Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

King Crabs Invade Antarctica

king crab
© University of Alabama at BirminghamIt's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.

"They are coming from the deep, somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000 feet down," said James McClintock, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology.

Shell-crushing crabs haven't been in Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, for hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of years, McClintock said. "They have trouble regulating magnesium ions in their body fluids and get kind of drunk at low temperatures."

But something has changed, and these crustaceans are poised to move by the droves up the slope and onto the shelf that surrounds Antarctica. McClintock and other marine researchers interested in the continent are sounding alarms because the vulnerable ecosystem could be wiped out, he said.

Bizarro Earth

Chile: Dark ash plume at Planchón-Peteroa

Planchón-Peteroa volcano
A webcam capture from Planchón-Peteroa in Chile, as seen at 4:29 PM (local time) on April 26, 2011.
Eruptions reader Gitta noted a fairly impressive ash plume at Chile's Planchón-Peteroa - at least seen on the webcam. The plume isn't especially tall (see below), at least not from the vantage point of the webcam, but it is rather dark and grey in complexion, suggesting a lot of fractured rock or new magma in the plume itself.

Planchón-Peteroa has been producing intermittent plumes for the past year or so, some as high as 4.6 km / 15,000 feet, but nothing in the way of a large eruption, which the volcano is definitely capable (see the VEI 4 eruption of 1762).

The activity has been fairly low as of late, with no SERNAGEOMIN update (spanish) on the volcano since last October. This current plume is likely just more of the same from Planchón-Peteroa, but at least today, the viewing is very nice to see the activity at the remote Chilean volcano.

Bizarro Earth

Ecuador: Residents evacuate as volcano spews ashes

Tungurahua volcano
© AFP/Getty ImagesAn explosion of Tungurahua volcano can be seen from Guadalupe observatory in Tungurahua province, Ecuador, Tuesday
Authorities in Ecuador closed schools and evacuated residents in areas near a volcano Tuesday after ashes spewing from its crater fell on homes and farms, state media reported.

Ashes from Tungurahua -- which means "throat of fire" in the native Quechua language -- rose more than 7 kilometers (4 miles) into the air Tuesday, the government news agency said.

Authorities issued an alert as monitors detected six eruptions, ranging from moderate to large, and a significant ash cloud Tuesday, state media said.

No Entry

US: Rain-swollen rivers threaten Midwest, force evacuation in Missouri town

Image
© Richard Rasmussen/The Sentinel-Record/Associated PressA resident of Garland County, Ark., looked for his cellphone yesterday in the remains of his home after a tornado hit the area.
A powerful storm system that spawned a deadly tornado in Arkansas caused rivers to swell yesterday across the Midwest, straining levees that protect thousands of homes and forcing panicked residents of one town to flee for higher ground.

Six inches of rain fell Monday in the southeastern Missouri community of Poplar Bluff, bringing the four-day total to 15 inches. The deluge caused the Black River to pour over a levee in 30 places and to break through in one spot, and about 1,000 homes were evacuated. Deputy Police Chief Jeff Rolland said it was a "miracle'' that the levee held until late morning.

The levee extends from Poplar Bluff to the town of Qulan downstream, in a sparsely populated area. Butler County Sheriff Mark Dodd said water pouring through a breach between the two towns was unlikely to make it far enough upstream to threaten Poplar Bluff, a town of 17,000 residents south of St. Louis.

Flooding in 2008 damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes in Poplar Bluff, raising questions about whether the levee was capable of protecting the town during times of heavy rainfall.

Radar

5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Rattles Residents Of Central Indonesia

An earthquake sent residents fleeing in central Indonesia.

An earthquake that hit waters off Indonesia's main island of Java sent panicked residents fleeing from their homes and office buildings.

No tsunami warning was issued, and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 and hit 88 miles south of Cirebon city.

It was centered nearly 50 miles beneath the ocean floor.

El Shinta radio reported the temblor triggered widespread panic in the nearby town of Garut.

Indonesia is on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Bizarro Earth

Taal volcano heats up, gets ready to rumble

taal,volcano
© Jason Gutierrez / AFP - Getty Images file
San Pedro, Laguna - The water temperature in the main crater of Taal volcano increased over the weekend, a sign that the volcano may be about to erupt.

Volcanologists raised alert level 2 over Taal early this month.

A bulletin released by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the temperature of crater waters rose from 30.5 degrees Celsius to 31.5 degrees Celsius over the weekend.

Nuke

The Nuclear Disaster That Could Destroy Japan ... and the World

japan earthquake
© n/a
Translated by Doug Lummis

The nuclear power plants in Japan are ageing rapidly; like cyborgs, they are barely kept in operation by a continuous replacement of parts. And now that Japan has entered a period of earthquake activity and a major accident could happen at any time, the people live in constant state of anxiety.

Seismologists and geologists agree that, after some fifty years of seismic inactivity, with the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake), the country has entered a period of seismic activity. In 2004, the Chuetsu Earthquake hit Niigata Prefecture, doing damage to the village of Yamakoshi. Three years later, in 2007, the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake severely damaged the nuclear reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. In 2008, there was an earthquake in Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures, causing a whole mountain to disappear completely. Then in 2009 the Hamaoka nuclear plant was put in a state of emergency by the Suruga Bay Earthquake. And now, in 2011, we have the 3/11 earthquake offshore from the northeast coast. But the period of seismic activity is expected to continue for decades. From the perspective of seismology, a space of 10 or 15 years is but a moment in time.

Cloud Lightning

US: 2 Dead in Arkansas, Missouri. Residents Flee Flooding

Tornado Dallas
© ABC NewsDark storm and funnel clouds form over Dallas, Texas on April 25, 2011
At least two people have been killed in Arkansas during the recent round of heavy storms and tornadoes that ripped through the midwest while Missouri residents flee from flooding, authorities said.

Arkansas authorities told the Associated Press the two people were killed following the severe storms that passed through the state.

In Missouri's Poplar Bluff, residents evacuated amid fears of the flooding, the Associated Press reported.

Water began to leak and overflow the levee holding back the Black River, officials said.

Tornadoes were forming over Dallas late Monday afternoon, as the weather there turned ominous, threatened by a storm system that has brought 200 reports of severe weather across the country over the last 24 hours.

Nuke

French System For Cleaning Fukushima Water Blamed For Leukemia, Polluted Beaches In Europe

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© Greenpeace / Gavin NewmanA diver sampling the cleaned water from the Areva nuclear processing plant outflow in the English Channel.

The process a French firm will use to clean Fukushima's radioactive water has been blamed for a leukemia cluster in France and for polluted beaches and irradiated waters from the English Channel to the Arctic Sea.

Areva SA has promised to remove up to 99.99 percent of the radioactive contaminants in 67,500 tons of water flooding the crippled Fukushima-Dai-ichi nuclear plant. It will use a co-precipitation method employed at its La Hague nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Normandy.

That process has been documented in detail by a French nuclear expert and by the U.S. government, which has shunned France's fuel reprocessing method because of "a nonproliferation concern and environmental concerns," in the words of Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko.

Cow Skull

Drought could continue in southern U.S.

Fort Worth, Texas - The extreme drought that has gripped parts of nine states - most of them in the South - is expected to drag on for several months or intensify, posing a risk for more wildfires, agriculture problems and water restrictions, national weather experts said Monday.

Portions of Texas and a small part of eastern Louisiana are the only parts of the nation that rank in the National Weather Service's worst drought condition category, said Victor Murphy, the climate service program manager for the southern region, based in Fort Worth. The "exceptional" drought level happens once every 50 to 100 years, he said.

Much of the rest of Texas and Louisiana are in extreme drought conditions - the worst in 20 to 50 years - as are parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida and tiny portions of Colorado and Kansas. Other areas of those states are experiencing severe and moderate drought conditions, along with parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.