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Earthquake Magnitude 5.4 - Banda Sea, East Timor


U.S. Geological Survey
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:52 UTC
Banda Sea Earthquake
© USGS
Date-Time:
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 00:04:52 UTC
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 09:04:52 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.448°S, 129.196°E
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.6 - Near The North Coast of Papua, Indonesia (3rd Occurence)


USGS
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:28 UTC
PNG Earthquake3_160610
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 03:58:10 UTC

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 12:58:10 PM at epicenter

Location:
2.368°S, 136.480°E

Depth:
19.9 km (12.4 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE NORTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
160 km (100 miles) N (7°) from Enarotali, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

313 km (195 miles) ESE (122°) from Manokwari, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

457 km (284 miles) NNE (33°) from Dobo, Aru Islands, Indonesia

469 km (292 miles) W (272°) from Jayapura, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

1102 km (685 miles) S (169°) from KOROR, Palau
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 7.0 - Near The North Coast of Papua, Indonesia (2nd Occurence)


USGS
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:37 UTC
PNG Earthquake2_160610
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 03:16:29 UTC

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 12:16:29 PM at epicenter

Location:
2.141°S, 136.460°E

Depth:
28.8 km (17.9 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE NORTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
185 km (115 miles) N (5°) from Enarotali, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

299 km (186 miles) ESE (118°) from Manokwari, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

473 km (294 miles) W (275°) from Jayapura, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

1077 km (669 miles) SSE (168°) from KOROR, Palau
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.4 - Near The North Coast of Papua, Indonesia


USGS
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:31 UTC
PNGEarthquake_160610
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 03:06:05 UTC

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 12:06:05 PM at epicenter

Location:
2.450°S, 136.497°E

Depth:
25.1 km (15.6 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE NORTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
165 km (100 miles) N of Enarotali, Papua, Indonesia

320 km (200 miles) ESE of Manokwari, Papua, Indonesia

1275 km (790 miles) NNE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

3315 km (2060 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia
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Bizarro Earth

Taiwan: Earthquake Magnitude 5.4 strikes directly below Hualien


Terra Daily / Agence-France Presse
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:47 UTC
Image
© USGS
An 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck directly below one of the largest cities on the east coast of Taiwan on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake hit at 8:31 am (0031 GMT) 32 kilometres (20 miles) below the city of Hualien, according to the USGS.

Hualien, one of the main cities on the thinly populated east coast, is home to about 110,000 people. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates.
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Heart - Black

Scores of whale products in the pipeline


Terra Daily / Agence-France Presse
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:42 UTC
Image
© UnknownChop chop into the fish meal factory they go.
Companies in Japan, Iceland and Norway are developing whale-based products ranging from drugs to cosmetics to animal feed, banking on the resumption of global trade, according to a report.

Ahead of a key meeting of the 88-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Agadir, Morocco next week, debate on the use of hunted whales has centered on the consumption of meat, especially in Japan.

But the three countries harvesting the marine mammals despite a 1982 global moratorium also exploit whales in other ways and are laying a foundation for future commercial applications, said the report prepared by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) and released late Tuesday.

Thousands of approved patents list whale oil, cartilage, and spermaceti -- a wax-like liquid found in the head cavities of sperm whales -- as ingredients in goods as diverse as golf balls, hair dye, "eco-friendly" detergent, candy, health drinks and bio-diesel, investigators found.
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Bizarro Earth

Papua New Guinea's Mount Ulawun Volcano Awareness Urged


Radio Australia
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:39 UTC
Disaster officials in Papua New Guinea's West New Britain Province are on alert as one of PNG's highest active volcano shows signs of an eruption. Mount Ulawun volcano in the Kimbe region has been emitting vapour over the last few weeks. Seismologist, Ima Itikarai says there's a strong possibility of an eruption and urged disaster officials to put contingency plans in place. There are up to 10,000 residents at the foot of Mount Ulawun volcano.

Listen: Windows Media

Speaker: Ima Itikarai, Seismologist with PNG's Rabaul Volcanological Observatory

Presenter: Firmin Nanol
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Blackbox

What's wrong with the sun?

Stuart Clark
New Scientist
Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:04 UTC
Sunspots come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years.

But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged for nearly a hundred years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise. "This is solar behaviour we haven't seen in living memory," says David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The sun is under scrutiny as never before thanks to an armada of space telescopes. The results they beam back are portraying our nearest star, and its influence on Earth, in a new light. Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun's magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun. The big question is what?

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Sun

Flashback Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe

Michael Brooks
New Scientist
Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:25 UTC
It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

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USA

Jesus Struck by Lightning, Melts in Fireball (Video)

Joshua Burns
The Examiner.com
Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:49 UTC
Jesus Burns
© C. EnquirerGiant Jesus of Monroe was disintegrated after being struck by lightning Monday Night.
In one of the most ironic acts of God in recent memory, a six-story tall statute of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning Monday night and engulfed in flames. The only thing left remaining of the fiberglass and plastic depiction of the Son of God was his charred steel frame, Tuesday morning.

The "King of Kings" statue had become a nationally-known landmark, the most well known landmark in southwest Ohio. It measured at 62 feet high and 40 feet wide and reportedly cost the Solid Rock Church of Monroe, Ohio $250,000 to construct.

When crews arrived, Monroe Fire Chief Mark Neu said the statue was fully engulfed and the fire had spread to the attic area of the church's adjacent amphitheater. There were no injuries, said Neu, who spoke just before 2:30 a.m. to media at the scene. It was a "hot fire," he said, which made it more difficult to battle, but it was extinguished within about an hour.
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