Earth ChangesS


Sun

Behemoth Sunspot 1158: Earth-directed eruptions are likely in the hours ahead

Sunspot 1158 is growing rapidly (48 hour movie) and crackling with C-class solar flares.

Image
© SDO/HMISunspot AR1158 is growing rapidly and poses a threat for Earth-directed C-flares.
The active region is now more than 100,000 km wide with at least a dozen Earth-sized dark cores scattered beneath its unstable magnetic canopy. Earth-directed eruptions are likely in the hours ahead.

Bizarro Earth

Getting Ready for the Next Big Quake in Nepal

nepal earthquake drill
© EPA/Narendra ShresthaNepalese school children crouch under their desks during an earthquake drill at a secondary school on the outskirts of Kathmandu on Feb. 1 2010
In rows of benches with barely an inch between each other's crisp blue-and-red uniforms, the kids dutifully listen to their teacher's lesson. Once dismissed, they dash out, forming a bottleneck in the narrow passage that constitutes the hallway in this school in Kathmandu. Dozens of children fill each of the cramped rooms in the bare, crudely assembled three-story building. Most of the Nepalese capital's thousands of schools are housed in rudimentary, ill-maintained buildings, but this one happens to be uniquely sturdy. A few strategic vertical and horizontal strands of brick, fortified by steel-reinforced concrete, have been laid over the building's original adobe walls. It is among a small fraction of the South Asian nation's schools - or any private or public buildings, for that matter - designed to withstand a major earthquake.

This is not an abstract consideration. Nepal sits at the meeting point of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, and the same seismic power that long ago produced the Himalayan mountain range continues to make the country an earthquake hotspot. Geologists have identified the region as due soon for a major earthquake, putting millions of people in danger and the nation's fragile economy at further risk. "The Kathmandu valley, unfortunately, has everything that Port-au-Prince has and more," says Robert Piper, the head of UN humanitarian operations in Nepal.

Working against the clock and with limited resources, a local NGO has been retrofitting a few dozen schools and hospitals in Kathmandu, and providing emergency response training to a few hundred more. The strands of brick and steel installed on the walls of the buildings act "like a rubber band," holding the structure together even if it were to sway, says Surya Prasad Acharya, an engineer with the National Society for Earthquake Technology (NSET). Though not pretty, NSET's renovations are simple, quick and cost-effective, which is crucial. Nepal is among the world's poorest countries (per capital GDP is $467) and its government has been largely dysfunctional in recent years because of infighting and civil strife.

Bizarro Earth

Chile: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Off Coast of Bio Bio

Chile Quake_130211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 10:35:06 UTC

Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 07:35:06 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
36.623°S, 73.165°W

Depth
13.3 km (8.3 miles)

Region
BIO-BIO, CHILE

Distances
25 km (15 miles) NNW of Concepcion, Bio-Bio, Chile

95 km (60 miles) W of Chillan, Bio-Bio, Chile

105 km (65 miles) SW of Cauquenes, Maule, Chile

420 km (260 miles) SSW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Question

Outgassing? US: Mysterious odor stumps Maryland officials--Do you smell it?

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© Associated Press Photo/The Press of Atlantic City, Bill GrossResidents of Maryland and West Virginia smell rotten eggs.
A strange smell reminiscent of rotten eggs is pervading areas of Maryland and West Virginia, and state officials have no idea where it's coming from, reports WBALTV.

People in Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties began calling in reports Wednesday that they had smelled mercaptan - a substance added to otherwise odor-free natural gas. Maryland officials then alerted the office of Jimmy Gianato, West Virginia's state director of Homeland Security and Emergency management, about a possible gas leak.

Info

Auroras Over Norway

How about a plane ticket to Norway? A solar wind stream due to brush past Earth's magnetic field around Feb. 14th could spark romantic lights around the Arctic Circle. Gabi and Gunter Reichert send this preview from Henningsvaer, a fishing village in Norway's Lofoten islands:

Norway Aurora
© Gabi and Gunter Reichert
Note the wildlife in the foreground. "We were taking pictures of the Northern Lights on Feb. 10th when this fox strolled right into our photo," say Gabi and Gunter. "He looked at us from a distance of 4 or 5 meters, yawned, and then laid down. We illuminated him with a little lamp to get this composite of green auroras with a red onlooker."

Aurora watchers red and otherwise should be alert for polar geomagnetic storms next week. Aurora alerts make a nice Valentine's Gift, too: text or voice!

Bizarro Earth

Tonga: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - 12th February

Tonga Quake_120211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 17:57:56 UTC

Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 06:57:56 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
20.785°S, 175.589°W

Depth
81 km (50.3 miles)

Region
TONGA

Distances
55 km (35 miles) NW of NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga

290 km (180 miles) SW of Neiafu, Tonga

325 km (200 miles) E of Ndoi Island, Fiji

2010 km (1250 miles) NNE of Auckland, New Zealand

Bizarro Earth

Chile: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - Off Coast of Bio Bio

Chile Quake_ 120211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 01:17:03 UTC

Friday, February 11, 2011 at 10:17:03 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
36.985°S, 73.077°W

Depth
14.8 km (9.2 miles) set by location program

Region
BIO-BIO, CHILE

Distances
15 km (10 miles) S of Concepcion, Bio-Bio, Chile

85 km (50 miles) NW of Los Angeles, Bio-Bio, Chile

85 km (55 miles) NE of Lebu, Bio-Bio, Chile

450 km (280 miles) SSW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

Igloo

Europe: 'Beast From the East' Roars In With More Snow

Image
© Unknown

In coming days, the “beast from the East” could bring chaos similar to the pre-Christmas whiteout
Winter is set to roar back to Britain with a vengeance this week as a Russian weather front threatens another big freeze.

And there will be no let-up until well into March, say weather experts.

In coming days, the "beast from the East" could bring snow chaos similar to the pre-Christmas whiteout.

Scotland and the North will be worst hit, with up to two inches of snow and ­temperatures as low as -10C. The South will not escape the icy blasts, with temperatures sinking to -5C.

Jonathan Powell, of Positive Weather Solutions, said: "Nowhere is safe, although the North is really in the line of fire.

Question

Louisiana, US: Students burned, mysterious cause

Around two-dozen high school students come home, in the middle of winter with what looks like... Get this--- a sunburn.

Now, parents and teachers want to know how this happened.

It's a mystery in the community of Hathaway and it has people burning to know the answers.

"We don't know what caused it," parent, Donald Demary said.

"We just kept trying to find answers," Hathaway High Principal Mona Miller said.

On Wednesday, about two dozen Hathaway High School students came back from a field trip with what appears to be a sunburn.


Satellite

Satellites Spy Changes to Earth's Magnetic Field

magnetic field
© Unknown
Though the process can take nearly 5,000 years, the earth's magnetic field periodically reverses. According to a report published today in Nature, scientists may have detected the beginning of the field's next such reversal.

Motion of the earth's liquid core, the so-called geodynamo, generates its magnetic field. Gauthier Hulot of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and his colleagues used satellite data recorded 20 years apart to track changes in this field. In two regions of the boundary between the earth's core and the overlying mantle, the researchers detected a reversed magnetic field. In a section lying beneath the southern tip of Africa, the magnetic field points toward the center of the earth opposite to the dominant outward-pointing field of the Southern Hemisphere. And a second congregation of reversed-flux patches exists near the North Pole. Having modeled the growth and movement of these inverted-flux sections, they can now account for nearly the entire decrease in the main dipole field of the earth over the past 150 years.