Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Iceland evacuates hundreds as volcano erupts again

Gudjon Helgason
Associated Press
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:09 UTC
Image
© Icelandic Coast GuardThis second eruption in as many months was between ten and twenty times more powerful than the first
Reykjavik - A volcano under a glacier in Iceland rumbled back to life Wednesday, melting ice, shooting smoke and steam into the air and forcing hundreds of people to leave their homes as floodwaters rose.

Emergency officials evacuated 800 residents from around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier as rivers rose by up to 10 feet (3 meters) and flooded a sparsely populated area, said Rognvaldur Olafsson, a chief inspector for the Icelandic Civil Protection Agency.

He said no lives or properties were in immediate danger. Scientists said there was no sign of increased activity at the much larger Katla volcano nearby.

Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said magma was melting a hole in the 650-foot (200 meter) thick ice covering the volcano's crater, sending floodwater coursing down the glacier into lowland areas.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Update: Strong quake in western China's Qinghai kills 300

Gillian Wong
Associated Press
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:25 UTC
Earthquake Qinghai
© Associated Press In this photo taken by a mobile phone, local people gather outside after being evacuated from buildings following an earthquake that hit the Tibetan area in Qinghai's south.
Beijing - A series of strong earthquakes struck China's western Qinghai province Wednesday, killing at least 300 people, injuring thousands and burying many others under toppled houses in a mountainous rural area, officials and state media said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, on Wednesday morning and was followed by several aftershocks.

The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.

"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off. ... Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members."

The quake hit the county of Yushu, a Tibetan area in Qinghai's south, said the China Earthquake Networks Center, which measured the quake's magnitude at 7.1. A local government Web site put the county's population in 2005 at 89,300, a community of mostly herders and farmers.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Oil from Barrier Reef crash washes up on sanctuary

Kristen Gelineau
Associated Press
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:25 UTC
Image
© AFP/GraphicA map of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, locating the area where a Chinese-registered carrier ran aground and caused a three-kilometre slick. Australian officials raced against the clock to refloat a massive Chinese ship which grounded and leaked oil at the Great Barrier Reef before high winds and heavy seas rock the region.
Sydney - Globules of oil believed to be from a Chinese ship that slammed into Australia's Great Barrier Reef are washing up on a nearby wildlife sanctuary, officials said Wednesday in the latest environmental fallout from the crash.

The Shen Neng 1 coal carrier veered into protected waters and ran aground on Douglas Shoal on April 3, immediately leaking 2-3 tons of fuel when coral shredded its hull. The vessel tore a 2-mile- (3-kilometer-) long gash into the shoal, causing damage that one leading marine scientist said could take up to 20 years to heal.

On Wednesday, a team of about 25 people was working to clean up bits of oil that had begun washing ashore on North West Island, a turtle hatchery and bird sanctuary about 12 miles (18 kilometers) from where the ship crashed into the reef, said Adam Nicholson, a maritime safety spokesman for the northeastern state of Queensland.

The globules were about an inch (3 centimeters) wide, and were scattered across about a half-mile (1 kilometer) of beach on the island, the second largest coral key on the reef.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

6.9 magnitude earthquake in western China's Qinghai province kills 67

Gillian Wong
Associated Press
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
Map of China
© AFP/GraphicMap of China locating the epicentre of a 6.9-magnitude quake which rocked remote Qinghai province Wednesday
A series of strong earthquakes struck China's western Qinghai province Wednesday, toppling houses, killing at least 67 people and burying many others in a mountainous rural area, officials and state media said.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported on its Web site that a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, on Wednesday morning and was followed by three quakes in the same area.

The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.

"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.

"Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members," he said, adding that school buildings had not collapsed but that students had been evacuated and were assembled in outdoor playgrounds.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Tibetan plateau quake kills at least four: report


Associated Press
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:47 UTC
Beijing - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake killed at least four people and trapped many others in collapsed houses in the ethnic Tibetan town of Yushu, Qinghai province, on the mountainous Tibetan plateau.
Read More...
Better Earth

Orcas Caught on Film Attacking a Grey Whale Called 'Patch'


Daily Mail
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:46 UTC
killer whale attack gray whale
© APA pod of killer whales attack a gray whale in Puget Sound between Camano and Whidbey islands in Washington state

Whale watchers in Puget Sound caught a rare and dramatic sight from their tourist boat: a pod of orcas speeding by in attack mode and then ramming a grey whale called 'Patch' under water.

After the gray whale dove beneath the water on Sunday, the pod of attacking transient killer whales followed suit.

'Everything was quiet for a minute,' said Monte Hughes, captain of the Anacortes-based Mystic Sea Charters. 'Then the water went into a frenzy. ... You could see the movements of the grey whale being hit underneath the water.'

A short time later the gray whale surfaced, belly up, and jerked upward two or three times as it was being hit from below, he said.

The killer whales then took off, and the grey whale floundered for a time, but eventually swam toward shallow waters.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Deep Earthquake In Spain Something of An Enigma

Phil Butler
Everything PR
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:17 UTC
EU Earthquakes
© Everything PR
In environmental news, something of a seismic anomaly occurred yesterday in Spain. A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck deep beneath Granada. While no damage or even significant ground shake were noted, the depth at 616 kilometers is a little enigmatic even according to the USGS. Deep quakes in this region have been recorded in the past, but this is 2010 - a time for anomalies.

Seismologists in Spain, and at the USGS associate this very deep seismic activity with a powerful earthquake which struck Spain in 1954. Besides that magnitude 7.1 event, earthquakes at this depth, in this region, are not all that common. One Spanish geologist, Spanish Geologist Luis Eugenio Suarez, predicted a month ago that a quake like that which devastated Chile would strike this region of Spain.
Read More...
Igloo

UK - What a difference a year makes: Pictures reveal how many trees STILL have no leaves after harsh winter


The Daily Mail
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:14 UTC
late blooming trees in Britain
© Tim StewartLate bloomer: The trees in Bushy Park near Hampton Court Palace, South-West London, have yet to bloom because of the cold winter.
They are normally blooming and green at this time of year. But these trees in Bushy Park, South-West London, remain as bare as in mid-winter.

In Chestnut Avenue near Hampton Court Palace, the woodland seems to be trapped in a time warp.

Last April, the horse chestnuts burst to life with budding new leaves covering the branches and were one of the most dramatic, natural outdoor sights of spring in the capital.

Around the country, thousands of trees are still completely bare of leaves after the coldest winter in 31 years.

Species such as the birch, rowan, hazel, hawthorn and blackthorn would normally be in glorious full bloom by now.

While many are completely bare, others have only just started to sprout foliage in recent days thanks to spring finally arriving after Easter.

But many street trees are not expected to leaf at all.
Read More...
Igloo

Time to get your coats out again - as forecasters say more SNOW is on the way in Britain


The Daily Mail
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:04 UTC
snowy britain
© Getty Images
Britain will be hit by a seven-day cold snap from the weekend, with snow, frost and gale-force winds set to arrive just as the nation thought winter was finished.

The country basked in 20C temperatures at the weekend - the hottest of the year - as big crowds enjoyed the Grand National and FA Cup semi-finals and packed beaches and tourist attractions.

But the coldest winter in 31 years has a final sting in the tail.

Forecasters warned of 2C nighttime temperatures - low enough for frost - for the rest of this week, with heavy rain at the weekend and then snow through next week in northern England and Scotland. Frosts and bitter gale-force northerly winds are also expected in the north, with extreme windchill making temperatures feel as cold as -7C.
Read More...
Magnify

BPA Hormone Disruptor Now Contaminates Earth's Oceans, Scientists Warn

S. L. Baker
NaturalNews
Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© NaturalNews
Earlier this year, research linked bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics and a powerful hormone disrupter, to heart disease. Now, in the March issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, researchers have reported yet another newly discovered danger posed by BPA. Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University, and his research team have found for the first time that BPA exposure during pregnancy can cause abnormalities in the uterus of offspring and permanent alterations in DNA.

But at least you can avoid plastics and therefore avoid exposure to the BPA, right? Unfortunately, another group of scientists has just announced that's getting harder and harder to do. Bottom line: there is now solid evidence that Earth's oceans have been contaminated on a global scale with BPA.

Katsuhiko Saido, Ph.D., of Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, and his colleagues announced their startling and worrisome findings at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in San Francisco recently. He stated that the massive BPA contamination of oceans resulted from hard plastic trash thrown in the seas as well as from another surprising source -- the epoxy plastic paints used to seal the hulls of ships.
Read More...