Earth ChangesS

Alarm Clock

Gulf Spill Oil Driven by Complex Ocean Currents and Eddies

Pete Spotts
The Christian Science Monitor
Sat, 15 May 2010 11:58 UTC
NASA image shows a close up view of a massive oil slick
© NewscomThis NASA image shows a close up view of a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico as it continued moving close to shore, near Louisiana.

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is far different than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The complex marine environment has currents and eddies that could carry the oil anywhere in the Gulf.

Oil boom stretches along empty beaches, tar balls have washed ashore along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts, and a swirling, oily sheen covers at least 2,500 square miles of the sea surface in the Gulf of Mexico.

So far, currents, winds, and a plume of fresh water flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi River have acted in concert to hold at bay the oil spewing from a damaged well head 5,000 feet below the sea surface some 40 miles off the Louisiana coast.

In anticipation of the oil's arrival, some 13,000 people stand ready to combat the spill if it approaches shore, according to the Obama administration. More than a million feet of boom has been deployed. More than half a million gallons of dispersants has been applied.
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Alarm Clock

Gulf Oil Spill: Real Disaster Might Be Lurking Beneath the Surface

Mark Sappenfield
The Christian Science Monitor
Sun, 16 May 2010 11:36 UTC
An aerial view of oil strips
© Zhu Wei/NewscomAn aerial view of oil strips floating off the coast of Mobile, Ala., near the site of the sunk BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico Friday.
From the first moments that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank last month, it has been apparent that the blooming Gulf oil spill has been an oil disaster unlike any other. But the full truth of that statement is perhaps only now beginning to become apparent.

The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column, says the report, which was posted online a week ago but first published by The New York Times Saturday.

The research, combined with other emerging data, could fundamentally alter researchers' understanding of the oil spill. It suggests that vastly more oil than previously reported could be spilling from the wellhead and the attached riser pipe that now lies crumpled on the seafloor like a kinked and leaking garden hose.

Moreover, it suggests that serious environmental degradation could take place in the open ocean, creating massive "dead zones" where no creature can live because of the lack of oxygen in the water. The spread of oil at all levels of the Gulf also could become a concern for shore communities in hurricanes, which stir up the water column as they come ashore.
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Radar

Many of Iceland's volcanoes appear to be awakening

Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings
Times Online
Sun, 16 May 2010 06:59 UTC
Image
© UnknownHorses commutes to an other pasture south of Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano

Many more of Iceland's volcanoes seem to be stirring

Iceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions.

The Icelandic eruption that has caused misery for air travellers could be part of a surge in volcanic activity that will affect the whole of Europe for decades, scientists have warned.

They have reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years, and found that they occur in regular cycles - with the relatively quiet phase that dominated the past five decades now coming to an end.

At least three other big Icelandic volcanoes are building towards an eruption, according to Thor Thordarson, a volcanologist at Edinburgh University.

"The frequency of Icelandic eruptions seems to rise and fall in a cycle lasting around 140 years," he said. "In the latter part of the 20th century we were in a low period, but now there is evidence that we could be approaching a peak."
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Butterfly

Rare Chicken-Guinea Fowl Hybrid has Four Wings


The Daily Mail
Sat, 15 May 2010 00:21 UTC
Image
© Sam Furlong/SWNSRare breed: Tulip the "guin" has two extra wings at the front but cannot fly.
What has four wings, pretty blue eyes and walks with a swagger?

No, it's not a joke - it's a real bird and it's called a guin.

The strange-looking fowl is a hybrid of a chicken and a guinea fowl.

The chick, named Tulip, hatched in Lyn Newman's coop.

Mrs Newman had brought in two guinea fowl to act as a warning system for foxes, but did not know they could breed with her hens.

Mrs Newman, 59, raises a number of fowl in Defford, Worcestershire, but she was astonished when one of her eggs hatched into an odd looking bird even she couldn't identify.

The tiny bird was covered in clumps of feathers and - most strangely of all - had four wings.
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Binoculars

"Ash Cloud" May Hit Flights Again

Chris Hastings
The Sunday Times
Sun, 16 May 2010 22:00 UTC
Image
© The Sunday TimesIceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions
Parts of British airspace could be closed for up to three days from today because of volcanic ash from Iceland.

The ash could close some of the busiest airports in southeast England until Tuesday, the transport department warned yesterday.

At greatest risk today are Northern Ireland and Scotland, with more widespread airport closures possible on Monday.

Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, said the situation was "fluid", but that passenger safety was the government's top priority
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Bizarro Earth

Earth is Dead?

Jed Lipinski
current.com
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:13 UTC
Earth
© Salon
According to Bill McKibben, the respected environmentalist and author of the pioneering End of Nature, the planet Earth, as we know it, is already dead.


Comment: Mark Twain said once: "The report of my death is an exaggeration."


Over a million square miles of the Arctic ice cap have melted, the oceans have risen and warmed, and the tropics have expanded 2 degrees north and south. Global warming has caused such pervasive and irreversible changes, he argues, that we now live on a new planet with a new set of environmental and climatic realities - and, as such, it deserves a new name: Goodbye, Earth. Hello, "Eaarth."


Comment: As regular readers of SOTT know, "man-made Global Warming" is a scam. Have a look at just the latest real evidence that Global Cooling (an understatement!) is underway.


McKibben's hair-raising new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, is a scrupulous and impassioned account of the severely compromised globe on which we now live. He lays out the myriad ways in which climate change has remade our world, but he also goes much further, chronicling its current and future human toll. He explains how droughts in Australia helped precipitate the 2008 food crisis and put 40 million people at risk of hunger, and how the rapidly melting glaciers of the Andes and Himalayas may soon threaten the water supply of billions. Our only hope of survival, McKibben suggests, is a reversion to small-scale, local ways of life. "We simply can't live on the new earth as if it were the old earth," he writes. "We've foreclosed that option."

Comment: Earth is going through a natural cycle, moving rapidly toward the next Ice Age. Sure, it will wipe out most of humanity - maybe all - but considering the last 7K years, maybe that's not a bad thing?

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Alarm Clock

Odd Smells in New Orleans, Thoughts of the Gulf

Susan Saulny
The New York Times
Fri, 14 May 2010 13:48 UTC
At almost 300 years old, somewhat moldy from the remnants of Hurricane Katrina and surrounded by muddy water and swamps, this city is not exactly known for being lemony fresh.

The signature scent around Bourbon Street, after all, is the smell of spilled liquor.

But from the French Quarter to New Orleans East, people here have been complaining about a tinge to the air that is unsettling even by local standards.

Many suspect that it has something to do with the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which has already leaked millions of gallons of crude about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The authorities involved in the cleanup of the fallen Deepwater Horizon oil rig have been burning oil on the surface of the gulf and using chemical dispersants around the leak.

Could New Orleans possibly be smelling that, from more than 100 miles away? Many say yes. But the mystery odor, which is stronger on some days and in some areas than others, is hard for residents to describe.
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Magic Wand

Dogs and Whales Enjoy Mysterious Connection

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:37 UTC
Many animal experts believe that a primitive communication system unites virtually all mammals. Beyond that, a special connection appears to exist between dogs and whales. Check out this footage, for example, of a dog interacting with a killer whale. The orca, which could have easily grabbed the dog for dinner, appears to be displaying submissive, playful behaviors, such as exposing its underside to the dog.
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Bug

Are Honey Bees Being Killed Off by Chemically Coated Crop Seeds?

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 14 May 2010 00:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphotoHoney Bee
A class of insecticide that is applied to seeds and taken up into plant tissue may be responsible for much of the widespread decline in honeybee populations, increasing numbers of researchers and environmentalists are suggesting.

Starting in 2005, beekeepers in the United States first reported large numbers of bees mysteriously disappearing, and since then the problem has spread to different parts of the world. No one cause of the collapse has been identified, although front-running theories include parasites, viruses, stress from long-distance transport of hives for pollination, and pesticides.

"We do feel like pesticides are playing a role in pollinator decline," said researcher Maryann Frazier of Penn State University. "We know that the pesticides are there. We don't know yet exactly what role they're playing."
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Bizarro Earth

Asphalt volcanoes discovered off California

Jim Giles
New Scientist
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:00 UTC
Image
© Dana Yoerger/Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionBathymetric image of asphalt volcanoes off the coast of Santa Barbara
Seven small undersea "volcanoes" that once spewed asphalt into the Pacific Ocean have been mapped off the coast of California. They could be the cause of a prehistoric marine dead zone thought to exist in the area.

David Valentine and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, surveyed the sea floor and discovered the mounds, the largest of which rises 20 metres above the seabed, made from tar. Some were still releasing methane. It is the first time that asphalt volcanoes have been identified in the area. Valentine says they formed as sticky hydrocarbons seeped from the seabed around 40,000 years ago.

Methane would also have been released at a rate that greatly exceeds today's output, with devastating consequences for the local ecosystem. The gas would have attracted bacteria that metabolise methane and deplete oxygen. That fits with analysis of sea-floor sediments, which suggests that a dead zone of around 600 square kilometres formed here about 40,000 years ago.
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