The U.S. Geological Survey says a small 2.3 magnitude earthquake has been reported in the northwestern part of South Carolina.
Minor tremors were felt for a few seconds at 12:27 p.m. Tuesday. No injuries were reported, and area law enforcement agencies said they didn't receive calls from people calling about the tremors.
A geophysicist with the agency, Julie Dutton, says she doesn't think many people would have felt the earthquake.
The earthquake was centered in Gray Court, about 30 miles south of Greenville.
Source: The Associated Press
Earth Changes
The South Dakota Capitol and other buildings shook briefly Tuesday as a rare earthquake hit the state's capital city.
The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Center confirmed an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.4 struck about one mile west of Pierre at 2:45 p.m. CDT. There were no immediate reports of damage, but people in the city reported hearing multiple booms and feeling buildings shake.
Eric Stasch, operations manager at U.S. Army Corps of Engineering's Oahe Dam, said an initial check indicated the quake had caused no damage to the massive earthen structure. Officials planned to conduct a more thorough check of the Missouri River dam, located about five miles upstream from Pierre, later Tuesday.
The three motion detectors at the dam were not tripped by the earthquake, Stasch said.
The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Center confirmed an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.4 struck about one mile west of Pierre at 2:45 p.m. CDT. There were no immediate reports of damage, but people in the city reported hearing multiple booms and feeling buildings shake.
Eric Stasch, operations manager at U.S. Army Corps of Engineering's Oahe Dam, said an initial check indicated the quake had caused no damage to the massive earthen structure. Officials planned to conduct a more thorough check of the Missouri River dam, located about five miles upstream from Pierre, later Tuesday.
The three motion detectors at the dam were not tripped by the earthquake, Stasch said.
© Bill Zars
Work continues on the 20-foot sinkhole that formed at Hicks and Dundee roads in Palatine after a torrential rainfall more than two weeks ago.
Work continues on the 20-foot sinkhole that formed at Hicks and Dundee roads in Palatine after a torrential rainfall more than two weeks ago.
Fixing the 15-by-20-foot opening at the northwest corner of Hicks and Dundee roads quickly proved complex because of the utilities involved, as well as the discovery of buried bracing material from when the sewer line was originally built, Public Works Director Matt Barry said.
The sinkhole formed July 23 about 30 feet below the surface when a sewer line collapsed in the wake of a torrential downpour - 5.43 inches of rain in three hours.
Barry said he went to the scene Monday and found crews still in the excavating phase, so it's premature to say how much longer repair work will take.
© Brandon Billinger/KSHB
Both directions of Prospect were closed on Aug. 8, 2011, from 67th Street to 67th Terrace in Kansas City, Mo., due to a large sinkhole.
Both directions of Prospect were closed on Aug. 8, 2011, from 67th Street to 67th Terrace in Kansas City, Mo., due to a large sinkhole.
The sinkhole was reported before 2:30 p.m.
Officials closed Prospect from 67th Street to 67th Terrace. By 8:30 p.m., the roadway was reopened to traffic.
Colleen Doctorian with Water Department said an 8-inch main caused the break.
Approximately 25 customers were affected by the water main break.
Excessive rain has caused a sinkhole mess in Palmyra, Lebanon County.
Residents said on Tuesday, you live with the risk of sinkholes living in Palmyra, "I'm not nervous," said Sandy Forker. Forker added, "Who knows - my house may go in."
But after last weekends, heavy rains, residents said they haven't seen so many sinkholes sprout up all at once.
Cherry and Duke Streets, the Rite Aid Parking lot, and Franklin Street were some areas where sinkholes formed over the weekend.
One of the worst areas however was between Kevin Collins' home on North Grant Street.
© News.co.au
Tourists were hit by ice as a part of the glacier collapsed.
Tourists were hit by ice as a part of the glacier collapsed.
Screams of panic can be heard as tourists are struck by ice while on a tour of the Tracy Arm Fjord - a deep fjord over 48km long in the Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness, Alaska.
One female tourist fell amid the panic and broke her leg, The Sun reports.
© Reuters
A Somali boy milks his cow outside his tent in Medina Xoosh district in Mogadishu (File Photo - January 12, 2011)
A Somali boy milks his cow outside his tent in Medina Xoosh district in Mogadishu (File Photo - January 12, 2011)
The FAO representative says the situation of drought and famine in Somalia is worsening. Luca Alinovi notes five regions in south and central Somalia have officially been declared famine zones, and he expects famine to spread to other regions.
© The Daily Galaxy
"We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island." - Frank Fenner, virologist.Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change.
If past is prologue, 70,000 years ago the human population was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis by researchers at Stanford University. The estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA." Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal. The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.
© Captain Roger Wilson, NOAA National Weather Service Collection
Rogue wave reaching a height of 60-foot plus hit a tanker headed south from Valdez, Alaska, in February 1993. The ship was running in about 25-foot seas when a monster wave struck it broadside on the starboard side.
Rogue wave reaching a height of 60-foot plus hit a tanker headed south from Valdez, Alaska, in February 1993. The ship was running in about 25-foot seas when a monster wave struck it broadside on the starboard side.
In 1995, an 84-foot wall of water pummeled an offshore oil rig in the North Sea. This massive wave wasn't a tsunami triggered by an earthquake - it was the first documented occurrence of a "rogue wave."
Rogue waves are enormous waves that occur far out at sea seemingly in isolation and without an obvious cause. They have been plaguing sailors since the advent of seafaring, yet it wasn't until monitoring equipment on the rig captured the telltale data that scientists could confirm that freak waves, as they're also known, were not just the product of a sea-soaked imagination.
But in the years since then, the study of rogue waves has yielded as many questions as answers. Scientists have examined the wave patterns to look for clues as to how this seemingly random phenomenon could occur.
New research suggests that atmospheric pressure may play a role.
"Maybe this isn't just a wave problem, which is how we've been looking at this for the past decade," said Tim Janssen, associate professor of oceanography at San Francisco State University, who was not involved with the study. "This time, let's step out of the box and say maybe there's atmospheric variation going on."
A team of scientists just discovered a new eruption of Axial Seamount, an undersea volcano located about 250 miles off the Oregon coast -- and one of the most active and intensely studied seamounts in the world.
What makes the event so intriguing is that the scientists had forecast the eruption starting five years ago -- the first successful forecast of an undersea volcano.
Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist, and Scott Nooner, of Columbia University, have been monitoring Axial Seamount for more than a decade, and in 2006 published a paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research in which they forecast that Axial would erupt before the year 2014. Their forecast was based on a series of seafloor pressure measurements that indicated the volcano was inflating.
© Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The manipulator arm of the ROV Jason prepares to sample the new lava flow that erupted in April 2011 at Axial Seamount, located off the Oregon coast.
The manipulator arm of the ROV Jason prepares to sample the new lava flow that erupted in April 2011 at Axial Seamount, located off the Oregon coast.
Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist, and Scott Nooner, of Columbia University, have been monitoring Axial Seamount for more than a decade, and in 2006 published a paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research in which they forecast that Axial would erupt before the year 2014. Their forecast was based on a series of seafloor pressure measurements that indicated the volcano was inflating.
