Earth Changes
The tremor, measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale, occurred at 3.41pm (AEDT) near the town of Yass, Geoscience Australia said.
The earthquake at 2:07 a.m. followed a swarm of magnitude 1.2 to 2.2 quakes between Feb. 28 and Monday.
Experts have been intrigued about where pipistrelle, which roost in large numbers in Doune, Central Scotland, in summer, spend the winter.
Just over 30 have been counted in Doune Castle, which was used in the film.
Meanwhile, bat watchers in the far north are monitoring for a species which may spread with global warming.
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©PA |
Pipistrelle come in two varieties - soprano and common |
Myvatn, translating from Icelandic to English, means Midge Lake.
Midges, baseball fans recall, are the gnat-like insects that rose from Lake Erie last October and descended upon Chamberlain in the bottom of the eighth inning of a playoff game against the Cleveland Indians, distracting him into throwing two wild pitches. Cleveland scored the tying run without a hit. The Yankees eventually lost the game and eventually the series.
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©Arni Einarsson |
A Lake Myvatn midge. |
But a rise in temperature can spell doom for native peoples and the caribou, musk-oxen, and reindeer that they depend on in Earth's northernmost regions.
That's because a mysterious phenomenon known as "rain on snow," when sudden warm air turns northern snows to rain or slush, can cause animals to starve.
The annual "yellow dust" spring storms, which originate in China's Gobi Desert before sweeping south to envelop the Korean peninsula and parts of Japan, are blamed for scores of deaths and billions of dollars in damage every year in South Korea.
Winter storm warnings were in effect from eastern Kentucky to upstate New York and northern Maine, the National Weather Service said. Wind up to 35 mph whipped the snow and cut visibility to less than a quarter mile in places, the weather service said.