state. Authorities say a pickup truck was lifted off the highway, injuring a man and his son.
The provinces of Catamarca in the northwest and Neuquen in the southwest took the brunt of the storm, Maria Rodriguez, the national minister of security, said in a statement.
The federal government has deployed national forces, trucks, communications equipment and supplies of food, beverages and medicine to help evacuees and local governments.

In this Monday, April 7, 2014 cell phone image provided by local station, Radio San Jose de Alcudia and downloaded from its Facebook page, a herd of cattle carcasses skirt a tree on a ranch in Rio Bueno, Chile. Ranchers in southern Chile say a series of lightning strikes spawned by storms has killed more than 60 of their dairy cows.
Storms on Sunday spawned the strikes in south-central Chile. Worst hit was a ranch in Los Rios owned by Cecil Fourt, who says 54 of his cows were killed by lightning and another one was blinded. Another rancher, Claudio Toledo, says nine of his cows sheltering under a tree were struck and killed.
The El Austral newspaper reported Tuesday that workers were digging a deep pit to bury the cattle.
Source: AP

A front end loader is used to fix a sinkhole on South Grant Street south of Cherry Street in Palmyra on Monday. Borough officials believe the new sinkhole may be connected to a hole that opened at a nearby property in the past few weeks ago.
On Monday, borough crews worked on filling a new sinkhole that was reported during the weekend in an alley along the 300 block of East Cherry Street between South Harrison and South Grant streets. Crews also were patching a sinkhole about two feet in diameter that reopened on South Grant Street on Friday, according to a borough official.
The latest sinkhole was reported Sunday in an alley next to 320 E. Cherry St., borough manager Roger Powl said. He believes it may be connected to a sinkhole that opened on that property at the rear of the house two or three weeks ago.
"It's probably the same hole. It's just getting larger," he said. "It's about the diameter of a basketball."
In October, three large sinkholes opened in the same block of East Cherry Street between the alley and South Grant Street, forcing the evacuation of several families. Residents have been concerned that sinkholes will migrate.









Comment: Not mentioned above is blast from overhead exploding space rocks as an explanation for both the bird deaths and the associated loud booms. See also: Radar Dopppler images confirm overhead 'turbulence' cause of 2011 mass bird death case in Beebe, Arkansas
Over 30 birds fall dead from the sky in Norman, Oklahoma
Mystery boom rattles homes in Duncan, Oklahoma