Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Quake in Costa Rica Causes River to Disappear

Guacalito River disappears
© n/aGuacalito River disappears in Costa Rica after Earthquake
Following a series of moderate earthquakes that struck the country Tuesday, residents around the Guacalito River in Costa Rica discovered that the river had disappeared.

Earthquake-report.com reported that sometime after the earthquakes, villagers living near the river, which is located near Armenia de Upala, discovered that the river was dry.

It was not immediately known if the waters of the river had disappeared due to sinkhole activity that can occur after earthquakes or if the earth shaking caused damming that dried up the river near the Miravalles volcano. The quakes were centered near the Nicaragua and Costa Rica border in the same vicinity as the Miravalles volcano.

An entire body of water disappears? Strange but true, and this isn't the first time this odd event has happened.

In 2010, the Iska River in Slovenia disappeared after local residents heard loud crashing and banging overnight. The next morning, the river was dry and the riverbed was full of fish and other creatures. It was believed that the waters of the river had drained through a large crack into an underground riverbed. This disappearance was not believed to have been related to an earthquake.

Attention

Great Barrier Reef, Australia: Dying sea animals concern experts

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© Bianca BoxThis turtle was found on July 17 at Second Beach, Tannum Sands.
Experts on the Great Barrier Reef are calling for increased efforts to protect dugongs and green turtles.

The campaign by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was launched yesterday as news emerged of another dead turtle found at Tannum Sands on the weekend.

GBRMPA is stepping up its efforts to promote smart boating and fishing practices to protect the animals, as record numbers of deaths are being recorded along the coast.

"The evidence is pretty strong that it's a loss of seagrass and loss of condition (that is the main factor in the deaths)," GBRMPA chairman Dr Russell Reichelt said.

"Essentially these animals are actually starving."

Question

India: Scientists at sea over 'missing' jellyfish

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© Unknown
Marine biologists are concerned about the "missing" jellyfish that are washed ashore on Mumbai's beaches during the monsoon.

Experts feel it could be due to lack of strong southwest monsoon winds that blow during this time. "This is an unusual phenomenon. The number of jellyfish that gets washed ashore annually is high. However, this year, their numbers seem to have depleted," said Dr Vinay Deshmukh, principal scientist with the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI).

According to the fisherfolk, the arrival of jellyfish on the shores is an indication of the monsoon. "But southwest monsoon winds that start usually from mid-May onwards have not been strong enough this year resulting in the unusual trend," said Dr Deshmukh. According to meteorological data, monitored by the CMFRI, the wind force this year has been between 21 to 27 kmph during May and June. On the other hand, the wind force recorded on July 12 was around 81 kmph.

Comment: Interestingly enough, other parts of the world, and particularly nuclear power plants, experienced jellyfish "invasion".


Phoenix

Canada: Northwestern Ontario wildfires set to spread

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© Mitch Miller/Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources/Canadian PressA forest fire burns Friday about 270 kilometres north-northeast of Sioux Lookout, Ont.
Smoke forces people out of several First Nation communities.

Fire crews in northwestern Ontario are scrambling to contain nearly 100 forest fires amid warnings that dozens of new fires could break out in the days ahead.

Mitch Miller, a fire information officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources, said from Dryden that there are 96 active fires burning in the remote northwestern region.

More than 30 new blazes are expected to break out in the coming days as the fires spread southward.


Phoenix

US: Giant Dust Storm Moves Through Phoenix, Arizona Area

A dust storm rolls into the Phoenix area
© AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Nick OzaA dust storm rolls into the Phoenix area Monday evening, July 18, 2011. The dust wall was about 3,000 feet (900 meters) high and created winds of 25 to 30 mph (40 to 48 kph), with gusts of up to 40 mph (64 kph), said Austin Jamison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A giant wall of dust rolled through the Phoenix area on Monday, turning the sky brown, creating dangerous driving conditions and delaying some airline flights.

The dust, also known as a haboob in Arabic and around Arizona, formed in Pinal County and headed northeast, reaching Phoenix at about 5:30 p.m.

The dust wall was about 3,000 feet high and created winds of 25 to 30 mph, with gusts of up to 40 mph, said Austin Jamison, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Visibility was down to less than a quarter-mile in some areas, he said.

"You have suddenly very poor visibilities that come on with all the dense dust in the air," he said. "With poor visibilities, that makes for dangerous driving conditions and that's arguably the biggest impact."

There were no immediate reports of accidents on roadways because of the storm, which began to clear within an hour of moving in. The Arizona Department of Public Safety did not immediately return a request for information about road conditions.

More pictures

Sun

US: Heat Wave Hardest on Nation's Poorest Communities

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© AP Photo/Jim MoneAn unidentified fan wipes his head as another covers his with a sign between innings of the Minnesota Twins baseball game against the Cleveland Indians, during the first of a doubleheader Monday, July 18, 2011 in Minneapolis. As a heat wave consumed the Midwest Monday, the heat index midday was at 106-degrees.
The cinderblocks that make up Maria Teresa Escamilla's new home will do little to shield her from the triple-digit heat that has been scorching West Texas. She has no electricity yet, and the roof is not properly attached, leaving the interior exposed to the elements.

Escamilla has been living in an air-conditioned apartment that she can no longer afford. But when the lease ends in two weeks, she has to move - a day she dreads because it means she'll have no escape from the searing temperatures.

"This is what I have to look forward to," she said. There will be no air conditioning and an unbearable number of mosquitoes at night.

With much of the nation in the grip of a broiling heat wave, few people are hit as hard as the poor, and few places are poorer than the ramshackle communities along the Texas-Mexico border known as "colonias."

The misery was widespread Monday, with the worst conditions blanketing a broad band from Texas to Minnesota and Dakotas. Seventeen states issued heat watches, warnings or advisories. And the heat index easily surpassed 100 degrees in many places: 126 in Newton, Iowa; 120 in Mitchell, S.D.; and 119 in Madison, Minn.

Bizarro Earth

Eight Dead In Northeast Brazil Floods From Mudslides

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© UnknownIllustration only
Torrential rains drenching the northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco caused at least eight deaths, mostly people carried away in mudslides, civil defense officials said Monday.

In one incident Sunday, a house outside the state capital Recife was buried in a mudslide, killing four members of one family.

An estimated 500 families were left homeless, and officials ordered evacuations in many areas.

Weather officials said that the Monday forecast called for more heavy rains, which have also cut off many roads in the state.

Elsewhere in Latin America, two people died and three were missing in floods in Guatemala, officials said.

Cloud Lightning

Scotland hit by floods after 24 hours of torrential rain and thunderstorms

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© Unknown
Flash flooding caused misery across Scotland yesterday.

Homes were hit as streets turned into rivers after more than 24 hours of torrential rainfall and thunderstorms.

And the rain is expected to continue to fall across the country throughout this week.

Properties in the Culloden, Balloch and Smithton areas, near Inverness, were affected by flood waters.

Police closed Murray Road and Murray Terrace in Smithton, and Barn Church Road, Culloden, and said the A96 Balloch junction was "badly flooded".

There were also flash floods in Perth and Balerno, Edinburgh, where there were lightning strikes during a storm.

The Met Office's Dave Clark said: "The winds are so light that it creates convergence zones, where the wind comes from several directions to one spot.

Bizarro Earth

US: How hot is it? Triple-digit heat buckles roads in Oklahoma

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© Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle via APA city employee in Enid, Okla., talks on the phone as he describes the road buckling along U.S. 412 on Saturday. Both west bound lanes were shut down.
Poultry farmers deploy fans; heat wave to reach East Coast later this week

The Upper Midwest was feeling some unaccustomed heat on Monday, but folks in Oklahoma were having it even worse: roads buckled, damaging cars, while poultry farmers were taking precautions like fans and watered rooftops to protect flocks.

In Oklahoma City, where a 28th day of triple-digit heat is expected, two lanes of a major interstate in downtown were closed Monday morning after buckling on a bridge caused steel expansion joints to rise, damaging cars as they passed over.

The city, which is forecast to reach 103 degrees on Monday, is on pace to break its record for days at 100 or above - 50 set in 1980 - with triple-digit heat possible through September.

In Tulsa, a hole opened in the pavement of a highway bridge and a section of U.S. 75 in a nearby town buckled.

It's even worse in western Oklahoma, where temperatures at 110 or above have been common in recent weeks. In Enid, asphalt at a major intersection along U.S. Highway 412 buckled Saturday night from the intense heat.

Newspaper

WWII Shipwrecks Could Threaten U.S. Coast

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© Baltimore Sun/AP PhotoStandard Oil Tanker W.L.Steed was torpedoed in 1942.
Fuel, cargo tanks corroding

On the evening of Feb. 2, 1942, an unarmed tanker with 66,000 barrels of crude oil on board was steaming in the Atlantic, about 90 miles off Ocean City. Without warning, it was struck by German torpedoes. The attack set the W.L. Steed ablaze, and sank it; only a handful of the crew of 38 survived.

As World War II unfolded, the Germans had moved part of their sub pack west to attack shipping along the coast. By the time the Nazis withdrew the subs in July to focus on convoys crossing the North Atlantic, they had sunk 397 ships in U.S. coastal waters.

That wartime legacy has become a new environmental problem, raising concern about leaks from the W.L. Steed's sunken fuel bunkers and cargo - and from many others like it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is taking an inventory of more than 30,000 coastal shipwrecks - some of them casualties of the 1942 Battle of the Atlantic - and identifying those that pose the most significant threat.