Earth ChangesS


Fish

Flashback 50,000 dead starfish found on Irish Lissadell Beach


Belfast Telegraph
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00 UTC
dead starfish
© UnknownLissadell Beach, Co Sligo, strewn with dead starfish
Extreme weather conditions have killed tens of thousands of starfish and left them strewn across a sheltered beach.

A carpet of pink and mauve echinoderms, a family of marine animals, appeared yesterday morning on Lissadell Beach in north Co Sligo.

The adult starfish, measuring between 7cm and 20cm in diameter and estimated to be up to 50,000 in number, stretched along 150 metres of the strand.

Marine biologist and lecturer at Sligo Institute of Technology Bill Crowe speculated that they had been lifted up by a storm while feeding on mussel beds off shore.

"The most likely explanation is that they were feeding on mussels but it is a little strange that none of them were attached to mussels when they were washed in," he said.

He added that if they had died as a result of a so-called 'red tide' or algal bloom, other sealife would have been washed ashore with them.
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Cloud Precipitation

Research study: 'Groundwater inundation' doubles previous predictions of flooding with future sea level rise


Phys.prg
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
ground water
© D. OdaSea level rise will cause drainage problems in low-lying areas due to groundwater inundation, as seen here in the Mapunapuna area, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) published a study today in Nature Climate Change showing that besides marine inundation (flooding), low-lying coastal areas may also be vulnerable to "groundwater inundation," a factor largely unrecognized in earlier predictions on the effects of sea level rise (SLR).

Previous research has predicted that by the end of the century, sea level may rise 1 meter. Kolja Rotzoll, Postdoctoral Researcher at the UHM Water Resources Research Center and Charles Fletcher, UHM Associate Dean, found that the flooded area in urban Honolulu, Hawaii, including groundwater inundation, is more than twice the area of marine inundation alone. Specifically, a 1-meter rise in sea level would inundate 10% of a 1-km wide heavily urbanized area along the shoreline of southern Oahu and 58% of the total flooded area is due to groundwater inundation.

"With groundwater tables near the ground surface, excluding groundwater inundation may underestimate the true threat to coastal communities," said Rotzoll, lead author of the study.

"This research has implications for communities that are assessing options for adapting to SLR. Adapting to marine inundation may require a very different set of options and alternatives than adapting to groundwater inundation," states Fletcher, Principle Investigator on the grant that funded the research.
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Boat

Venice 'high water' floods 70% of city

Tom Kington
The Guardian, UK
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Venetians direct anger at forecasters after 'exceptional and unpredictable' rise in sea waters floods homes and businesses
Image
© Marco Secchi/Getty ImagesCafes in St Mark's Square, Venice, were subsumed by the rising floodwaters – said to be the sixth highest since 1872.
Tourists attached plastic bags to their legs or stripped off to take a dip in St Mark's Square in Venice on Sunday as rising sea waters surged through the lagoon city. High water measuring 1.49 metres (5ft) above the normal level of the Adriatic sea came with bad weather that swept Italy at the weekend, causing floods in historic cities including Vicenza as well in the region of Tuscany 250 miles further south.

Venice's high water, or "acqua alta", said to be the sixth highest since 1872, flooded 70% of the city and was high enough to make raised wooden platforms for pedestrians float away. The record high water in Venice - 1.94 metres in 1966 - prompted many residents to abandon the city for new lives on the mainland.

Venetians bombarded Facebook with moans about the city's weather forecasters, who had predicted just 1.2 metres of water on Saturday, before correcting their forecast at dawn on Sunday.

"How come the people from the council who put out the wooden platforms were predicting 150cm?" asked Matelda Bottoni, who manages a jewellery design shop off St Mark's Square, which floods when water reaches 105cm. "Many residents and shopkeepers had gone to the mountains for the day and did not have time to rush back."

Bottoni is so used to floods she has installed waterproof furniture and an angled floor. "I cannot keep the water out, but at least I can make sure it goes straight back out when it recedes," she said.
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Blue Planet

Strong quake strikes Northern Myanmar, 12 feared dead

Ayw Aye Win
Associated Press
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 22:45 UTC
Image
© Associated PressA boat near the bridge damaged by a strong earthquake, in Kyaukmyaung township, Shwebo, Sagaing Division, northwest of Mandalay, Myanmar.
A strong earthquake collapsed a bridge and damaged ancient Buddhist pagodas in northern Myanmar, and piecemeal reports from the underdeveloped mining region said mines collapsed and as many as 12 people were feared dead.

Myanmar's Vice President Sai Mauk Hkam visited the damaged sites Monday, while authorities resumed their search for four missing workers near the collapsed bridge over the Irrawaddy River in Kyaukmyaung.

A slow release of official information left the actual extent of the damage unclear after Sunday morning's magnitude-6.8 quake. Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system and lost upward of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.

"We have been told by the director of Relief and Resettlement Department that there were seven dead and 45 injured as of late Sunday evening. The figure could fluctuate," said Ashok Nigam, the U.N. development program's resident representative. He told The Associated Press that U.N. agencies had offered aid but "no formal request has been made yet."

Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay is the nearest population center to the main quake but reported no casualties or major damage. Mandalay lies about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the epicenter near the town of Shwebo, and the smaller towns in the area that is a center for mining of minerals and gemstones were worse hit.
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Bizarro Earth

'Roaring' earthquake rattles Madison County, Kentucky residents

Sarah Hogsed
The Richmond Register
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 06:22 UTC
Residents in Madison County and throughout eastern and central Kentucky got a lunchtime scare when an earthquake rattled through the area.The 4.3-magnitude earthquake happened at 12:08 p.m. Saturday, according to the U.S. Geological Service. The epicenter was about 8 miles west of Whitesburg.

Madison County Emergency Management Agency Director Carl Richards said there were no reports of damage or calls for assistance in the county following the temblor. Some people did call 911 wondering what was happening, he added.Richards noted that people who were inside noticed the shaking more than those who were outside, like himself, when the earthquake struck. Also, people in the southern end of the county reported feeling the earthquake's affects more.

"I not only felt the whole house shake but also heard a 'roar' of some sort ... my dishes were rattling, light fixtures were shaking, and floors and walls were vibrating," reported Dawn Agee Truett, of Berea, on the Register's Facebook page shortly after the quake. "... Definitely a very strange feeling!"

"Felt a nice rattle in north Richmond!" Jacqulyn Howell also commented.

Dozens of local residents related stories of their pets acting strangely and their houses being shaken for about 10 to 30 seconds.
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: earthquake Magnitude 6.8 - NNE of Shwebo, Myanmar


US Geological Survey
Sat, 10 Nov 2012 22:05 UTC
Myanmar_ 111112
© USGS
Event Time
2012-11-11 01:12:38 UTC
2012-11-11 07:42:38 UTC+06:30 at epicenter

Location
23.014°N 95.883°E depth=9.8km (6.1mi)

Nearby Cities
52km (32mi) NNE of Shwebo, Myanmar
64km (40mi) W of Mogok, Myanmar
116km (72mi) N of Mandalay, Myanmar
124km (77mi) NNW of Maymyo, Myanmar
362km (225mi) N of Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar

Technical Details
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 4.3 - 13km W of Whitesburg, Kentucky


US Geological Survey
Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:05 UTC
Image
© USGS
Event Time
2012-11-10 12:08:12 UTC-05:00 at epicenter

Location
37.135°N 82.978°W depth=1.1km (0.7mi)

Nearby Cities
13km (8mi) W of Whitesburg, Kentucky
74km (46mi) NNW of Kingsport, Tennessee
88km (55mi) NE of Middlesboro, Kentucky
92km (57mi) NW of Bristol, Tennessee
179km (111mi) SW of Charleston, West Virginia

Technical Data
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Question

Vietnamese farmer catches strange fish with "snake head, pig tongue"

Mai Lan
Vietnam Net
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:47 UTC
Snakehead
© Vietnam Net

Early this week, Mr. Bui Van Nguyen, a resident of Don Village in My Hoa commune, Tan Lac district found an exotic fish under the mud while pumping water from a spring.

"The fish is very strong so I had to ask for help from my two neighbors. It took us 30 minutes to take the fish to the shore," Nguyen said.

The unknown catfish has a snake head while its body and tail look like an eel. It is 1.14m long and 4.2 kg in weight. The weird thing is that it has a pig tongue.

Many people in Don Village said they had never seen such a fish.

Dr. Nhezdoli, an expert of ichthyology, from the Vietnam-Russia Tropical Center, was very surprised when he saw the picture of this strange fish. However, the world's leading expert on freshwater fish guessed that the fish may belong to the Ophicephalidae snakehead family.

"To determine the name and species I need a specific specimen," he said.

The snakeheads are members of the freshwater perciform fish family Channidae, native to Africa and Asia. These elongated, predatory fish are distinguished by a long dorsal fin, large mouth and shiny teeth. They breathe air with gills as well as with suprabranchial organs developing when they grow older, which is a primitive form of a labyrinth organ. The two extant genera are Channa in Asia and Parachanna in Africa, consisting of 30-35 species.
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Bizarro Earth

British Columiba earthquake dried up centuries-old Haida Gwaii hot springs

Tristin Hopper
National Post
Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
B.C. hot springs
© UnknownA series of hot springs on Haida Gwaii — which once bubbled with water as warm as 77 C — has dried up since Saturday’s earthquake.
Canada - Days after the remote B.C. archipelago of Haida Gwaii emerged virtually unscathed from Canada's second-strongest earthquake, locals discovered that the shifting earth had mysteriously switched off a centuries-old hot spring considered sacred by the Haida.

"It's a very culturally significant site - even today Haida people would go down to take advantage of healing properties of the springs," said Ernie Gladstone, a field unit superintendent for Gwaii Haanas National Park, of which Hot Spring Island is a part.

Earlier this week, scattered reports began drifting in that the familiar cloud of steam over the island (known as Gandll K'in Gwaayaay in the Haida language) had disappeared.

A Parks Canada inspection party set out to investigate and stepped ashore to find that the island's three main hot spring pools, which once bubbled with water as warm as 77 Celsius, were bone dry. "Not even a small puddle," said Mr. Gladstone.

Surrounding rocks, once warm to the touch, were cold.
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Snowflake Cold

Edmonton auto body shops 'chaotic all day' after massive snowfall

Mariam Ibrahim
The Vancouver Sun
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:08 UTC
Image
© John Lucas, Edmonton JournalA motorist gets a push on Ada Boulevard in the heavy snow in Edmonton on November 7, 2012.
Edmonton police say roads are faring better following the city's near-record snowfall, despite frigid overnight temperatures that left surfaces slick and icy.

The number of crashes recorded so far Thursday morning is down by half compared with Wednesday. Between 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., police responded to 23 crashes, including three that caused injuries, compared with 53 crashes, seven of which caused injuries, at the same time one day earlier, said spokeswoman Lisa Sobchyshyn.

Environment Canada reports that Edmonton received between 14 and 31 centimetres of snow, while St. Albert got a whopping 35 cm.

With more than 200 crashes recorded between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. Wednesday, auto body shops around the city saw a major increase in customers.
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