Manila - The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on Tuesday raised the alert level status of Taal Volcano from alert level 1 to alert level 2 as it is showing signs of possible eruption.
On its website, Phivolcs said it has noticed "anomalous change" since the last week of April.
Among its observations were increased and intensifying volcanic earthquakes, including a low frequency type volcanic earthquake detected on June 2; raised temperature in the main crater lake; raised ground temperatures; intensified steaming of the main crater; and inflating of the volcano.
"The recorded high frequency volcanic earthquakes could be the result of active rock fracturing associated with magma intrusion beneath the volcano. The fractures served as passageways through which hot gases from the intruding magma could escape into the main crater lake," the institute said.
Earth Changes
© AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
A dead turtle floats on a pool of oil from the Deepwater Horizon
A dead turtle floats on a pool of oil from the Deepwater Horizon
New Orleans, Louisiana - The cap on the blown-out well in the Gulf is capturing a half-million gallons a day, or anywhere from one-third to three-quarters of the oil spewing from the bottom of the sea, officials said Monday. But the hopeful report was offset by a warning that the farflung slick has broken up into hundreds and even thousands of patches of oil that may inflict damage that could persist for years.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said the breakup has complicated the cleanup.
"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months," he said at a briefing in Washington. But "long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."
This may be the real nightmare scenario in the Gulf. Some have speculated that the inner integrity of the Deepwater well could be blown (not just the top) and that oil could be leaking out from the side, making it hard to imagine how you might go about plugging the thing.
On MSNBC today, Senator Bill Nelson said he'd heard such report, and is looking into such things. Let's hope not. The following clip comes from FireDogLake.
On MSNBC today, Senator Bill Nelson said he'd heard such report, and is looking into such things. Let's hope not. The following clip comes from FireDogLake.
© U.S. Coast Guard
The scientists concluded that microscopic oil droplets are forming deep-water oil plumes, CNN reported Monday. The second recently discovered plume was in the northeastern gulf; the first plume was found by Mississippi scientists in May.
"These hydrocarbons are from depth and not associated with sinking, degraded oil but associated with the source of (BP's) Deepwater Horizon wellhead," USF Chemical Oceanographer David Hollander. "We've taken molecular isotopic approaches, which is like a fingerprint on a smoking gun."
© NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
We could be due for a rerun of hurricane Rita
We could be due for a rerun of hurricane Rita
Wasn't 2005 "a once in a century" hurricane year? Why are a similar number of storms forecast this year?
If hurricane numbers were purely random, there would be a 1 in 100 chance of a hundred-year storm being followed the next year by a second hundred-year storm. However, the number of hurricanes is far from random.
Hurricane formation in the north Atlantic and the Caribbean is linked to a cycle called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. In a cycle lasting 20 to 40 years, sea-surface temperatures from Greenland to the equator rise and fall by about 0.5 °C. During the warm phases, about twice as many weak tropical storms grow into severe hurricanes as during the cooler phases.
The last rise in sea-surface temperatures and hurricane numbers came in the mid-1990s, so the average number of storms now is above the long-term average, and well above the relatively low numbers from the 1960s to the mid-1990s. The number of hurricanes was higher than average from the 1940s to the early 1960s. Those shifts roughly kept pace with the sea-surface temperature cycle.
Guatemalan officials say the death toll from Tropical Storm Agatha has risen to 172.
National disaster agency spokesman David de Leon says 101 people are still missing in the country and 148 were injured.
The updated toll released Sunday means at least 205 people in Central America were killed by Agatha, whose heavy rains unleashed floods and mudslides last weekend.
Guatemala's Ministry of Communications say the storm also washed out 24 bridges and damaged 19 more. Some 7,000 homes were destroyed.
Agatha also caused about $1 million in damage at the Mayan archaeological site Quirigua, 130 miles (208 kilometers) northeast of Guatemala City.
National disaster agency spokesman David de Leon says 101 people are still missing in the country and 148 were injured.
The updated toll released Sunday means at least 205 people in Central America were killed by Agatha, whose heavy rains unleashed floods and mudslides last weekend.
Guatemala's Ministry of Communications say the storm also washed out 24 bridges and damaged 19 more. Some 7,000 homes were destroyed.
Agatha also caused about $1 million in damage at the Mayan archaeological site Quirigua, 130 miles (208 kilometers) northeast of Guatemala City.
© Unknown
If the trend continues, the field may collapse altogether and then reverse. Compasses would point south instead of north.
Not surprisingly, Hollywood has already seized on this new twist in the natural-disaster genre. Last year Tinseltown released The Core, a film in which the collapse of Earth's magnetic field leads to massive electrical storms, blasts of solar radiation, and birds incapable of navigation.
Entertainment value aside, the portrayal wasn't accurate, according to scientists who say the phenomenon of Earth's fading magnetic field is no cause to worry.
The plume, which stretches some 43.5 miles (70 kilometers) long, appears to be active on a previously unseen scale.
"In a nutshell, this thing is at least 10 times - or possibly 20 times - bigger than anything of its kind that's been seen before," said Bramley Murton of the British National Oceanography Centre.
Scientists reported the finding last week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. Researchers also announced newly discovered deep-sea hydrothermal fields in the Arctic Ocean and the south Atlantic.
© Pune Mirror
The effects of cellphone radiation being observed in an artificial hive as part of the Punjab University experiment
The effects of cellphone radiation being observed in an artificial hive as part of the Punjab University experiment
Humans will not be the lone beneficiaries of a study recently sought by the chief minister on the ill-effects of radiation from cellphones and Mumbai's 1,000-plus cellphone towers.
The initiative may just come to the timely rescue of the city's endangered honeybee population. And if you think that the bee is too small a concern to hit your radar, consider what Einstein said: "If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years to live."
A recent experiment conducted by the Punjab University at Chandigarh reiterates the finding that honeybees are disappearing from their colonies because of the electro-pollution in the environment.
