Earthquakes
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Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.6 - Eastern Mediterranean Sea

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© USGS
Date-Time
Monday, July 09, 2012 at 13:55:00 UTC
Monday, July 09, 2012 at 04:55:00 PM at epicenterTime of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
35.623°N, 28.925°E Depth
56.5 km (35.1 miles)

Region

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SEA Distances
83 km (51 miles) SSW of Kalkan, Turkey
111 km (68 miles) SE of Rodos, Greece
112 km (69 miles) S of Fethiye, Turkey
112 km (69 miles) SE of Trianta, Greece

Target

4.4 earthquake hits Labrador, Newfoundland

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A 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit central Labrador, about 150 kilometres south, southwest of Happy Valley–Goose Bay on Sunday, July 8, 2012. (CBC)
At 8:13 Sunday morning a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit central Labrador, about 150 kilometres south, southwest of Happy Valley - Goose Bay.

There were no reports of damage and none would be expected according to Steven Halchuk, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada.

"An earthquake of this size is not large enough to cause any damage whatsoever, but if you were close to it you would feel significant shaking," Halchuk told CBC News.

Earthquakes in the area are rare occurrences, according to Halchuk.

"There is a scattering of earthquake activity that extends from the Gulf of St. Lawrence up through Quebec and Labrador past Happy Valley - Goose Bay [but] it's usually small. The last earthquake I can find of this size in the region happened about 50 years ago, in 1962 actually," said Halchuk.

Radar

3.1 and 3.9 quakes strike near The Geysers, California

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Two earthquakes in quick succession were reported Sunday afternoon near The Geysers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The first was a shallow magnitude 3.1 earthquake two miles from The Geysers, according to the USGS. The temblor occurred at 5 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 1.9 miles.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was four miles from Cobb, six miles from Anderson Springs, 26 miles from Santa Rosa and 74 miles from Sacramento.

The second was a shallow magnitude 3.9 earthquake three miles from The Geysers, according to the USGS. The temblor occurred at 5:01 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of zero miles.

Radar

Continuous earthquake activity recorded in El Hierro volcano

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Fishing boats in La Restinga, El hierro Island, Canary Islands
There have not been great changes in El Hierro volcano. Currently no eruption has taken place. There are also no signs of magma movement on tremor plots on seismometers stations that are located on El Hierro Island. The dike intrusion in El Hierro volcano is continues, but at slower rate then before. But that it is continuing means there is continued risk of an eruption where the earthquakes are currently taking place. Currently the rate of earthquake is around 3 to 8 earthquakes during the hour. Most of the earthquakes are around ML1.5 to 3.4 in magnitude. Please note that I am missing all earthquakes with the magnitude of ML0.0 and up to ML1.5. So there might well be a lot more earthquakes taking place in El Hierro volcano then I am seeing on IGN web page.
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© IGNCurrent tremor plot of El Hierro volcano. The spikes are earthquakes in most cases.
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© IGNLast 36 hours of earthquakes in El Hierro volcano. It shows clearly where magma has pushed it self into the crust. Creating inflation and earthquakes. The spikes are earthquakes in most cases.

Radar

Magnitude-4.3 Earthquake Rocks Northern California

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© WikipediaFort Bragg
A magnitude-4.3 earthquake hit just outside Fort Bragg in California on Sunday at about 5:05 a.m. PDT (8:05 a.m. EDT), according to the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS.

Local police reported neither injuries nor significant damage were caused by the earthquake, the Associated Press said. At this time, no aftershocks have been reported by the USGS.

Quakes of magnitude 4.3 rarely cause significant damage, but they are quite noticeable and occasionally cause damage in areas with poor building codes. About 13,000 earthquakes of this size occur each year.

According to the USGS's listings, Sunday's earthquake is California's largest since early last month. Because California sits on several fault lines, the area is prone to earthquakes. Most quakes in the area, however, are rarely rated above magnitude 3.0, meaning they are normally too small to be felt.

Bizarro Earth

5.1 magnitude earthquake strikes Dominican Republic

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© USGS
A moderate 5.1 magnitude earthquake has struck the island nation of the Dominican Republic. The epicenter of the earthquake was 113 km (70 miles) W (260°) from San Cristóbal, San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic and just 128 km (80 miles) ESE (106°) from PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti. The earthquake had a depth of 19.9 km (12.4 miles) and may have caused some preliminary damages though reports coming in are scant in details.

Bizarro Earth

New Zealand's North Island shaken by 5.7 earthquake

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© Thinkstock
Some people described the shaking as 'huge'.
North Islanders were again rattled by a strong earthquake yesterday, but experts say the tremor was not related to a much larger quake four days earlier.

GeoNet reported a magnitude 5.7 quake struck 10km south of Turangi at 12.50pm. The quake was 90km deep and, though police said there were no reports of damage, some residents said trinkets had been smashed.

It came four days after a magnitude 7 earthquake, centred at a depth of 230km and offshore from Taranaki, rattled residents from the Bay of Plenty to Canterbury, but caused little damage.

Shaken people took to social media and message boards yesterday to share their experiences, some describing the shake as "huge".

Bizarro Earth

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - Vanuatu

Vanuatu Quake_060612
© USGS
Date-Time
Friday, July 06, 2012 at 02:28:24 UTC

Friday, July 06, 2012 at 01:28:24 PM at epicenterTime of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
14.690°S, 167.266°E

Depth
179 km (111.2 miles)

Region
VANUATU

Distances
46 km (28 miles) NNE of Port-Olry, Vanuatu

93 km (57 miles) N of Luganville, Vanuatu

355 km (220 miles) NNW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu

689 km (428 miles) N of We, New Caledonia

Alarm Clock

SOTT Focus: Reign of Fire: Meteorites, Wildfires, Planetary Chaos and the Sixth Extinction

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© Reuters'Damn you al-qaeda!' An American flag waves in front of a house leveled by the Waldo Canyon fire in the Mountain Shadows community in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2 July 2012
Over the past 18 months, we've been growing increasingly concerned for the future of all life on planet earth. Sure, the signs that things have been going 'south' have been there for some time, but our concern began in earnest at the very beginning of 2011, when masses of birds began to fall dead from the sky around the world. The phenomenon continued for several months, and birds around the world are still dying for officially unknown reasons. None of the dead birds showed any sign of disease, but in several incidents birds were found to have 'external injuries' like they had been "hit by some kind of blunt instrument". All sorts of explanations for the deaths were offered (like fireworks or birds colliding with each other) including the predictable attempts by 'science experts' to downplay any significance to the bizarre deaths. But among the flurry of speculation, one report stood out.

NewsChannel5 Chief Meteorologist Mark Johnson decided to take a look at the the Doppler radar images from Beebe, Arkansas from the night when many red-winged blackbirds had fallen dead to the ground, and he discovered something interesting.
"There it was. This huge plume of turbulence over the Beebe birds just as they began their frenzied flight," Johnson said.

The turbulence appears above the birds between about 7,000 and 12,000 feet. Johnson realized there are only a few possible explanations for this phenomena.
Having homed in on the probable cause, Johnson then introduced some nonsense:
"Birds don't fly that high, and he quickly ruled out military action, a sonic boom, meteor shower or alien invasion."
While we can understand why Johnson ruled out military action or a sonic boom (there were no flights over the area at the time), Johnson never explained why he ruled out a "meteor shower", although we can understand the inclusion of "alien invasion" - to ridicule by association the idea of a "meteor shower" or other meteorite-related phenomenon.

Johnson then went on to say:
"Something in the atmosphere, something mysterious, occurred over Beebe, Arkansas that night... And I believe it was part of what caused those birds to fly and then die."
Indeed, but with the answer staring him in the face, Johnson lost the plot completely:
Johnson's research captured an unseen temperature reversal just above the birds' roosting area at about 1,500 feet above the ground. This temperature "inversion" acted like a megaphone, amplifying all the noises that occurred in Beebe at that time. As the fireworks exploded, the sound was amplified by the inversion and became much louder than normal. This appears to have startled the birds so much that they burst into flight, running into each other, and nearby buildings. Thousands of the now-disoriented birds then crashed to the ground, dying from blunt force trauma.
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The Doppler radar image used by Johnson to explain the bird deaths. We have added the blue-green arrow to illustrate the trajectory of a meteor reaching that altitude before exploding in the lower atmosphere.
Temperature reversal? At 1,500 feet? But previously Johnson stated that the 'turbulence' occurred between 7,000 and 12,000 feet. He even produced a graph of the Doppler radar images that shows this. While temperature inversion does occur and can amplify sound, when birds are startled by noise they don't generally fly into each other and buildings in large numbers. What's most likely, is that the bird deaths of January 2011 (and later) were caused by an overhead meteorite or comet fragment (MoCF) explosion, with either the actual shock wave killing the birds (through blunt force trauma) or associated electrical effects 'frying' their 'circuits'.

This electrical effect can also explain the massive fish die-offs around the same time. Consider this report, just in today, about two children being mysteriously electrocuted to death as they swam in a lake in Missouri on 4th July. The thousands of dead fish found upstream from Beebe on New Year's Eve 2010 could well have had their circuits fried because of significant electrical discharge that accompanied the overhead MoCF airburst. Now check out this Tunguska blast simulation by Sandia lab. An incoming bolide exploding overhead would knock the wind out of anything within a radius relative to the extent of its blast. It would probably knock airplanes out of the sky too - more on that below.

Bizarro Earth

Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Sinkholes and more in the months of May and June 2012

May 2012

Storms, Wind and Rain, Flood and Drought
India Ferry Capsizes Due to Heavy Rain and Winds; 103 Dead, 100 Missing

Wettest April in 100 years - Sodden Britain braces for more floods

Flash floods kill 27 in Afghanistan- scores missing

Huge Dust Storm Swallows Iowa College Campus

Britain to see month's rain in one night as severe weather warnings issued

Widespread floods in Kenya kill 15 as 50,000 left homeless

At least 30 killed following flash flood in Takhar province, Afghanistan

More deadly floods strike north Afghanistan, 10,000 left homeless

Violent rainstorm wreaks havoc in North-Eastern France

Hurricane Season Comes Early This Year

Freak storm lashes Cannes film festival, soaking stars

Hurricane Bud could bring life-threatening conditions to Mexico

Hurricane Bud heading for area near Puerto Vallarta

North Korean Farmers Cite Grave Drought; Aid Unlikely

Montreal Floods: Heavy Rain Causes Power Failures, Shut Down Parts Of Metro
Abnormal Cold or Heat
Rare April Freezing Rain in Brazil

Forget The Floods And Get Ready To Shiver

Frost kills early blooms in Ontario, apple crop losses to top $100M

Farmers worry that May snow and freezing temperatures could bring crop failures to Britain

Scotland colder than the ARCTIC as country hit by snow and freezing weather

Hot Enough for You? Warmest May to April Ever for U.S

Britain's Coldest May in 300 Years

Unusual cold weather wiped out two of Morocco's primary crop exports

Northeast Ohio wine grapes destroyed by hard freeze

The Ice Age Cometh! Heavy snow surprises Bosnians after a hot weekend in mid May

First Time in 50 Years - Snow Hits Bosnian Capital

Snow and unusual weather in the UK Midlands

'Scientific experts' confounded by increasing snow cover on Mount Kilimanjaro

Late-season storm could bring summer snow to Sierra, California

Perth's Coldest May Night in 98 Years
Sinkholes
Family's terror as their Florida house is nearly engulfed by 100ft wide sinkhole

Sinkhole in Arkansas parking lot swallows SUV

Update: Massive Florida Sinkhole Expanding

Three sinkholes open up in Prince William County, Virginia

Huge sinkhole opens in Montreal after student protest

Massive Sinkhole Forms Near Central City, Colorado

Anoka County, Minneapolis sinkhole is growing
Hail, Tornadoes and Typhoons
Deadly tornado rips through eastern Japan

More Weird Weather: Supercell brings tornado to England

Twin Waterspouts Caught on Camera

40 Die in Chinese Hailstorm

Freak storm brings never seen before hail to Philippines, homes destroyed

Hailstorm rips through Cuttack, India, Capital hit too

Tornado Hits Weimar, Texas

Tornado damages 15 homes in North Port, Florida

Tornado Confirmed on Ground near Wausau, Wisconsin

Tornadoes strafe Kansas, damaging homes; 1 hurt

Tornadoes cause heavy property damage near Montreal
Earthquakes
USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.7 - Michoacan, Mexico

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Offshore Chiapas, Mexico

Cascadia tension: earthquake swarm continues off the coast of Vancouver

Azerbaijan hit with strongest earthquake in 4 years- swarm of tremors follow

Civil Defense of Peru issues earthquake warnings after two days of abnormal tremor activity

5.3 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Israel and Palestine

5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Northeast India

Moderate earthquake hits Tajikistan: USGS

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Tarapaca, Chile

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Papua New Guinea

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Off The Coast of Aisen, Chile

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Northern Italy

Update: Powerful quake kills at least 3 in northern Italy

In pictures: Italy earthquake

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Off The East Coast of Honshu, Japan

M6.2 quake and several above M5.0 hit off Northeast Japan in last day

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.6 - Bulgaria

Japan Quake Aftershock Tally Exceeds 5,000

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 (Magnitude Changed to 6.0) - Hokkaido, Japan

Magnitude 5.8 Bulgarian Earthquake Followed By 80 Aftershocks, Worst in Region Since 1917

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Norwegian Sea

Earthquake Magnitude 4.8 shakes nervous Christchurch, sending shoppers fleeing into the streets

5.6 earthquake which jolted Bulgaria was strongest since 1858, and the aftershocks continue

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - Bonin Islands, Japan Region

Fourth earthquake rocks East Texas

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 6.7 - Santiago Del Estero, Argentina

USGS: Earthquake Magnitude 5.8 - Northern Italy (aftershocks included)

Update: Italy Hit by 2nd Deadly Quake in Days; Death Toll at 16
Mass Animal Deaths
32 Dead Porpoises Worry Wildlife Experts

Fish Pond in Shenzhen Ravaged Overnight

Peru pelican and dolphin deaths prompt warning to stay off beaches

Mysterious fish kill under investigation in Kuwait

Mystery Surrounds Dead Pelicans Found Along Indian River

Peru Says 5,000 Birds, Nearly 900 Dolphins Dead

2,300 Birds Found Dead Along Chilean Beaches

Mass Bird Deaths: Mystery Linked To El Nino

Pacific Mystery: What's Killing the Dolphins and the Pelicans?

Bee Kills and Genetic Engineering in the Corn Belt

Dead Fish Pile up on Mula-Mutha Banks

Dolphin Deaths in Peru: The Mystery Deepens

60,000 to 100,000 dead fish wash up eastern shores of U.S. near Chesapeake Bay

Black Sea Ecologists Alarmed By Dolphin Deaths

Hundreds of Endangered Antelopes Dying in Kazakhstan

Thousands of Shellfish Found Dead in Peru
Volcanoes
Mount Asphyxia Volcano Erupts - South Sandwich Islands

Popocatepetl Volcano Threatens Millions with Gas and Ash, Mexico on High Alert

Increased Volcanic Activity at Mt. Baekdu

Pagan Island Volcano Erupts in Mariana Islands

Icelandic volcano warming up for eruption: Small glacier flood continues at Katla

Mexico Volcano Spews Huge Ash Cloud, Frightens Villagers

Growing fears that huge North Korean volcano will soon erupt

Blasts Continue to Menace People Near Popocatepetl Volcano

Dramatic eruption seen at Sakurajima volcano in Japan

Guatemala Fuego Volcano Spits Lava and Ash

Is an eruption at Costa Rica's Turrialba Volcano imminent?

Residents evacuated near Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano after gas emission

Growing unrest: preventive alert declared for three Costa Rican volcanoes

500 evacuated from vicinity of Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz volcano
Fires
Three Forest Fires Burn Out of Control in Alberta; Fire Ban in Effect

Clouds of Smoke, Ash from Forest Fire Lead to State of Emergency in Timmins

Wildfires Hit Six U.S. States, Small Towns Evacuated
Miscellaneous
Mysterious smell detected in Tel Aviv, Israel

Mystery smell in Tel Aviv: Source still unknown

Source of Vibrating Houses Traced to Methane Gas From Landfill

Mysterious Noises, Vibrations Reported in Austin

Mystery Earthquake Near McCall Puzzles Scientists, Technicians

Purple Skies

'Roll Clouds' Filmed in Texas, Montana 29-30 May

Greenland Glaciers Are Speeding Up

Bering Sea Sees Surprising Record Ice Cover

Destabilization: Scientists discover new unstable region the size of New Jersey under Antarctica Ice Sheet

Researchers find New Zealand more seismically unstable than previously thought

Japan's Mt. Fuji a Ticking Time-bomb? Scientists Find 30 km Long Active Fault

Sumatra Volcanoes May Pack Deadly Punch

In less than 24 hours, Lake Cachet II in Chile's southern Patagonia vanished
'Climate Change'
Rise and Fall of Underwater Volcano Revealed

Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive

Global Cooling on the Way? Lake Sediment Proves Sun Cooled Earth 2,800 Years Ago and Could Happen Again Soon!

Japan tornado: Temperature differences spawned supercell storm

Belief That CO2 Can Regulate Climate Is 'Sheer Absurdity' Says Prominent German Meteorologist

Canadian Journalist exposes UN IPCC 'leading scientists' to be ideologically compatible grad students

US Offense Secretary Panetta: Climate change a national security threat

Global Warming Propaganda Alert! NASA Scientist James Hanson Says Civilization Will Be At Risk if Canada Exploits Oil Sands

Climate Change Nonsense: Dinosaur flatulence may have led to global warming