A budding subduction zone offshore of Spain heralds the start of a new cycle that will one day pull the Atlantic Ocean seafloor into the bowels of the Earth, a new study suggests.
Understanding how subduction zones start is long-lasting mystery in plate tectonics, said lead study author João Duarte, a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Subduction zones are key players in creating supercontinents and opening and closing Earth’s oceans. In a subduction zone, one of Earth’s tectonic plates dives beneath another, sinking into the mantle, the layer under the crust. As oceanic crust disappears, continents may draw closer together and collide, as has happened numerous times in the history of the planet. Subduction zones also spawn the biggest earthquakes on the planet, as in Japan, Chile and Alaska. [The 10 Biggest Earthquakes in History]
(3/27/2013) – The Mayan’s didn’t use their calendar to predict doom in 2012 but their 394 year Baktun cycle may predict a long period of low solar activity and years of extreme global cooling starting now.
Marking the end of the thirteenth Baktun on Dec 21, 2012 places the onset of solar events that led to the Maunder Minimum – also referred to as the “Little Ice Age”.
Are we ready yet for potentially disastrous impacts of space weather?
“Comparing a future solar event to the 1859 Carrington event: “Directly or indirectly, a comparable geomagnetic storm today (and foreseeable future) would likely include widespread and long-term disruptions on transportation and commerce, agriculture and food stocks, medical facilities, satellite-based communication and navigation systems, national security, etc.” — By Steve Trackton – The Capital Weather Gang – A review of the 2012 Space Weather Enterprise Forum presented by The National Space Weather Program Council.
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Are we ready yet for potentially disastrous impacts of space weather?
“Comparing a future solar event to the 1859 Carrington event: “Directly or indirectly, a comparable geomagnetic storm today (and foreseeable future) would likely include widespread and long-term disruptions on transportation and commerce, agriculture and food stocks, medical facilities, satellite-based communication and navigation systems, national security, etc.” — By Steve Trackton – The Capital Weather Gang – A review of the 2012 Space Weather Enterprise Forum presented by The National Space Weather Program Council.
Our Sun is Losing Energy: The typical peak-to-peak solar cycle have long been established to be about 11 years. The last solar minimum began in 2001 following an unremarkable maximum. But in April 2009 the solar minimum was officially recognized as having lasted far longer than normal. It was not until the middle of 2010 when sunspot numbers began to increase, signalling an overdue, but very weak return to a solar maximum. Relative to Earth, the maximum would be even weaker than forecast due a mysterious absence of earth-directed solar flares – a persistent event that continues to defy the label of “coincidence.”
The health of Earth’s atmosphere - extending out to the magnetosphere – relies on the energy of solar flares to maintain what we have come to expect as a “normal” electrical balance between Earth, Sun and the solar system. For unknown reasons, what little solar flare activity is taking place has been mostly directed away from Earth – causing our atmosphere to experience conditions not much different than an extended “minimum” – as if the solar maximum had not yet returned. If flares continues to miss earth for much longer, the return of the next solar minimum could delay a replenishing solar charge of our magnetosphere for years.
Changes in our Solar System:
Along with a decline in solar energy NASA has detected increased seismic activity on Mars
The rotation of Venus and possibly Saturn has measurably slowed.
Jupiter has exhibited significant weather changes including loss of a characteristic “stripe” as it gained a new red spot.
During 2012 telescopes recorded a giant flash on Jupiter that was larger than Earth. NASA called it a comet or asteroid but didn’t explain the telltale concentric rings and the absence of evidence that anything penetrated Jupiter’s atmosphere.
The 30 year cycle of Saturn Storms has broken stride to appear ten years earlier than predicted.
Hubble has been scanning space for years but only recently has been able to “see” auroras on Uranus.
In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars melting ice caps data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
All work has been ceased at the Bayou Corne sinkhole after monitoring systems detected tremors Friday morning, officials said Friday. According to the Assumption Parish Police Jury website, the Office of Conservation and the Assumption Parish Incident Command detected elevated subsurface activity in the area around a massive 13-acre sinkhole. Seismic monitoring also detected water movement in the slurry as well as increased bubbling on the western side of the sinkhole. Experts say a brine cavern drilled into the underground Napoleonville salt dome may have caused the sinkhole after it collapsed. 350 residents in a nearby town have been evacuated as a result of the slurry area.
Gov. Bobby Jindal paid his first visit to the sinkhole Wednesday to meet with residents and reiterate plans to make the cavern’s owner pay damages and offer fair buyouts to residents looking to move. Oxy-Geismar 3, the failed cavern believed to be responsible for the sinkhole is owned by Houston-based brine producer Texas Brine Co. LLC. Texas Brine mines caverns into the dome to harvest salt and the resulting brine mixture is then piped to nearby petrochemical companies. Jindal has also laid out a contingency plan for a second Texas Brine cavern, known as Oxy-Geismar 1, which experts say may have been drilled too close to the edge of the slat dome. Jindal said there is no data indicating a second cavern collapse is imminent. “The seismic activity is limited to the Oxy 3/sinkhole area, showing no indication of impact to the Oxy 1 area,” the website said. “Monitoring is constantly ongoing in the area and Conservation will advice the public of significant changes in subsurface conditions.”
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All Work Stopped At Corne Bayou Salt Dome Collapse
Since the DNR and friends have taken it upon themselves to name a fancy BLUE RIBBON PANEL to look into the salt dome collapse we thought we'd go ahead and get a panel too!
OUR
And on OUR panel we will pick some of our own experts:
(NOTE TO RETURNING READERS, THE UPDATE REBUTTAL IS HIGHLIGHTED IN BOLD LETTERS BELOW)
A truly shocking revelation has been uncovered in SONRIS files concerning the fragile and 'too close to salt edge', Occidental Geismar #1, as well as four other caverns on the east side of Grand Bayou.
Last week, it was revealed that Oxy #1 was found to be in potential jeopardy and possible collapse since it lies within 1-200 ft.
The discovery was made at the magma layer at the Middle America trench offshore Nicaragua. Using advanced seafloor electromagnetic imaging technology pioneered atScripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Dieg , the scientists imaged a 16 mile-thick layer of partially melted mantle rock below the edge of the Cocos plate where it moves underneath Central America.
The new images of magma were captured during a 2010 expedition aboard the U.S. Navy-owned and Scripps-operated research vessel Melville. After deploying a vast array of seafloor instruments that recorded natural electromagnetic signals to map features of the crust and mantle, the scientists realized they found magma in a surprising place.
“This was completely unexpected,” said Kerry Key, an associate research geophysicist at Scripps. “We went out looking to get an idea of how fluids are interacting with plate subduction, but we discovered a melt layer we weren’t expecting to find at all—it was pretty surprising.”
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Global warming was slowed between 2000 and 2010 because of sulfur dioxide spewed forth by volcanoes, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) claim in a new study.
Some experts had blamed China and India for the phenomenon, as both countries increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by an estimated 60 percent during that decade. The new findings essentially exonerates those two Asian nations, lead author Ryan Neely of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) said Friday in a statement.
Writing in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Neely and his colleagues report that increases in stratospheric aerosols over the past 13 years have counteracted nearly one-fourth of the temperature increased that have been blamed on human greenhouse gas emissions.
Portions of sulfur dioxide emissions from the planet’s surface ultimately rise to as much as 20 miles into the stratosphere, where chemical reactions cause them to be changed into sulfuric acid and water that reflect sunlight back into space and keep the planet cool.
Neely and researchers from CU-Boulder, the NOAA, MIT, NASA’s Langley Research Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reported that emissions caused by volcanoes of “small to moderate” size caused global warming to slow during that 10-year period.
PUBLISHED: 00:00 EST, 22 February 2013 | UPDATED: 11:40 EST, 22 February 2013
A giant sinkhole opened on an Arizona road and ensnared two cars on Wednesday, leaving several gaping holes nearly six feet deep and closing the road indefinitely.
The Arizona Department of Transportation says the stretch of U.S. 89 in northern Arizona will remain closed indefinitely because of damage to the roadway about 25 miles south of Page. Two of the drivers ensnared by the sinkhole reported minor injuries.
While the agency is still trying to determine what exactly happened to cause the ground to shift beneath the road, the agency continues to assess the significant damage to the highway. Geotechnical engineers are currently evaluating the stability of the mountain slope on which the road sits.
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This photo shows the buckling of U.S. 89, about 25 miles south of Page, Arizona
The Arizona Department of Transportation is rerouting motorist off the heavily traveled highway between Arizona and Utah on to other roadways
‘This area encompasses close to 500 feet of damaged pavement, but we had the opportunity in the plane to circle the area twice and it looks like the settlement could be a lot larger,’ said Robert Samour, ADOT senior deputy state engineer of operations. ‘The area over the guardrail drops off a couple hundred feet; we saw some cracking in the soil down the slope, so I would say that this is probably a 500- to700-foot section that we’re going to have to take a good look at for settlement.’
There is no timetable to reopen the highway, which has over 150 feet of pavement that buckled approximately four to six feet.
Ariz. – A ‘geologic event’ closed a northern Arizona highway Wednesday, after a 150-foot section of pavement buckled.
U.S. 89 in northern Arizona is closed in both directions about 25 miles south of Page.
Residents in the area reported what they thought was an earthquake Wednesday morning, but geologists say it was a landslide. The Arizona Department of Transportation says the buckling was not related to the weather.
The call came in around 4:30 a.m. There were a few minor accidents as a result.
“There’s three lanes, there’s a passing lane, the passing lane going up is the one that dropped, and the whole section to the west of that is also down,” said Jason Yazzie, Navajo Division of Transportation.
(Source: Arizona Department of Transportation) A 150-foot section of U.S. 89 about 25 miles south of Page collapsed early Wednesday morning.
A 150-foot section of U.S. 89 south of Page that buckled and sunk four feet Wednesday might have been caused by a “geologic event,” according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
A stretch of U.S. 89 in northern Arizona will remain closed indefinitely because of damage to the roadway about 25 miles south of PageMore >
The road collapsed at mile post 526 just 2.5 miles north of the intersection with U.S. 89A, about 25 miles south of page, according to an ADOT spokesman. He said the incident was not related to the weather.
The road was closed in both directions and there was no estimation when the highway would reopen, said an ADOT spokesman.
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This photo shows the buckling of U.S. 89, about 25 miles south of Page, Arizona
The Arizona Department of Transportation is rerouting motorist off the heavily traveled highway between Arizona and Utah on to other roadways
