Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Pequannock Residents Witness Earthquake

Matt Kadosh
Daily Record
Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:58 UTC
Three vacationing in Costa Rica report they were near epicenter.

Joan Ackerman, 79, Mary Stuermer, 87, and Irene Stevens, 84, of Cedar Crest retirement home in Pompton Plains, had just sat down to eat in a ramshackle roadside restaurant just north of San Jose in Costa Rica when their vacations were abruptly interrupted by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that shook the country, killing at least 23 on Jan. 8.

The family-owned eatery was close to the epicenter of the earthquake, the Poas Volcano.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Strikes Off Eastern Japan


Indopia
Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:53 UTC
A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck off large areas in eastern Japan, including Tokyo, early today, but there were no immediate reports of any damage, officials said.

The country's meteorological agency said there was no risk of a tsunami.
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Phoenix

Scientist see holes in glacier at Alaska volcano

Dan Joling
Fort Mill Times
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 06:13 UTC
Anchorage - Geologists on Saturday spotted expanded holes in the glacier that clings to the north side of Alaska's Mount Redoubt, and rivulets of water streaming down its side, as they closely monitored the volcano for a new eruption.

Scientists with the Alaska Volcano Observatory on Friday flew close to Drift Glacier and saw vigorous steaming emitted from a football field-size area on the north side of the mountain. By Saturday, they had confirmed the area was a fumarole, an opening in the earth that emits gases and steam, and that it had doubled in size overnight.
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Stormtrooper

Kentucky deploys full Army Nat'l Guard for storm cleanup


Associated Press
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:34 UTC
Mayfield - Gov. Steve Beshear deployed every last one of his Army National Guardsmen on Saturday, with his state still reeling after a deadly ice storm encrusted it this week.

More than half a million homes and businesses, most of them in Kentucky, remained without electricity from the Ozarks through Appalachia, though temperatures creeping into the 40s helped a swarm of utility workers make headway. Finding fuel - heating oil along with gas for cars and generators - was another struggle for those trying to tough it out at home, with hospitals and other essential services getting priority over members of the public.
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Cloud Lightning

Nearly 1 million without power 5 days after ice storm

Bruce Schreiner
Associated Press
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:52 UTC
Utility crews worked in subfreezing temperatures Saturday to try to put the power back on for nearly a million customers left without electricity by an ice storm that crippled parts of several states this week.

Thousands of people in ice-caked Kentucky awoke in motels and shelters, asked to leave their homes by authorities who said emergency teams in some areas were too strapped to reach everyone in need of food, water and warmth.

A 20-degree temperature boost was forecast across much of the region, a boon to the power crews but one that carried with it the threat of flooding.

Dozens of deaths have been reported and many people are pleading for a faster response to the power outages. About 536,000 homes and businesses across Kentucky were without power, down from more than 600,000, the largest outage in state history.
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Ladybug

Feds apologize but insist birds had to be poisoned

Brian Murray
New Jersey News
Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:36 UTC
Blame it on the Bard.

Hundreds of birds that dropped dead on Somerset County cars, porches and snow-covered lawns, alarming residents over the weekend, were all of a rather foul breed of fowl -- the notorious European starling, which the United States Department of Agriculture killed on purpose.

The starling, a prominent figure in Shakespeare's "Henry IV," has become a royal nuisance in North America. They have been invading farms and pushing out native wildlife since a New York City group infatuated with the playwright released about 100 imported starlings in Central Park in 1890 and 1891.

It was part of an ill-conceived plan by the American Acclimatization Society to make European immigrants feel at home by filling America with all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works.
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Bizarro Earth

5.2 magnitude earthquake jolts eastern Indonesia


Xinhua
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:53 UTC
A 5.2 magnitude earthquake hit Maluku waters in eastern Indonesia Saturday afternoon, but there was no immediate report of casualties or material damage, said the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), quoted by the national Antara News Agency.
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Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 5.1 Earthquake - Antofagasta, Chile


US Geological Survey
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:48 UTC
Image
© USGS

Date-Time

* Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 14:40:15 UTC

* Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 10:40:15 AM at epicenter

* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 22.885°S, 69.864°W

Depth 51.6 km (32.1 miles)

Distances 95 km (60 miles) SSE of Tocopilla, Chile

100 km (65 miles) NNE of Antofagasta, Chile

105 km (65 miles) WSW of Calama, Chile

1170 km (730 miles) N of SANTIAGO, Chile
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Felt in Mexico City


The Associated Press
Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:42 UTC
An earthquake centered near Mexico's Pacific coast has caused buildings to sway in the capital. There are no initial reports of damage or injury.

Mexico's National Seismological Service gives an initial estimate of the quake's energy at magnitude 5.3.
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Bizarro Earth

Ocean Acidification is Accelerating and Severe Damages are Imminent


PhysOrg
Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:32 UTC
Urgent action is needed to limit damages to marine ecosystems, including coral reefs and fisheries, due to increasing ocean acidity, according to 155 of the world's scientific experts who will release the Monaco Declaration this Friday.

The Declaration is based on results from the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World, held at the Oceanography Museum in Monaco last October and organised by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The ocean absorbs a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere from human activities. Observations from the last 25 years show increasing acidity in surface seawater, following trends in increasing atmospheric CO2.
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