Earth ChangesS


Attention

Sri Lanka: Floods destroy over a third of rice harvest

Grain
© Amantha Perera/IRINFood prices have increased after the floods
Sri Lanka will lose over one million tons from its upcoming paddy harvest due to recent flooding, officials say.

"We expected a yield of around 2.75 million metric tons from the harvest due in March to April," Kulugammanne Karunathileke, secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, told IRIN. "After the heavy rains we will only get around 1.75 million."

Karunathileke, the highest ranking official at the ministry, said the country had expected a bumper crop - until flooding, which began in January, left some paddy fields under water for up to 11 days. The worst-hit areas are in the eastern districts of Ampara, Batticaloa, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee and the north-central district of Anuradhapura.

Together they account for over 1.2m tons of the harvest.

Igloo

In Mississippi, snow-plowing tractors no match for latest winter storm

Snow and cold records are falling across the South as another winter storm blankets parts of Mississippi with half a foot of snow. One mayor admits he might have to buy a plow.

Mississippi Snow
© Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle/APStudents sled on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford on Wednesday.
As yet another major winter storm broke the all-time winter snowfall record in the northern Mississippi town of Booneville Wednesday, Mayor Joe Eaton found himself staring at some unusual challenges for a place where the annual average temperature is 60 degrees.

After a 10-inch snowfall in late January and another three inches Wednesday, his troubles include keeping out-of-school kids from getting into trouble with their all-terrain vehicles as well as finding money in the budget to upgrade his makeshift snow removal equipment.

Coming off a colder-than-average winter in 2010, this season's record-setting cold and snow is supplying the citizens of Dixie with a new appreciation for what their Yankee brethren deal with on a more regular basis.

Bizarro Earth

More Deep-Sea Vents Discovered

Deep Sea Vents
© NOC/SOESPreviously unknown deep-sea volcanic vents have been discovered in the Southern Ocean.
Scientists aboard the Royal Research Ship James Cook have discovered a new set of deep-sea volcanic vents in the chilly waters of the Southern Ocean. The discovery is the fourth made by the research team in three years, which suggests that deep-sea vents may be more common in our oceans than previously thought.

Using an underwater camera system, the researchers saw slender mineral spires three metres tall, with shimmering hot water gushing from their peaks, and gossamer-like white mats of bacteria coating their sides. The vents are at a depth of 520 metres in a newly-discovered seafloor crater close to the South Sandwich Islands, a remote group of islands around 500 kilometres south-east of South Georgia.

"When we caught the first glimpse of the vents, the excitement was almost overwhelming," says Leigh Marsh, a University of Southampton PhD student who was on scientific watch at the time of the discovery.

Deep-sea vents are hot springs on the seafloor, where mineral-rich water nourishes lush colonies of microbes and deep-sea animals. In the three decades since scientists first encountered vents in the Pacific, around 250 have been discovered worldwide. Most have been found on a chain of undersea volcanoes called the mid-ocean ridge, however, and very few are known in the Antarctic.

Eagle

One of America's Oldest Bald Eagles Gets Electrocuted

Image
It spent 25 years successfully avoiding aeroplanes, animal traps and all the other pitfalls of flying.

But one of the top ten oldest birds ever recorded has sadly met an unfortunate fate - electrocution on a telegraph pole.

The Kodiak Island bald eagle died in Alaska after hitting a utility pole's crossbar last month.

The mature wild bird's discovery has provoked much interest among raptor biologists, after a band on its leg revealed it is the second-oldest bald eagle documented in Alaska.

Biologists have no other way of confirming mature wild eagle ages other than on recovered bands.

'Based on the bird-banding record that I've seen, it would be one of the top ten oldest birds ever recorded,' Kodiak Island wildlife biologist Robin Corcoran said.

Comment: From a symbolic point of view, this would appear to be a stark warning to the USA and the world. From what we suspect of the effects of comets on the solar system and planet - electrical phenomena and major earth changes - THE symbol of the USA lying dead from electrocution says it all.


Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.3 - Mount St. Helen's Area

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 18:35:25 UTC

Monday, February 14, 2011 at 10:35:25 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
46.279°N, 122.215°W

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

Region:
MOUNT ST. HELENS AREA, WASHINGTON

Distances:
9 km (6 miles) NNW (343°) from Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA

31 km (20 miles) S (171°) from Morton, WA

35 km (22 miles) SE (143°) from Mossyrock, WA

59 km (37 miles) ENE (75°) from Longview, WA

78 km (48 miles) NNE (23°) from Vancouver, WA

Bizarro Earth

Germany: Earthquake Magnitude 4.2 - West of Frankfurt

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 12:43:10 UTC

Monday, February 14, 2011 at 01:43:10 PM at epicenter

Location:
50.388°N, 7.881°E

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

Region:
GERMANY

Distances:
65 km (40 miles) WNW of Frankfurt am Main, Germany
90 km (55 miles) SE of Cologne, Germany
130 km (80 miles) SSE of Dortmund, Germany
450 km (280 miles) WSW of BERLIN, Germany

Bizarro Earth

Morocco: Earthquake Magnitude 4.5 - Southeast of Beni Mellal

Image
© USGS
Date-Time:
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 06:02:55 UTC

Monday, February 14, 2011 at 06:02:55 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
31.976°N, 6.070°W

Depth:
9.9 km (6.2 miles) set by location program

Region:
MOROCCO

Distances:
55 km (35 miles) SE of Beni Mellal, Morocco

125 km (80 miles) SE of Khouribga, Morocco

160 km (100 miles) W of Er-Rachidia, Morocco

240 km (145 miles) SSE of RABAT, Morocco

Arrow Down

20,000 bees die in Canadian museum

Image
© AFP
Ottawa - A Canadian museum launched an investigation on Friday into the sudden death of 20 000 bees on display in a glass encased hive.

"All 20 000 bees died within 48 hours," Amanda Fruci, publicist for the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, told AFP.

"The cause is being investigated but we know for sure that it wasn't colony collapse syndrome because that involves bees leaving a hive and never coming back, and in this case they all died in the hive."

In normal times, bee communities naturally lose around five percent of their numbers.

But with the syndrome known as colony collapse disorder (CDD), a third, half - sometimes even 90% or all - of the insects can be wiped out.

In the United States, government figures released last year showed a 29% drop in beehives in 2009, coming on the heels of declines of 36 and 32% in 2008 and 2007.

Mysterious decimation of bee populations have also been reported in Europe, Japan and elsewhere in recent years, threatening agricultural crops that depend on the honey-making insects for pollination.

Igloo

SOTT Focus: Global Warming And The Corruption Of Science

Image
Global cooling, not global warming, is the reality
According to its official website, the Bilderberg group is composed of "leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic" from the spheres of government and politics, finance, industry, labor, education and communications. Closely working together since 1954 to solve problems of critical importance, their ranks include high government officials, the royalty, media representatives, bankers and CEOs of corporate giants. Rather than 'leading citizens', they are better described as prominent members of the global elite. In congruence with this fact, their meetings are kept strictly private.

The manner in which this clique of the ruling class makes decisions affecting the rest of us is largely a mystery and as such has been target of speculation among alternative thinkers and writers. While it is unclear how high on the planet's hierarchy the group is, it is safe to say that their influence is considerable and they have access to raw data not necessarily shared with the population. For these reasons, it is significant that their last meeting was announced as follows:
"The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 - 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations. Approximately 130 participants will attend of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education, and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion."
Specifically, the reference to Global Cooling - unlikely to be a simple mistake - appears to be an astonishing admission that the decades-long official discourse on climate is propaganda. (Indeed, at the time of writing, Polish and Russian forecasters are predicting the coldest European winter in 1,000 years.) Furthermore, it speaks of the contempt with which our leaders regard the masses, and reminds us of the level of corruption that has prevailed in the production of what now appears to have been a 'Global Warming' scam.

Igloo

South Korea in chaos after heaviest ever snowfall, Han River in Seoul freezes over


The heaviest snowfall in more than a century on South Korea's east coast is causing widespread chaos.

Hundreds of houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow. One newspaper described it as a snow bomb.

The South Korean government has deployed 12,000 soldiers to rescue stranded residents.