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©Spiked |
Earth Changes
The earthquake which measured 4.9 on the Richter scale jolted Ankara, state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Residents of Mitzpe Ramon, Arad and Sde Boker in southern Israel awoke Thursday to a fresh coating of snow that started falling Wednesday night. Schools were closed in Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as in the snow-covered capital Jerusalem.
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©Reuters |
Capital cloaked in white |
Northern Israel, including areas in the Galilee and the Golan Heights also received their fair share of snow, leading to school closing and bus-service cancellations.
Due to the heavy snow in the capital, bus service to and from Jerusalem has been canceled, reports the Egged Bus Company spokesman. Many areas in northern Israel, including Safed and the Golan Heights, will also have no bus service due to the snow, as will Arad in the south.
Across the country, millions of travellers have been stranded or delayed in the transport chaos wreaked by freezing conditions and the worst winter snow storms in 50 years.
"The last great outer rise earthquakes that occurred were in the 1930s and 1970s," said Charles J. Ammon, associate professor of geoscience, Penn State. "We did not then have the equipment to record the details of those events." The outer rise is the region seaward of the deep-sea trench that marks the top of the plate boundary
In late 2006 and early 2007, two large earthquakes occurred near Japan separated by about 60 days. These earthquakes took place in the area of the Kuril Islands that are located from the westernmost point of the Japanese Island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The first event took place on Nov. 15, 2006 when the edge of the Pacific plate thrust under the arc of the Kuril Islands, initiating a magnitude 8.3 event and causing some damage in Japan and a small tsunami that caused minor damage in Crescent City, California. About 60 days later, on Jan. 13, 2007, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake occurred in "the upper portion of the Pacific plate, producing one of the largest recorded shallow extensional earthquakes."
Winds gusting up to 150 k/ph (93 m/ph) hit Fiji's main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, causing floods, blackouts and damage to homes and buildings.
Two people were electrocuted by collapsed power lines and another man died in a house fire, while others were killed by the storm.
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, highlights the complex relationship between social status, reproductive physiology and group dynamics.
"We found that changes in social status were regulated by the most dominant female in a social group," says John Fitzpatrick, lead researcher and a graduate student in the Department of Biology at McMaster University. "In fact, dominant females seemed to act as gatekeepers, allowing only males larger than themselves to move up in status and become dominant."
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©Ariel Jerozolimski |
The Old City of Jerusalem covered in snow. |