Earth ChangesS


Attention

Shishaldin volcano rumbling to life in Alaska

Lauren Rosenthal
Alaska Public Media
Tue, 13 May 2014 16:18 UTC
Shishaldin Volcano
© Dave MinerShishaldin Volcano

Shishaldin Volcano is rumbling to life in the Aleutian Islands.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory detected long tremors and an increase in surface temperatures at Shishaldin earlier Tuesday.

Those could be signs of an eruption, says Robert McGimsey, a geologist at the AVO.

"Typical eruptions of Shishaldin have involved what we call Strombolian eruptions, which are gas-charged emissions," McGimsey said.

Shishaldin, which is located on Unimak Island is unique among volcanoes in Alaska. It doesn't have a lava plug or a dome - just a deep, open vent.

McGimsey says that when Shishaldin erupts, "It's gas bubbles coming up through the throat or the vent of the volcano. And when they pop, it just kind of throws magma up into the air. That's kind of what defines lava fountaining."
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Attention

Emergency services pull fire truck from Sydney sinkhole

Lucy Carter
ABC News, Australia
Tue, 13 May 2014 03:51 UTC
Sydney fire truck caught in the sink hole
© ABC News
Emergency services have freed a fire truck that was caught in a hole for 10 hours and teetering on the edge of a cliff in Bilgola on Sydney's northern beaches.

The fire crew was responding to reports of flooding due to a burst water main about 4:00am when the vehicle hit what they thought was a pothole on The Serpentine Road.

After first using a crane to lift the 14-tonne truck out of the hole, winches and airbags - normally used to lift train carriages - were brought in to help move the truck out of what police called a sink hole.

Fire and Rescue NSW Superintendent Kel McNamara said when the truck became stuck, the crew immediately ensured people in the area were safe.
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Water

Water shortages: these 11 U.S. cities may completely run out of water

Matt Ferner
Govt. Slave
Tue, 13 May 2014 08:38 UTC
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For decades scientists have been saying that the United States' lakes, rivers and aquifers are going to have a hard time quenching the thirst of a growing population in a warming world.

A recent report from NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences does not alleviate those fears. It showed that nearly one in 10 watersheds in the U.S. is "stressed," with demand for water exceeding natural supply - a trend that, researchers say, appears likely to become the new normal.

"By midcentury, we expect to see less reliable surface water supplies in several regions of the United States," said Kristen Averyt, associate director for science at CIRES and one of the authors of the study. "This is likely to create growing challenges for agriculture, electrical suppliers and municipalities, as there may be more demand for water and less to go around."
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Snowflake

'Winter' storm Zephyr dumps foot and a half of snow in the Rockies

Jon Erdman
The Weather Channel
Tue, 13 May 2014 01:16 UTC

We're now in the second full week of May, but we're talking about Winter Storm Zephyr dumping snow in the mountain West.

As of Monday evening, here are some notable snow totals from Winter Storm Zephyr:
  • 43 inches estimated at Divide Peak in the Sierra Madre range of Wyoming
  • 29 inches near Four Corners in north-central Colorado
  • 26.1 inches near Pinecliffe, Colorado (Jefferson Co. foothills)
  • 22 inches in Leadville, Colorado
  • 22 inches in Arlington, Wyoming
  • 12.0 inches officially in Cheyenne, Wyoming (up to 13.3 inches in metro)
  • 9 inches in Cedar City, Utah
  • 7 inches in Laramie, Wyoming
  • 5.6 inches in Fort Collins, Colorado
  • 2.8 inches near Greeley, Colorado
  • 0.4 inches officially at Denver Int'l Airport
Dating to 1883, Sunday was the heaviest calendar-day snow so late in the season in Cheyenne, by a narrow margin. They've had a pair of 10-inch-plus snow days later in the calendar (May 13, 1961 and May 16, 1943), but slightly less than Sunday's total of 10.5 inches. Incidentally, Wyoming's capital city has also had a pair of seven-inch-plus snow days in early June (eight inches on Jun. 4, 1892 and seven inches on June 7, 1889).

The weight of this heavy, wet snow damaged trees in Cedar City, Utah on Sunday. Up to 17,000 were without power on the morning of May 12 in northern Colorado, according to Xcel Energy in Aurora, Colorado.

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Red Flag

Peeved pachyderms: 950 people trampled to death by elephants in Jharkhand, India since 2000

Amitabh Srivastava Ranchi
indiatoday.intoday.in
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 10:24 UTC
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In an apparent act of area domination, a herd of elephants on Saturday trampled one Mahesh Singh Munda, a Jharkhand forest department menial, to death. Munda was returning to his house in Tamad near Jharkhand's capital Ranchi on Saturday when he came face to face with a group of elephants. He could not escape.

Munda's untimely death is not a standalone incident of elephants killing humans in Jharkhand, where they once co-existed peacefully for decades. Today, both human and elephants have overlapping territories in Jharkhand. Consequently, the relations between the two have become bellicose with over 950 people trampled to death by elephants since the creation of Jharkhand in November, 2000. The figure is scary. Simply put, the pachyderms have been killing a person in Jharkhand every fifth day.

A large number of these deaths have been caused by the rampaging elephants, many of whom have developed a taste for mahua (local intoxicant used for preparing liquor).
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Info

Peeved pachyderms: Forest worker killed by elephant in Bandipur tiger reserve, India


The Times of India
Sat, 10 May 2014 10:11 UTC
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© Moorthy Gounder/ Wikimedia CommonsPrime elephant habitat consists of forested areas
A forest staff has been killed by wild elephant inside the Bandipur tiger reserve on Friday night.

Lokesh (38), a resident of Mukti Colony in Gundulpet in Chamarajnagar district, was patrolling the forest area deep inside the tiger sanctuary when he was attacked. He died on the spot, Bandipur tiger reserve director H C Kantharaju said.

The forest department is planning to extend Rs 5 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased like for others who are killed by the wild animals.

Lokesh, a guard with eight years experience, was patrolling in Kamapura area along with another ground staff. He excused himself to attend nature's call at around 7 pm when his colleagues went ahead. When he didn't join them after a lapse of some 20 minutes, they came back to search him and found him dead. The injuries on him and the movement of the wild elephants established that he was killed by the pachyderms. Kantharaju told The Sunday Times of India that Lokesh was found dead at the spot. He was a permanent employee and has three daughters, the eldest studying in SSLC.
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Alarm Clock

How perilous is bird life? The numbers are huge and a warning to humanity

Dave Golowenski
The Columbus Dispatch
Sun, 11 May 2014 09:38 UTC
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© Gerald Herbert | ASSOCIATED PRESSA U.S. Fish and Wildlife officer picks up dead birds on North Breton Island, La., on May 20, 2010, about a month after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest estimate of birds killed from the spill: 800,000.
Birds have a more intimate and enduring relationship with humans than the one that occurs around a fried chicken bucket.

As most know, the act of carrying a caged canary into a coal mine used to be a method for the carrier to save his comrades in the event of deadly gas buildup in a dark, leaky shaft. Enlightened miners took a canary's dropping dead as a strong suggestion that prolonging their own lives depended on a quick flight to fresh air.

The first requirement of such an alarm system is to pay attention. The second is to accept that the physical world is ruled by cause and effect rather than magic. The third consists of the willingness to rationally assess a situation - hastily, if need be - and only then to act.

May is generally accepted as the month when the spring migration peaks. The return of birds, their singing and their good-natured showiness contribute a fair measure of what makes May merry.

Humans have a connection with birds that works at multiple levels, including the inspiration for flight.
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Arrow Down

Puncture-perfect 9-meter-wide sinkhole opens up near Trikala, Greece


Koutipandoras.gr
Tue, 13 May 2014 12:24 UTC
Image
Both local residents and scientists who came upon this sight on Sunday morning were overcome by surprise and worry: the land in the "Livadakia Bey" area of the Koziakas mountain at Trikala had opened up. The hole created was nine meters in diameter, with a depth of seven meters, and its creation is apparently due to the recession of the limestone bedrock of the area.
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Alarm Clock

Earthquake Magnitude 6.8 - 128km SSE of Punta de Burica, Panama


U.S. Geological Survey
Tue, 13 May 2014 01:48 UTC
Earthquake 6.8 Panama
© USGS
Event Time
2014-05-13 06:35:23 UTC
2014-05-13 01:35:23 UTC-05:00 at epicenter

Location
6.958°N 82.424°W depth=33.0km (20.5mi)

Nearby Cities
128km (80mi) SSE of Punta de Burica, Panama
154km (96mi) SSE of Puerto Armuelles, Panama
155km (96mi) S of Pedregal, Panama
162km (101mi) S of David, Panama
376km (234mi) SSE of San Jose, Costa Rica

Scientific data

Comment:

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Bizarro Earth

What is this weird thing in the sky above Stockton, California?

Ian McDonald
Fox40.com
Fri, 09 May 2014 20:38 UTC
Hole Punch Cloud
© Jamison Mitchell
At first glance, it looks like some kind of portal into another dimension - but it's just a "hole punch cloud."

FOX40 viewer Jamison Mitchell snapped some pictures of the phenomenon Friday above Bear Creek High School.

A hole punch cloud is when moisture in a cloud is at a temperature that's below freezing, but the moisture itself isn't actually frozen.

The scientific term is "fallstreak hole."

Weather experts say a domino effect with ice crystals punches a hole in a cloud - usually a cirrocumulus or altocumulus.
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