Earth ChangesS


Eye 1

BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Well Before Blast

Ian Urbina
The New York Times
Fri, 28 May 2010 23:02 UTC
Deepwater Horizon ablaze
© Gerald Herbert/Associated PressThe Deepwater Horizon ablaze on April 21, the day after the oil rig exploded
Several days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options, according to a BP document.

The concern with the method BP chose, the document said, was that if the cement around the casing pipe did not seal properly, gases could leak all the way to the wellhead, where only a single seal would serve as a barrier.

Using a different type of casing would have provided two barriers, according to the document, which was provided to The New York Times by a Congressional investigator.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

BP Oil Leak May Last Until Christmas in Worst Case Scenario

Jessica Resnick-Ault and David Wethe
Bloomberg
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:24 UTC
BP worker
© Derick E. Hingle/BloombergA BP Plc contract worker picks up oily containment boom in the marshlands outside of Cocodrie, Louisiana
BP Plc's failure since April to plug a Gulf of Mexico oil leak has prompted forecasts the crude may continue gushing into December in what President Barack Obama has called the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP's attempts so far to cap the well and plug the leak on the seabed a mile below the surface haven't worked, while the start of the Atlantic hurricane season this week indicates storms in the Gulf may disrupt other efforts.

"The worst-case scenario is Christmas time," Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said. "This process is teaching us to be skeptical of deadlines."
Read More...
Fish

Tar balls reach Florida's Emerald Coast


UPI
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:58 UTC
oil spill

Destin, Florida -- More than 100 tar balls washed ashore on northwest Florida's Emerald Coast, fouling white beaches, as state officials warned of more "shoreline impacts" soon.

The tar balls moving in on Okaloosa Island, within Florida's Panhandle, from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were part of a growing number of streams of brown and rusty red oil dotted with floating quarter-size tar patties landing on an area roughly bounded by Pensacola on the west and Port St. Joe on the east, officials said.

Hardest hit so far is an area around Destin, which styles itself as "The World's Luckiest Fishing Village."
Read More...
Better Earth

New Research Into The Deep Ocean Floor Yields Promising Results For Microbiologists


Terra Daily / SPX
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:12 UTC
Image
© UnknownThe microbes Orcutt and her team study receive no light that far beneath the ocean floor, so part of what they are exploring is how these microscopic organisms survive in such harsh conditions.
Research by a small group of microbiologists is revealing how marine microbes live in a mysterious area of the Earth: the realm just beneath the deep ocean floor. The ocean crust may be the largest biological reservoir on our planet.

Beth Orcutt, a post-doctoral fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Southern California, presented her new findings about this little researched realm at Goldschmidt 2010, an annual conference sponsored by a number of international geochemical societies and hosted this year by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

"I think this research is exciting because it offers us a glimpse into a habitat on Earth that we know next to nothing about," Orcutt said.

"If you consider how much ocean crust there is on Earth, and how much of that is hydrologically active, then this environment could be one of the most massive habitats for microbial life on Earth. There may be new species of life and new types of metabolism that we haven't discovered yet."
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

US expands Gulf of Mexico no-fishing area


Terra Daily / Agence-France Presse
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:25 UTC
Image
© Unknown
US authorities slightly increased the no-fishing area in the oil-sullied Gulf of Mexico
on Wednesday, to more than one-third of US federal waters there.

The area closed was 80,806 square miles (209,271 square kilometers), or about 33.4 percent of the Gulf's federal waters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.

On June 7, a total of 32.3 percent of Gulf federal waters were closed to fishing.

"Closing fishing in these areas is a precautionary measure to ensure that seafood from the Gulf will remain safe for consumers," NOAA said.

The closed area expanded northward to include waters off Panama City beach in northern Florida, NOAA said, noting that the federal closure does not apply to any US state waters.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Kermadec Islands - Earthquake Magnitude 6.0


US Geological Survey
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:04 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 13:06:45 UTC

Friday, June 18, 2010 at 01:06:45 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
33.065°S, 179.817°E

Depth:
156.1 km (97.0 miles)

Region:
SOUTH OF THE KERMADEC ISLANDS

Distances:
220 km (135 miles) SSW of L'Esperance Rock, Kermadec Islands

475 km (295 miles) SSW of Raoul Island, Kermadec Islands

625 km (390 miles) NE of Auckland, New Zealand

1020 km (630 miles) NNE of WELLINGTON, New Zealand
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.2 - Washington


US Geological Survey
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:57 UTC
Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 14:23:24 UTC

Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 07:23:24 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
46.118°N, 120.745°W

Depth:
2.2 km (1.4 miles) set by location program

Region:
WASHINGTON

Distances:
31 km (19 miles) S (186°) from White Swan, WA

34 km (21 miles) N (10°) from Goldendale, WA

35 km (22 miles) SSW (206°) from Harrah, WA

154 km (95 miles) ENE (69°) from Vancouver, WA
Read More...
Meteor

Noctilucent Clouds Are Brightening Over Europe


SpaceWeather.com
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:58 UTC
Observers in Europe are reporting brightening displays of noctilucent clouds (NLCs). "We had a lovely show on June 15th," says Peter McCabe of Dundalk, Co.Louth, Ireland. "The electric-blue colors were striking." He took this picture using a Canon 450D:
Noctilucent Clouds 1
© Peter McCabeNoctilucent clouds (NLCs) over Dundalk, Ireland (Canon 450D, 20mm wide angle lens, 6 sec , f3.2, ISO100)

"They were not the most intense NLCs I've seen, says McCabe, "but they bode well for the weeks ahead." Indeed, as northern summer unfolds, NLCs should become even more intense. The seasonal peak is not fully understood but it rarely fails to produce vivid displays in June and July.
Read More...
Snowman

Australia: Woman dies as storms and snow hit Victoria


ABC News
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:56 UTC
Melbourne Snow 3
© Trent BurgessSnow covers a willow
A woman has died after she was hit by a falling tree at Woori Yallock, east of Melbourne, as heavy storms swept across the state.

An Ambulance Victoria spokesman says the woman was hit by a tree around 11:00am (AEST) and died at the scene.

The wild weather has brought down trees and cut power to some areas.

Justin Kibell from the State Emergency Service (SES) says they have had 300 calls for help so far today after receiving about 100 calls overnight.

"These requests have been around trees that have been blown down on to roads or on to property, on to cars," he said.

"We've also had a number of roofs that have been dislodged with roofing materials blown off."
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Kamchatka Volcano Spews Ash to 4,000 Meters


RIA Novosti
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:43 UTC
Shiveluch volcano
© Y. Demyanchuk http://www.kscnet.ruShiveluch Volcano - The clouds of volcanic ash could also pose threat to air traffic.
Russia's northern most active volcano is churning out ash to a height of 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) in the country's Far East, the local geophysics service said on Thursday.

The 3,283-meter (10,771-foot) Shiveluch volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula last erupted in December 2006 and has been active ever since with the volcano spewing out gas and ash up to 8,000 meters (26,000 feet).

The local seismological service reported registering dozens of tremors within the area in the past 24 hours.
Read More...