The smell of sulphur from Mt Tongariro has crept back to the lower North Island, with some residents complaining about irritation to their skin and eyes.

The smell has become common since the volcano erupted at 11.50pm on August 6 with residents as far as Blenheim noticing it.

The Horizon Regional Council today received “multiple complaints” about the smell being back and some residents said the sulphur had become an irritant.

Council emergency manager Shane Bayley said the smell was the result of wind drift from the mountain and was not a cause for concern.

“Our air quality monitoring sites in Taumarunui and Taihape are not showing any elevated presence of fine air particles.

“However, our team will be keeping an eye on the situation and will alert the public if this situation changes.”

If the sulphur was affecting people’s respiratory system, eyes or skin, MidCentral Health recommended people stay indoors with all the doors and windows closed, a council spokeswoman said.

Mt Tongariro has kept quiet in the past week, and seismic activity was low overnight.

But GNS vulcanologist Brad Scott said the volcano was degassing, producing a lot of gas and steam.

“It’s putting out about 2000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 4000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day. That’s what people are detecting and smelling.”

Scott said there were three possible scenarios for the volcano, with the most likely being no further eruptions in the next week.

The second most-likely scenario was that there may be a similar eruption to what occurred on August 6.

Scott said the least-likely scenario was that a larger eruption would occur.

Emergency services, DOC, Civil Defence, New Zealand Transport Agency and district health boards met on Friday to discuss an evacuation plan should the volcano erupt again.

Families living closest to Mt Tongariro have an action plan to refer to.

Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson and Taupo MP Louise Upton met with iwi, the community and tourism industry leaders at Tongariro National Park today.

Ivan the Terrible Erupts on Kurils

MOSCOW, 16 August (RIA Novosti)

The Ivan Groznyy (“Ivan the Terrible”) volcano erupted early on Thursday morning on the island of Iturup, part of the Kuril group in Russia’s Far East.

The volcano spewed a column of ash onto the surrounding area. Local people in the nearest towns, Goryachiye Klyuchi (9 kilometers away) and the city of Kurilsk (25 kilometers), noticed a faint smell of hydrogen sulfide gas, which disappeared later.

The eruption poses no threat to nearby human settlements.

Scientists recorded signs of the impending eruption on Wednesday, when gas emissions on the volcano’s northeast slope increased, a Sakhalin region Emergency Ministry representative told RIA Novosti. Observation of the volcano continues.

Scientists say the eruption was started by recent torrential rain, causing a huge increase in the volume of water in underground channels around the volcano. Ivan Groznyy also erupted in 1968, 1973, and 1989, but none of the eruptions threatened life nearby.

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West of Spitsbergen methane gas is effervescing out of the seabed. Is this an indication that methane hydrates in the seabed are dissolving due to rising temperatures? And what would the effects be? An expedition with the German research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN and the submersible JAGO lead by GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel hopes to help answer these questions. The expedition began this week in Reykjavik.

The average temperatures of the atmosphere are rising; the average temperatures of the oceans, too. Not only living organisms react sensititvely to these changes. The transitional zones between shallow shelf seas and the deep sea at continental slopes store a huge amount of methane hydrates in the sea bed.

These specific, ice-like compounds only forms at low temperatures and under high pressure. When the water temperature directly above the sea bed rises, some of the methane hydrates could dissolve and release the previously bound methane.

“This scenario incorporates two fears: Firstly that enormous amounts of this very powerful greenhouse gas will be released into the atmosphere, and secondly that the continental slopes may become unstable” explains the geophysicist Professor Christian Berndt from GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

He is leading an expedition starting today on the German research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN which will analyse the sea off the western shore of Spitsbergen in order to find out whether the first methane hydrates in the sea bed are dissolving and what the consequences might be.

The expedition builds on research conducted by marine scientists from Kiel who worked in this area of the sea in 2008. Back then they found over 250 places where gas was escaping the sea bed. “These spots lie directly on the border of the area of stable hydrates” explains Professor Berndt. “Therefore we presume that the hydrates are dissolving from the rim inwards.”

During the upcoming expedition, the scientists from Kiel will be working together with colleagues from Bremen, Switzerland, Great Britain and Norway to discover whether the gas emanation shows signs of dissolved hydrates and whether this is due to warmer sea beds.

With the help of echo sounders, researchers will seek out new gas sources in order to determine the total amount of escaping gas. With Germany’s only submersible JAGO, they will closely investigate the gas outlets in up to 400 metres depth.

“It is interesting for us, for example, to find out whether special microorganisms that can break down the methane before it is released in the atmosphere have settled around the outlets” explains Professor Tina Treude from GEOMAR, who will be running the microbiological work during the expedition.

Parallel to this, geophysicists, lead by Professor Sebastian Krastel from GEOMAR, will investigate the slopes under the gas outlet spots for signs of instability using acoustic and seismic methods.

“The methane hydrates act like binding cement on these slopes. If they dissolve, chances are that parts of the slopes will slide”, explains Professor Krastel, who focuses on marine hazards at GEOMAR.

“Overall the program on this trip is very extensive. Now let us hope that the weather will play along so that we can conduct all planned tests”, says the head of the expedition Christian Berndt shortly before the departure to Iceland.

After initially reporting that last week’s waterspout was also Duluth’s first tornado, the National Weather Service says it has found record of another Duluth tornado more than 50 years ago.

The waterspout on Thursday, Aug. 9, churned across Sky Harbor Airport in Duluth and Barker’s Island in Superior. For the few seconds it was on land, the waterspout was classified as a weak tornado.

First checks with the Weather Service office in Duluth turned up no previous Twin Ports tornadoes. But meteorologists there kept digging through the records.

“After doing more research, it was discovered that there was a tornado in Duluth on May 26, 1958,” meteorologist Carol Christenson wrote in a memo on Monday to Duluth weather reporters.

The Duluth News-Tribune at the time called the 1958 storm a “miniature tornado” that collapsed a garage and damaged two Duluth-area lake cabins.

“A witness said the violent winds picked up the garage ‘like a child’s toy’ and smashed it back to earth,” the paper reported in the May 27, 1958, edition. “The small twister pulled off the doors of a garage owned by Irving West, 6611 Greene St. They bounced off the nearby Ing Stockland garage and landed about 30 to 40 yards away.”

Greene Street is in West Duluth. The “wind storm” started about 4:35 p.m. and lasted about five minutes, the Stocklands told the News Tribune.

“Stockland, who lives at 6617 Greene, said the wind was pulling up rocks and mud. He and his wife were at the rear of theirhouse when the funnel, following the ravine along Highway 61, struck West’s garage,” the newspaper reported.

A city-regional track meet was going on at Public Schools Stadium about a mile to the east. Witnesses there reported seeing that the distant funnel “tossed out pieces of paper,” but the track meet was not long disrupted.

“Team members and spectators dashed for cover while the hail fell,” according to the News-Tribune report. “Ditches were dug to drain the track and allow the meet to resume.”

Christenson pointed out that the News-Tribune also reported on a possible twister on July 11, 1935, but that one was never confirmed.

“Swirling into the city on the wings of a torrential rain, a miniature tornado struck in the heart of the Gary-New Duluth district shortly before 8 a.m. yesterday, flattening a row of coal sheds (and) a frame garage and causing general damage to trees in the vicinity,” the News-Tribune reported on July 12, 1935. “The United States weather bureau had no means of officially recording the twister, the high wind having limited itself to the Gary-New Duluth district.”

Source: Associated Press

Phys.org

  South Pacific countries will experience more extreme floods and droughts, in response to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a paper out today in the journal Nature. Ads by Google Texas Smelly Well Water – Smelly and Rotten Egg Smell Removal Smelly Water Cleaned W/O Chemicals – http://www.NationsPure.com The changes will result from the South Pacific rain band responding to greenhouse warming. The South Pacific rain band is largest and most persistent of the Southern Hemisphere spanning the Pacific from south of the Equator, south-eastward to French Polynesia. Occasionally, the rain band moves northwards towards the Equator by 1000 kilometres, inducing extreme climate events. The international study, led by CSIRO oceanographer Dr Wenju Cai, focuses on how the frequency of such movement may change in the future. The study finds the frequency will almost double in the next 100 years, with a corresponding intensification of the rain band. Dr Wenju and colleagues turned to the extensive archives of general circulation models submitted for the fourth and fifth IPCC Assessments and found that increases in greenhouse gases are projected to enhance equatorial Pacific warming. In turn, and in spite of disagreement about the future of El Niño events, this warming leads to the increased frequency of extreme excursions of the rain band. During moderate El Niño events with warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific, the rain band moves north-eastward by 300 kilometres. Countries located within the bands’ normal position such as Vanuatu, Samoa, and the southern Cook Islands experience forest fires and droughts as well as increased frequency of tropical cyclones, whereas countries to which the rain band moves experience extreme floods. “During extreme El Niño events, such as 1982/83 and 1997/98, the band moved northward by up to 1000 kilometres. The shift brings more severe extremes, including cyclones to regions such as French Polynesia that are not accustomed to such events,” said Dr Cai, a scientist at the Wealth from Oceans Flagship. A central issue for community adaptation in Australia and across the Pacific is understanding how the warming atmosphere and oceans will influence the intensity and frequency of extreme events. The impact associated with the observed extreme excursions includes massive droughts, severe food shortage, and coral reef mortality through thermally-induced coral bleaching across the South Pacific. “Understanding changes in the frequency of these events as the climate changes proceed is therefore of broad scientific and socio-economic interest.” More information: More extreme swings of the South Pacific Convergence Zone due to greenhouse warming, Nature, 2012. Journal reference: Nature search and more info website Provided by CSIRO search and more info website

1.5 million years of climate history revealed after scientists solve mystery of the deep

The study successfully reconstructed temperature from the deep sea to reveal how global ice volume has varied over the glacial-interglacial cycles of the past 1.5 million years of Tabular icebergs. The production of tabular icebergs is a major mechanism of mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Icebergs are calved during both rapid ice-shelf collapse and as part of the normal transfer of mass through the ice sheet to the surrounding ocean.

Scientists have announced a major breakthrough in understanding the Earth’s climate machine by reconstructing highly accurate records of changes in ice volume and deep-ocean temperatures over the last 1.5 million years. The study, which is reported in the journal Science, offers new insights into a decades-long debate about how the shifts in the Earth’s orbit relative to the sun have taken the Earth into and out of an ice-age climate.

Being able to reconstruct ancient climate change is a critical part of understanding why the climate behaves the way it does. It also helps us to predict how the planet might respond to man-made changes, such as the injection of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, in the future.

Unfortunately, scientists trying to construct an accurate picture of how such changes caused past climatic shifts have been thwarted by the fact that the most readily available marine geological record of ice-ages – changes in the ratio of oxygen isotopes (Oxygen 18 to Oxygen 16) preserved in tiny calcareous deep sea fossils called foraminifera – is compromised.

This is because the isotope record shows the combined effects of both deep sea temperature changes, and changes in the amount of ice volume. Separating these has in the past proven difficult or impossible, so researchers have been unable to tell whether changes in the Earth’s orbit were affecting the temperature of the ocean more than the amount of ice at the Poles, or vice-versa.

The new study, which was carried out by researchers in the University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences, appears to have resolved this problem by introducing a new set of temperature-sensitive data. This allowed them to identify changes in ocean temperatures alone, subtract that from the original isotopic data set, and then build what they describe as an unprecedented picture of climatic change over the last 1.5 million years – a record of changes in both oceanic temperature and global ice volume.

Included in this is a much fuller representation of what happened during the “Mid-Pleistocene Transition” (MPT) – a major change in the Earth’s climate system which took place sometime between 1.25 million and 600 thousand years ago. Before the MPT, the alternation between glacial periods of extreme cold, and warmer interglacials, happened at intervals of approximately 41,000 years. After the MPT, the major cycles became much longer, regularly taking 100,000 years. The second pattern of climate cycles is the one we are in now. Interestingly, this change occurred with little or no orbital forcing.

“Previously, we didn’t really know what happened during this transition, or on either side of it,” Professor Harry Elderfield, who led the research team, said. “Before you separate the ice volume and temperature signals, you don’t know whether you’re seeing a climate record in which ice volume changed dramatically, the oceans warmed or cooled substantially, or both.”

“Now, for the first time, we have been able to separate these two components, which means that we stand a much better chance of understanding the mechanisms involved. One of the reasons why that is important, is because we are making changes to the factors that influence the climate now. The only way we can work out what the likely effects of that will be in detail is by finding analogues in the geological past, but that depends on having an accurate picture of the past behaviour of the climate system.”

Researchers have developed more than 30 different models for how these features of the climate might have changed in the past, in the course of a debate which has endured for more than 60 years since pioneering work by Nobel Laureate Harold Urey in 1946. The new study helps resolve these problems by introducing a new dataset to the picture – the ratio of magnesium (Mg) to calcium (Ca) in foraminifera. Because it is easier for magnesium to be incorporated at higher temperatures, larger quantities of magnesium in the tiny marine fossils imply that the deep sea temperature was higher at that point in geological time.

The Mg/Ca dataset was taken from the fossil record contained in cores drilled on the Chatham Rise, an area of ocean east of New Zealand. It allowed the Cambridge team to map ocean temperature change over time. Once this had been done, they were able to subtract that information from the oxygen isotopic record. “The calculation tells us the difference between what water temperature was doing and what the ice sheets were doing across a 1.5 million year period,” Professor Elderfield explained.

The resulting picture shows that ice volume has changed much more dramatically than ocean temperatures in response to changes in orbital geometry. Glacial periods during the 100,000-year cycles have been characterised by a very slow build-up of ice which took thousands of years, the result of ice volume responding to orbital change far more slowly than the ocean temperatures reacted. Ocean temperature change, however, reached a lower limit, probably because the freezing point of sea water put a restriction on how cold the deep ocean could get.

In addition, the record shows that the transition from 41,000-year cycles to 100,000-year cycles, the characteristic changeover of the MPT, was not as gradual as previously thought. In fact, the build-up of larger ice sheets, associated with longer glacials, appears to have begun quite suddenly, around 900,000 years ago. The pattern of the Earth’s response to orbital forcing changed dramatically during this “900,000 year event”, as the paper puts it.

The research team now plan to apply their method to the study of deep-sea temperatures elsewhere to investigate how orbital changes affected the climate in different parts of the world.

“Any uncertainty about the Earth’s climate system fuels the sense that we don’t really know how the climate is behaving, either in response to natural effects or those which are man-made,” Professor Elderfield added. “If we can understand how earlier changes were initiated and what the impacts were, we stand a much better chance of being able to predict and prepare for changes in the future.”

Phys.org

Hubble watches star clusters on a collision course Enlarge This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a pair of star clusters that are believed to be in the early stages of merging. The clusters lie in the gigantic 30 Doradus nebula, which is 170,000 light-years from Earth. The Hubble observations, made with the Wide Field Camera 3, were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen. Credit: NASA, ESA, R. O’Connell (University of Virginia), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee (Phys.org) — Astronomers using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have caught two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The clusters are 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. Ads by Google 2012 Photographer Classes – Find 2012 Photography Schools. Local & Online Classes – Get Info! – AllColleges.org/Photographer What at first was thought to be only one cluster in the core of the massive star-forming region 30 Doradus (also known as the Tarantula Nebula) has been found to be a composite of two clusters that differ in age by about one million years. The entire 30 Doradus complex has been an active star-forming region for 25 million years, and it is currently unknown how much longer this region can continue creating new stars. Smaller systems that merge into larger ones could help to explain the origin of some of the largest known star clusters. Lead scientist Elena Sabbi of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and her team began looking at the area while searching for runaway stars, fast-moving stars that have been kicked out of their stellar nurseries where they first formed. “Stars are supposed to form in clusters, but there are many young stars outside 30 Doradus that could not have formed where they are; they may have been ejected at very high velocity from 30 Doradus itself,” Sabbi said. She then noticed something unusual about the cluster when looking at the distribution of the low-mass stars detected by Hubble. It is not spherical, as was expected, but has features somewhat similar to the shape of two merging galaxies where their shapes are elongated by the tidal pull of gravity. Hubble’s circumstantial evidence for the impending merger comes from seeing an elongated structure in one of the clusters, and from measuring a different age between the two clusters. According to some models, the giant gas clouds out of which star clusters form may fragment into smaller pieces. Once these small pieces precipitate stars, they might then interact and merge to become a bigger system. This interaction is what Sabbi and her team think they are observing in 30 Doradus. Also, there are an unusually large number of high-velocity stars around 30 Doradus. Astronomers believe that these stars, often called “runaway stars” were expelled from the core of 30 Doradus as the result of dynamical interactions. These interactions are very common during a process called core collapse, in which more-massive stars sink to the center of a cluster by dynamical interactions with lower-mass stars. When many massive stars have reached the core, the core becomes unstable and these massive stars start ejecting each other from the cluster. The big cluster R136 in the center of the 30 Doradus region is too young to have already experienced a core collapse. However, since in smaller systems the core collapse is much faster, the large number of runaway stars that has been found in the 30 Doradus region can be better explained if a small cluster has merged into R136. Follow-up studies will look at the area in more detail and on a larger scale to see if any more clusters might be interacting with the ones observed. In particular, the infrared sensitivity of NASA’s planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow astronomers to look deep into the regions of the Tarantula Nebula that are obscured in visible-light photographs. In these areas cooler and dimmer stars are hidden from view inside cocoons of dust. Webb will better reveal the underlying population of stars in the nebula. The 30 Doradus Nebula is particularly interesting to astronomers because it is a good example of how star-forming regions in the young universe may have looked. This discovery could help scientists understand the details of cluster formation and how stars formed in the early universe. Provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center search and more info website

The cause of a fatal illness that affects captive snakes has been identified, a study has shown. The condition – called Inclusion Body Disease (IBD) – affects constrictor snakes including boas and pythons. There is no treatment and symptoms include “stargazing” – a fixed upward stare – as well as breathing problems and general muscular paralysis.

It was long suspected that the disease was caused by a virus, but until recently its identity remained elusive. The research is published in the open-access journal mBio.

In this breakthrough study, researchers from the University of California San Francisco analysed samples obtained from snakes diagnosed with IBD, using sensitive DNA sequencing techniques.

In amongst some of the snake DNA was foreign genetic material – nucleic acid – that closely resembled that present in viruses belonging to a family called arenaviruses. This family includes Lassa Fever virus, which is associated with haemorrhagic fever in humans. However, there is no evidence that the newly discovered virus can pass from snakes to humans.

The scientists were also able to grow the virus from samples taken from one of the snakes.

Dr Mark Stenglein, who co-led the current study, said “we don’t yet have formal evidence that these viruses cause the disease… although there is a good correlation [between disease and the presence of virus] … there’s definitely a possibility that other things cause this”.

Arenaviruses can be divided into two main groups based on the location of the species they naturally infect – New World viruses originate from the Americas, whilst Old World viruses are found in Africa and Asia. Genetically, the newly discovered virus is distinct from these two groups.

Commenting on the finding, the editor of the paper Michael Buchmeier, professor of infectious diseases at University of California Irvine, suggests that these snake viruses “may be representative of a predecessor of the Old World and New World branches of the [arenavirus] family”.

The genetic analyses also revealed that one of the genes in the newly isolated virus group was more like that present in viruses belonging to a totally different family of haemorrhagic viruses called filoviruses. Ebolavirus belongs to this family.

The new discovery follows similar research published online in April 2012 in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, which describes isolation of a novel virus from snakes – this time in Australia – that showed symptoms very similar to IBD. However, the virus isolated in this study belonged to a very different virus family known as paramyxoviruses.

Professor Jim Wellehan from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, who authored the paramyxovirus study, said: “The epidemiology of the paramyxoviruses is different [to IBD]. These are hot agents that snakes die quickly from, and it works fast. You have a room full of dead snakes in a week.”

It is uncertain how the highly contagious IBD virus is spread. One possibility is that transmission occurs through inhalation – either directly from another infected snake or indirectly from contaminated bedding or following handling. Alternatively, mites – often found in colonies suffering from an IBD outbreak – might be implicated.

So far the disease seems to be restricted to captive snakes but some scientists are worried that the release of captive bred or rehabilitated snakes might unwittingly unleash this devastating virus into the wild.

The facility that caught fire violates pollution rules and is a daily threat to workers and neighbors.

Stay inside, close your windows and doors, and turn off air conditioning and heating units. Pets and all children in sporting activities should be brought inside, and have duct tape ready should you need to further seal windows and doors.

These are among the “shelter in place” warnings made to Bay Area residents last week in response to a massive fire at theChevron Corp.refinery in Richmond. The fire burned out of control for more than five hours, sending a giant black cloud of toxic chemicals, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, thousands of feet into the air and out across the bay. While automated calls went to more than 18,000 people, some 160,000 residents live in the areas directly affected by the warning. More than 5,700 people have sought medical treatment.

Chevron is the world’s eighth-largest corporation and hands-down the largest in California. The Richmond refinery is also the state’s single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, having released 4.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010 alone.

Built in 1902, the refinery shows its age. Rather than use its $27 billion in 2011 profits to run the cleanest, safest and most transparent refinery possible, Chevron operates a refinery that is in constant violation of federal and state law and a daily threat to the health and safety of its workers and neighbors.

More than 25,000 people, including those in two public housing projects, live within just three miles of the refinery. Nearly 85% of the residents live below the federal poverty line; the same percentage is listed as “minorities” according to the U.S. Census. Within one mile of or abutting the refinery are businesses, houses, an elementary school and playgrounds.

Since at least April 2009, the refinery has been in noncompliance of the Clean Water Act and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System in every quarter but one. Until July 2010, the refinery had been in “high-priority violation” of Clean Air Act compliance standards, the most serious level of violation noted by the EPA, since at least 2006. Under constant pressure from community organizations, Chevron has been assessed hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for repeated Clean Air Act violations – nearly 100 citations in just the last five years, including 23 in 2011 alone.A 2008 study by UC Berkeley and Brown University researchers concluded that the air inside some Richmond homes was more toxic than that outside because of harmful pollutants from the refinery being trapped indoors.

The Contra Costa County Health Services Department lists the residents of Richmond as one of the “most at-risk groups” in the county: They are hospitalized for chronic diseases at significantly higher rates than the county average, including for female reproductive cancers, which are more than double the county rate. Chevron is one of four refineries in Contra Costa County where nearby incidence of breast, ovarian and prostate cancers are the second highest in California, and where nearby residents suffer higher rates of asthma, childhood asthma and asthma-related deaths.

The Aug. 6 fire is the third major disaster at the refinery in 12 years, each caused by an old leaking pipe. In January 2007, an explosion rocked the refinery, leading to a five-alarm fire. A leaking corroded pipe “that should have been detached two decades ago,” according to investigators, was to blame. In 1999, an 18,000-pound plume of sulfur dioxide smoke was released after an explosion caused by a leak in a pipe that was more than 30 years old.

But neither Richmond nor Chevron is alone. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates major incidents at oil refineries, concluded last month that nationwide safety at U.S. refineries has not improved, despite scores of fatalities, over the last decade, and won’t until companies develop better safety systems.

In a 2007 report about BP‘s 2005 Texas City oil refinery disaster, which killed 15 workers, the board warned of a pervasive “complacency toward serious safety risks” across the leading oil companies’ refinery operations. It called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to “require these corporations to evaluate the safety impact of mergers, reorganizations, downsizing and budget cuts.”

This year so far, serious oil refinery fires have broken out at a ConocoPhillips refinery in Los Angeles, twice at one BP refinery in Indiana, and in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Washington and at other locations. Using industry-reported data, the United Steelworkers estimates that at least one fire occurs every week at a U.S. oil refinery. Operating in noncompliance with federal and state regulations, moreover, appears to be all-but-standard operating procedure across the industry.

Oil industry operations are not clean, safe or healthful. But they can certainly be far cleaner, safer, more healthful and more transparent than current industry practice.

Big Oil is the wealthiest industry the world has known. The companies can and must be forced through stricter federal and state regulation, aggressive enforcement and direct community and worker oversight to be held to the highest possible standard, including current law.

Richmond has always been a company town. But in 2006 its residents rebelled, rejecting Chevron’s handpicked political candidates and electing as mayor the Green Party’s Gayle McLaughlin. State and federal officials who serve as the industry’s handmaidens should anticipate an even broader rebellion as the outcome of this latest tragic, yet painfully predictable, oil company disaster.

Antonia Juhasz is the author of several books on the oil industry, including “The Tyranny of Oil.” She is also the editor and lead author of three Alternative Annual Reports on Chevron and the former director of the Chevron Program at San Francisco-based Global Exchange.

Crystals from chaos: Physicists observe new form of carbon