Earth ChangesS


Bell

California, US: Geysers quake bigger than thought

Federal officials have upgraded Friday's earthquake in The Geysers area to a magnitude of 3.7 from the initial 3.3.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:30 a.m. quake was was centered about one mile north of The Geysers and five miles southwest of Cobb in Lake County.

Hourglass

US: Quagga mussels are clogging Hoover Dam, colonizing lakes, rivers

Lake Mead, Nevada - It took some of America's best engineers, thousands of laborers and two years of around-the-clock concrete pouring to build the 726-foot-high Hoover Dam back in the 1930s. It took less time than that for the tiny, brainless quagga mussel to bring operators of this modern wonder of the world to their knees.

While federal lawmakers continue to squabble over how to stop overseas ships from dumping unwanted organisms into the world's largest freshwater system, the Great Lakes' most vexing invasive-species problem has gone national.

Fish

Photos trace Florida reef fish decline

Image
© Unknown

A U.S. researcher has used historic photographs as evidence of fishing's impact on marine ecosystems and the decline of "trophy fish."

Graduate student researcher Loren McClenachan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego accessed archival photographs spanning more than five decades to describe an 88 percent decline in the estimated weight of large predatory fish imaged in black-and-white 1950s sport fishing photos compared with the relatively diminutive catches photographed in modern pictures.

"These results provide evidence of major changes over the last half century and a window into an earlier, less disturbed fish community ..." she said.

Cloud Lightning

Japan snowstorm disrupts flights, damages houses

A snowstorm in Japan has damaged houses, caused power failures, disrupted train service and led to the cancellation of more than 150 domestic flights, local authorities said on Sunday.

About 40 centimetres (16 inches) of snow blanketed the runways at New Chitose Airport, the biggest air hub on the northern main island of Hokkaido on Saturday, an airport official said. At least 154 flights were cancelled.

Cloud Lightning

US: 10 Tornadoes Confirmed in Georgia

Workers
© Beau Cabell/The TelegraphA group of power company linemen work to restore high voltage lines Friday near the intersection of U.S. 129 and U.S. 441 south of Eatonton.
Ten tornadoes, one packing winds of more than 160 mph, touched down in parts of Georgia on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said Friday.

The storms caused an estimated $25 million in insured losses, said John W. Oxendine, the state's insurance commissioner.

"I spent some time surveying damage and talking to residents in Jasper, Putnam and Hancock Counties" on Friday, Oxendine said in statement. "I believe claims will easily reach $25 million. Actual losses are much higher when you consider things like infrastructure damage and uninsured losses."

Bizarro Earth

Colombia's Galeras Volcano Erupts

Galeras
© Agence France-PresseGaleras volcano in southern Colombia erupted on Friday for the second time in less than a week.

Galeras volcano in southern Colombia erupted on Friday for the second time in less than a week, sending ash raining down but no causing no victims or damage, the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mines said.

A forceful eruption began at 7:05 am (1205 GMT), residents reported from the city of Pasto, at the foot of the volcano.

The regional alert system was raised to its highest level, the institute said in a statement.

The eruption was "accompanied by shock waves," generating vibrating effects and audible rumbles, the institute said.

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Jolts Manokwari, Indonesia

An earthquake measuring 5.5 degree on the Richter scale shook Manokwari, West Papua in eastern Indonesia on Sunday evening, but there was no immediate report of casualties or material damage, the national Antara News Agency reported.

According to the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), the quake struck at around 9:15 p.m. local time, or 7:15 p.m. West Indonesia Time (1215 GMT), with the epicenter located 50 km deep, 0.56 South Latitude and 133.08 East Longitude, 114 km north west of Manokwari.

The agency said the quake had not potential to cause a tsunami.

Bizarro Earth

More than 200 Aftershocks Jolt Northwest China

By 11 a.m., A total of 207 aftershocks have jolted Kalpin County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, after Friday's 5.2 magnitude earthquake, local authorities said Sunday.

More than 10,000 houses were damaged, of which 182 were destroyed, as of 5 p.m.. No casualties were reported, a county government official said.

Forty tents have been set up in the quake-hit zone and 12,400 people relocated. The county government has received 1 million yuan (146,199 U.S. dollars) of rescue fund and donation from Aksu Prefecture and Kuqa County, he said.

Bug

Mosquito Survives in Outer Space

A Russian scientist has said that a mosquito had managed to survive in the outer space for 18 months.

Anatoly Grigoryev, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: 'We brought him (mosquito) back to Earth. He is alive, and his feet are moving.'

The mosquito did not get any food and was subjected to extreme temperatures ranging from minus 150 degrees Celsius in the shade to plus 60 degrees in the sunlight.

Grigoryev said the insect had been taken outside the International Space Station (ISS) on orders from the Institute's scientists working on the Biorisk experiment. 'First, they studied bacteria and fungi till a Japanese scientist suggested studying mosquitoes,' Grigoryev said.

Sun

Climate change rhetoric spirals out of control

Christopher Booker says that the Government must be absolutely sure that their data on climate change is accurate.

It was another bad week for the "warmists", now more desperate than ever to whip up alarm over an overheating planet. It began last weekend with the BBC leading its bulletins on the news that a "leading climate scientist" in America, Professor Chris Field, had warned that "the severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed". Future temperatures "will be beyond anything predicted", he told a Chicago conference. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had "seriously underestimated the size of the problem".