Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Warnings of giant Gulf oil leak 'underwater plumes'

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© Unknown
Scientists have found huge underwater plumes of what they think is oil in the Gulf of Mexico, which may be evidence far more oil is leaking from BP's broken well than current estimates suggest.

The discovery may also explain why so little has come ashore, even though the thin surface slick is over 100 miles long and 40 miles wide.

The researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi on board the RV Pelican abandoned their original mission, which was to map methane hydrates in the seabed, to sample the ocean at various depths.

"There is a shocking amount of oil in the deep water", one of the scientists, Samantha Joye, told the New York Times.

The team found evidence for oil in three or four deep layers, including one 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in places. They found them in the deeper water - the shallowest at around 2,300 feet, the deepest, near the sea floor at about 4,200 feet.

Attention

Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?

Strange and dangerous hydrocarbon offers no room for human error

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© KPA/Zuma/Rex FeaturesThe deadly explosion caused 3 million gallons of crude oil to pour into the Gulf.
The vast deepwater methane hydrate deposits of the Gulf of Mexico are an open secret in big energy circles. They represent the most tantalizing new frontier of unconventional energy - a potential source of hydrocarbon fuel thought to be twice as large as all the petroleum deposits ever known.

For the oil and gas industry, the substances are also known to be the primary hazard when drilling for deepwater oil.

Methane hydrates are volatile compounds - natural gas compressed into molecular cages of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up inside the drill column of a well. If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand to 164 times their volume.

Comment: It's interesting that just before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, a methane gas leak forced hundreds to evacuate from their homes in Louisiana:
Louisiana Well Blowout Forces Hundreds From Homes
This report from our database shows that scientists were warning of the dangers presented by methane in the Gulf of Mexico at least 5 years ago:
Charlie Paull and a group of MBARI and USGS scientists spent two weeks in 2002 in the Gulf of Mexico on the French research ship Marion Dufresne. They were there to map methane hydrate — and assess the potential for a landslide triggered by oil drilling. “"Ten years ago, we asked: Where can we find methane hydrate?”" Paull says. "“Now, it's more: How can we figure out where it is not?”"
They can forget about trying to harness this gas this as it is highly volatile and is responsible for numerous mining accidents all over the world:
Methane gas leak responsible for Sago Mine Blast

Methane blast kills 41 at Mittal mine in Kazakhstan

Methane gas explosion kills 35 in Siberian mine

Seven dead, four injured as methane ignites in Russian coal mine

Ukraine mine methane blast leaves 63 dead, 37 still missing

One miner dead, six missing in east Ukraine methane blast

Workers trapped in Kazakh mine may have died in accident caused by methane leak

Forty feared dead in Indonesia coal mine blast
And in just the last month:
12 killed, 10 missing in West Virginia methane mine blast

Methane blast hits Russia's largest coal mine, 8 dead

12 dead, 32 trapped in latest China mine disaster
It's also thought to be responsible for mysterious explosions and leaves a distinct smell over a wide area as it comes to the surface and expand:
Volatile Gas Could Turn Rwandan Lake Into a Freshwater Time Bomb

New York gas smell shuts trains, forces evacuations
If there is a significant "greenhouse gas", methane is it. Methane is strongly correlated with climate change events in the past:
Deep sea methane: Energy Saviour Or Impending Disaster?

James Kennett, a geologist at University of California, Santa Barbara, who discovered evidence of the 55-million-year-old extinction event, warns that "the melting and release of methane hydrate on a global scale “is the right mechanism to propel climate change,"” he says. "“It happens very fast geologically —over a few decades. But the climate fluctuations in the last few thousand years are small compared to the big events 55 million years ago.”"
The fact if the matter is that "big events" are not limited to millions and millions of years ago. Catastrophic climate change from cometary bombardment on a global scale took place as recently as 13,000 years ago. Regional catastrophism took place as recently as 1500 years ago. These scientists are not asking the right questions.

What if the release of methane from below the oceans is part of the mechanism to propel climate change but is not the causal factor of this mechanism? Could there be an external catalyst that periodically opens up the planet's surface to release methane? What if the quantity of methane released depends on the degree to which cometary bombardment is taking place?
Cosmic Climate Change is Underway
We are overdue the Big One and the Deepwater Horizon explosion is another sign that the planet is opening up and all humanity can do is help it along towards a mass extinction event.
Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!



Fish

Nine Fish With "Hands" Found To Be New Species

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© Karen Gowlett-Holmes
New, Pink, and Rare

Using its fins to walk, rather than swim, along the ocean floor in an undated picture, the pink handfish is one of nine newly named species described in a recent scientific review of the handfish family.

Only four specimens of the elusive four-inch (ten-centimeter) pink handfish have ever been found, and all of those were collected from areas around the city of Hobart, on the Australian island of Tasmania.

Though no one has spotted a living pink handfish since 1999, it's taken till now for scientists to formally identify it as a unique species.

All of the world's 14 known species of handfish are found only in shallow, coastal waters off southeastern Australia, say review authors Daniel Gledhill and Peter Last of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO.

Even among the previously known species, the fish are poorly studied, the scientists add, and little is known about their biology or behavior.

Bizarro Earth

Costa Rica's Arenal Volcano Erupts

Costa Rica's Arenal volcano has erupted, spewing geysers of lava, ash and toxic gases from its crater and forcing the evacuation of the national park where it is located.

The 1633-metre-tall cone-shaped mountain in northern Costa Rica shuddered into activity at 4am this morning issuing eight successive rivers of lava that flowed down its steep slopes, National Volcanology and Seismology Observatory expert Elicer Duarte said.

He said nobody was at risk from the eruptions but authorities as a precaution evacuated the Arenal National Park, 80km north-east of San Jose.

The Arenal Volcano is one of Costa Rica's major tourist attractions and the park has scores of hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and shopping centres.

No estimates were given of how many people were inside the park when the eruption began.

Arenal's last major eruption in July 1968 killed 89 people. Smaller eruptions have occurred at least six times over the past 35 years.

Arrow Up

Flashback Deep sea methane: Energy Saviour Or Impending Disaster?

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© Juna Kurihara
Methane trapped under the oceans can save us or destroy us.

In December 2003, an international team of geologists announced that they had successfully tapped a new energy source. Methane hydrate, a solidified form of natural gas bound into ice, lurks under the seafloor along the margins of every continent and under the Arctic permafrost. On the Mackenzie River delta in the Canadian Northwest Territories, engineers drilled hundreds of meters below the permafrost into the hydrate deposits. They punched fractures into the layers of sediment and pumped hot water into the earth, releasing the natural gas from its icy prison.

This first harvest of methane hydrate could mark a new direction for the energy industry. Engineers once assumed that the energy costs of melting the frozen fuel would outweigh the gains. But rising oil and gas prices and creative uses of existing technology, like the recent test in the Canadian Arctic, are beginning to change their minds. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the total amount of natural gas in methane hydrates surpasses all of the known oil, coal, and gas deposits on Earth in energy content, although only a fraction of the frozen fuel will be extractable. The hydrates can form at any latitude on Earth if temperature and pressure conditions are right, and are usually mixed with sediment under the ocean floor.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 3.7 - Arizona

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 07:27:06 UTC

Monday, May 24, 2010 at 12:27:06 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
33.386°N, 109.150°W

Depth:
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region:
ARIZONA

Distances:
41 km (25 miles) NNE (20°) from Clifton, AZ

41 km (25 miles) NNE (24°) from Morenci, AZ

51 km (32 miles) SW (225°) from Reserve, NM

210 km (131 miles) NE (51°) from Tucson, AZ

636 km (395 miles) ESE (118°) from Las Vegas, NV

Bizarro Earth

Brazil: Earthquake Magnitude 6.5 - Acre

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© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 16:18:29 UTC

Monday, May 24, 2010 at 11:18:29 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
8.072°S, 71.569°W

Depth:
580.5 km (360.7 miles)

Region:
ACRE, BRAZIL

Distances:
125 km (75 miles) ESE of Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil

330 km (205 miles) E of Pucallpa, Peru

460 km (285 miles) SSW of Tabatinga, Amazonas, Brazil

2715 km (1680 miles) WNW of BRASILIA, Distrito Federal, Brazil

Bizarro Earth

Iceland volcano eruption ceases activity

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© Unknown
A geophysicist says Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano is no longer in activity raising hopes the eruption which has heavily disrupted European flights for more than a month could be over.

Magnus Gudmundsson of Iceland University says he can confirm the activity of the crater has stopped and no magma is coming up.

However he's cautioned it's too early to tell whether this is the end of the eruption or just a temporary stop in activity.

The volcano began erupting on April 14 and during its highest activity peak in the week after it began erupting it released enough ash to cause the biggest aerial shutdown in Europe since World War II affecting more than 100-thousand flights and eight million passengers.

Bizarro Earth

Indonesian Volcano Spews Ash and Lava

Lombok - An active volcano has erupted in Indonesia, spewing ash and lava at least 1,500 metres into the sky, damaging crops but not threatening villagers, an official said today.

Mount Baru Jari on Lombok island, near Bali, has been active for several months but yesterday's eruption was "big," the island's volcano monitoring official Mutaharlin told AFP.

"From yesterday evening to early today, the volcano erupted three times and was accompanied by tremors. The first eruption spewed ash and lava 1,500 to 2,000 metres high," he added.

Lava flowed into a lake, pushing its temperature to 35 degrees Celsius, up from 21 degrees Celsius, Mutaharlin said.

"The smoke had spread as far as 12 kilometres and dozens of acres of crop land were covered in ash," he said.

"But the eruptions haven't reached dangerous levels yet, so we're not evacuating villagers," he added.

Arrow Down

At Least 10 Killed as Landslide Cause Passenger Train to Derail in China

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© Maria Chapligina/RIA NovostiRescuers fear the death toll might further rise.
At least 10 people were killed when a landslide caused a train from Shanghai to the tourist city of Guilin in south China, to derail on Sunday, Xinhua said citing rescue sources.

At least 55 people were injured, two severely, as the locomotive and eight carriages of the train went off tracks in the southeastern Jiangxi province.

Rescuers fear the death toll might further rise.

"We are afraid the casualty may soon rise, as four of the derailed train cars were severely deformed in the accident," a police officer told Xinhua.

"Each of the train carriages has 118 seats. It is not yet immediately known how many passengers were on board," he added.