Earth Changes

Magnitude 6.6 - Andaman Islands, India Region

US Geological Survey
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:37 UTC

Date-Time:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 16:54:48 UTC

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:24:48 PM at epicenter

Location:
13.616°N, 92.858°E

Depth:
45.4 km (28.2 miles)

Distances:
215 km (135 miles) N of Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India

405 km (250 miles) SSW of Pathein (Bassein), Myanmar

825 km (510 miles) W of BANGKOK, Thailand

2310 km (1440 miles) SE of NEW DELHI, Delhi, India

Massachusetts, Rhode Island Declare Rain Emergencies

Aaron Clark
Bloomberg
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:25 UTC

Massachusetts and Rhode Island declared emergencies and Boston recorded unprecedented rainfall as storms pounded the U.S. Northeast for a second day today.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick mobilized about 1,000 National Guard troops because of the threat of "beach erosion, major flooding and widespread road closures," according to a statement on his Web site yesterday.

"In some cases there has been two months of rain in the matter of a few days," Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather Inc., said in a telephone interview. "When you get that much rain over a few-day period, that spells trouble."

Boston's Charles River is set to break the record crest of 9.24 feet reached in August 1955 after two hurricanes dumped more than 26 inches of rain on the region in less than two weeks, according to the National Weather Service.

The Sun Points Radio-Active Sunspot at Earth

Ian O'Neill
SpaceWeather.com
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:11 UTC

As the sun continues to ramp up in activity after a long period in the doldrums, solar astronomers have been treated to an up-tick in sunspot numbers, solar prominences and flares.

And now, radio astronomers have joined the fun, listening to the roar of a particularly "noisy" sunspot currently pointing in our direction.

Not all sunspots emit strong radio emissions, but sunspot 1057 certainly isn't shy. As reported by SpaceWeather.com, a radio astronomer in New Mexico received a mix of Type III and Type V radio emissions:

"It was sunspot 1057. All day long it had been producing small radio bursts around 21 MHz. Then, at 1813 UT, it let loose a big one. The burst only lasted a minute, but it saturated the radios." --Thomas Ashcraft, radio astronomer.

Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy

Agence France-Presse
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:25 UTC

© International Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology
These images of the Marsili volcano show magnetic and gravity anomalies, which researchers say increase chances of a collapse.

Rome - Europe's largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy "at any time", a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday.

The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has "fragile walls" that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

"It could even happen tomorrow," said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions," he said. "All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time."

Australia: New South Wales facing huge locust plague

Brad Markham
ABC News
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:01 UTC

There're fears NSW could be facing its worst locust plague since 2004.

Heavy rains have triggered a surge in locust activity. The pest has already ravaged early oat crops in the state's south. Some of the biggest clusters of baby locusts ever seen in NSW have been found in the far-west around Tibooburra.

The state's locust coordinator Simon Oliver is urging all landholders to check their paddocks for the pest.

"We've had good rain across NSW over the past three months," he says. "That's led to strong pasture growth and as a result the locusts have reinvigorated themselves. We're now finding large numbers in most parts of western NSW."

The white stuff is back! Snowfall heralds start of British Summer Time

UK Daily Mail
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:24 UTC

The arrival of British Summer Time has brought wet and windy weather, with snow already falling in some parts of the country.

Snow this morning in central and northern Scotland and there will be more to come as the cold weather pushes south.

Although shielded from the worst, southern England is likely to see sleet and frigid temperatures by the end of the week.

Brendan Jones, of MeteoGroup said: 'It's a small taste of what will come tonight. In northern Scotland overnight it reached -4c and -5c in some inland areas.

'It will be more significant over the coming evening and night. It will be significant over the hills and mountains but also lower levels will see some snow as well.

'There's rain moving up from the south hitting colder air in Scotland. The southern uplands and Perthshire hills could see 4in to 6in through tonight and into tomorrow.

Plight of Bees Worsens This Winter and Scientists Spot Stew of Pesticides in Pollen, Hives

Seth Borenstein
The Los Angeles Times
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:06 UTC

The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides.

Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.

And on Thursday, chemists at a scientific conference in San Francisco will tackle the issue of chemicals and dwindling bees in response to the new study.

Common Toads Can Predict Earthquakes, New Study Finds

Islington Gazette
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:35 UTC

Common toads (Bufo bufo) can detect impending seismic activity and alter their behaviour from breeding to evacuation mode, suggests a new study in the Zoological Society of London's (ZSL) Journal of Zoology.

Researchers from The Open University reported that 96 per cent of male toads in a population abandoned their breeding site five days before the earthquake that struck L'Aquila in Italy in 2009. The breeding site was located 74 km from the earthquake's epicentre.

The number of paired toads at the breeding site also dropped to zero three days before the earthquake. No fresh spawn was found at the site from the date that the earthquake struck to the date of the last significant aftershock (magnitude >4.5).

Breeding sites are male-dominated and the toads would normally remain in situ from the point that breeding activity begins, to the completion of spawning.

US: Grasshopper Invasion Feared This Summer

Matt Joyce
Associated Press
Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:13 UTC

Some Western, Plains states could see worst outbreak in 30 years

Newcastle, Wyoming - Grasshopper infestations have taken on mythic tones here on the arid prairie of northeastern Wyoming - they blanket highways, eat T-shirts off clotheslines and devour nearly every scrap of vegetation on ranches and farms.

The myth may come closer to reality this summer than at any time in decades in several states in the West and the Plains.

A federal survey of farm areas taken last fall found high numbers of adult grasshoppers in parts of Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho. Each female lays hundreds of eggs so that high count could turn into costly grasshopper infestations this summer.

Well-timed cool and wet weather to stifle the young grasshoppers when they hatch around May and June.

Putting ClimateGate in perspective

Joanne Nova
Jonova
Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:33 UTC

I attribute much of the recent rapid rise of the skeptics to the ongoing effects of ClimateGate. Yet, in a sense, the e-mails that were sprung from East Anglia did nothing more than confirm what most skeptics already suspected. Lawrence Solomon, author of The Deniers, has written an unusually good summary in the form of a speech for the Colorado Mining Association.

With his permission, I've included my favourite points here, as well as a copy of the full speech. His blog is a part of the Energy Probe team.

Yeah, the same ones that relentlessly lie to us are finally going to tell the truth. It's just another lie. This time the objective is to publicly...

Suspect

Yeah TRUMP should keep his plans to himself at least until he is in office !!

Gator

The Biden REGIME also needs to add in UNC Chapel Hill & Fort Derick if they are going to be honest.

Gator

Noble ideas but what did he do in that regard in his 4 years in office? The government is so corrupt to the core that removing a few bureaucrats...

LadyRad

Everyone seems to be right here in comments. Even me!!! C'mon people. We really don't have a flying leap what's happening in this world or matrix...

Ethan

Earth Changes

Magnitude 6.6 - Andaman Islands, India Region

Massachusetts, Rhode Island Declare Rain Emergencies

The Sun Points Radio-Active Sunspot at Earth

Undersea volcano threatens southern Italy

Australia: New South Wales facing huge locust plague

The white stuff is back! Snowfall heralds start of British Summer Time

Plight of Bees Worsens This Winter and Scientists Spot Stew of Pesticides in Pollen, Hives

Common Toads Can Predict Earthquakes, New Study Finds

US: Grasshopper Invasion Feared This Summer

Putting ClimateGate in perspective

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