Earthquakes
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 23:26 PM
2.6 9.0 MAP
EMSC Crete, Greece
Apr 06 21:31 PM
3.7 1.0 MAP
GEONET Canterbury
Apr 06 20:43 PM
3.2 7.0 MAP
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 20:38 PM
3.7 5.0 MAP
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 20:27 PM
3.7 5.0 MAP
USGS Southern Alaska
Apr 06 20:16 PM
2.5 88.9 MAP
USGS Puerto Rico Region
Apr 06 19:53 PM
2.6 71.7 MAP
GEONET Taupo
Apr 06 19:31 PM
2.4 2.0 MAP
GEOFON Southern Sumatra, Indonesia
Apr 06 19:24 PM
5.2 26.0 MAP
EMSC Kep. Mentawai Region, Indonesia
Apr 06 19:24 PM
5.2 10.0 MAP
USGS Kepulauan Mentawai Region, Indonesia
Apr 06 19:24 PM
5.5 5.5 MAP
EMSC Western Turkey
Apr 06 18:40 PM
2.5 12.0 MAP
EMSC Western Turkey
Apr 06 18:38 PM
2.4 8.0 MAP
GEONET Taupo
Apr 06 18:25 PM
2.5 2.0 MAP
GEONET Canterbury
Apr 06 17:58 PM
3.1 9.0 MAP
GEOFON Banda Sea
Apr 06 17:49 PM
4.7 10.0 MAP
EMSC Kep. Tanimbar Region, Indonesia
Apr 06 17:49 PM
4.6 88.0 MAP
USGS Kepulauan Tanimbar, Indonesia
Apr 06 17:49 PM
4.5 66.2 MAP
EMSC Southern Xinjiang, China
Apr 06 17:46 PM
4.1 1.0 MAP
USGS Baja California, Mexico
Apr 06 17:23 PM
2.9 17.0 MAP
EMSC Near The Coast Of Western Turkey
Apr 06 17:19 PM
2.8 9.0 MAP
EMSC Offshore Bio-bio, Chile
Apr 06 17:11 PM
4.7 23.0 MAP
USGS Offshore Bio-bio, Chile
Apr 06 17:11 PM
4.7 22.7 MAP
USGS Central Alaska
Apr 06 17:04 PM
3.1 117.8 MAP
USGS Virgin Islands Region
Apr 06 16:38 PM
2.8 1.6 MAP
EMSC Western Turkey
Apr 06 16:34 PM
3.0 2.0 MAP
USGS Oklahoma
Apr 06 16:20 PM
3.3 9.1 MAP
GEOFON New Ireland Region, P.n.g.
Apr 06 16:15 PM
6.1 111.0 MAP
EMSC New Ireland Region, P.n.g.
Apr 06 16:15 PM
6.1 100.0 MAP
USGS New Ireland Region, Papua New Guinea
Apr 06 16:15 PM
6.2 85.4 MAP
EMSC Pyrenees
Apr 06 16:15 PM
2.7 2.0 MAP
USGS Dominican Republic Region
Apr 06 15:40 PM
3.2 90.8 MAP
GEOFON Near Coast Of Chiapas, Mexico
Apr 06 15:38 PM
4.8 61.0 MAP
USGS Offshore Chiapas, Mexico
Apr 06 15:38 PM
4.8 67.9 MAP
EMSC Offshore Chiapas, Mexico
Apr 06 15:38 PM
4.8 60.0 MAP
USGS Seattle-tacoma Urban Area, Washington
Apr 06 15:24 PM
2.6 21.9 MAP
USGS South Of Alaska
Apr 06 15:07 PM
3.1 20.0 MAP
USGS Southern Alaska
Apr 06 15:01 PM
2.5 133.9 MAP
USGS Baja California, Mexico
Apr 06 14:33 PM
2.6 22.1 MAP
USGS Offshore Northern California
Apr 06 14:08 PM
2.8 0.2 MAP
EMSC Off Coast Of Araucania, Chile
Apr 06 13:25 PM
4.8 57.0 MAP
USGS Off The Coast Of Araucania, Chile
Apr 06 13:25 PM
4.8 38.2 MAP
GEOFON Off Coast Of Central Chile
Apr 06 13:25 PM
4.9 10.0 MAP
EMSC Western Turkey
Apr 06 13:04 PM
2.5 8.0 MAP
GEONET Canterbury
Apr 06 11:33 AM
4.2 10.0 MAP
EMSC Izu Islands, Japan Region
Apr 06 11:24 AM
4.2 408.0 MAP
USGS Izu Islands, Japan Region
Apr 06 11:24 AM
4.2 406.2 MAP
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 11:01 AM
3.1 5.0 MAP
EMSC Southern Greece
Apr 06 11:00 AM
2.8 5.0 MAP
EMSC Aegean Sea
Apr 06 10:00 AM
3.2 8.0 MAP
EMSC Southwestern Siberia, Russia
Apr 06 09:55 AM
3.4 10.0 MAP
EMSC Central Turkey
Apr 06 09:24 AM
2.4 22.0 MAP
USGS Tonga
Apr 06 08:50 AM
4.9 35.0 MAP
EMSC Tonga
Apr 06 08:50 AM
4.9 41.0 MAP
GEOFON Tonga Islands
Apr 06 08:50 AM
5.0 32.0 MAP
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 07:38 AM
2.6 8.0 MAP
USGS Poland
Apr 06 06:42 AM
4.4 4.9 MAP
EMSC Poland
Apr 06 06:42 AM
4.3 2.0 MAP
GEOFON Poland
Apr 06 06:42 AM
4.3 10.0 MAP
EMSC Northern Sumatra, Indonesia
Apr 06 06:28 AM
4.8 60.0 MAP
GEOFON Northern Sumatra, Indonesia
Apr 06 06:28 AM
4.8 48.0 MAP
USGS Northern Sumatra, Indonesia
Apr 06 06:28 AM
4.9 35.5 MAP
EMSC Near The Coast Of Western Turkey
Apr 06 06:10 AM
3.3 14.0 MAP
GEOFON Banda Sea
Apr 06 06:03 AM
4.7 207.0 MAP
EMSC Banda Sea
Apr 06 06:03 AM
4.6 219.0 MAP
USGS Banda Sea
Apr 06 06:03 AM
4.7 212.9 MAP
USGS Mona Passage, Dominican Republic
Apr 06 05:47 AM
3.2 78.4 MAP
EMSC Hokkaido, Japan Region
Apr 06 04:48 AM
4.1 317.0 MAP
USGS Hokkaido, Japan Region
Apr 06 04:48 AM
4.1 301.4 MAP
EMSC Georgia (sak’art’velo)
Apr 06 03:43 AM
3.2 2.0 MAP
USGS Central California
Apr 06 03:25 AM
2.6 5.0 MAP
USGS Central California
Apr 06 03:16 AM
3.7 6.2 MAP
EMSC Oaxaca, Mexico
Apr 06 01:31 AM
4.4 20.0 MAP
USGS Oaxaca, Mexico
Apr 06 01:31 AM
4.4 20.1 MAP
EMSC Western Iran
Apr 06 01:14 AM
3.6 5.0 MAP
EMSC Eastern Turkey
Apr 06 00:37 AM
2.4 5.0 MAP
USGS Southern Alaska
Apr 06 00:26 AM
3.2 127.3 MAP
EMSC Romania
Apr 06 00:24 AM
3.2 127.0 MAP
6.2-magnitude quake hits Papua New Guinea: USGS
SYDNEY: A 6.2-magnitude quake struck off Papua New Guinea early Saturday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
The quake hit at 02:15 am (16:15 GMT) 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Rabaul, in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province and 885 kilometres northeast of the capital Port Moresby at a depth of 85 kilometres.
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Volcanic Activity
Cleveland Volcano continues to erupt
by The Associated Press
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Alaska’s Cleveland volcano in the Aleutian Islands is continuing to erupt.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory said Friday that low-level eruptions continue to occur inside the volcano located on a remote, uninhabited island 940 miles southwest of Anchorage.
The volcano’s lava dome in the summit crater was destroyed during a short explosive eruption on Wednesday. The resulting ash cloud reached about 15,000 feet above sea level.
It was the third lava dome that has been destroyed by explosive events since the eruptions began in July 2011.
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Climate Change
CNN meteorologist: Today’s tornadoes are ‘climate change we are seeing’
On the Tuesday broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele declared that tornadoes plowing through the Dallas-Fort Worth area were brought on by climate change.
Steele, formerly of The Weather Channel, also predicted that more extreme weather is on its way.
“It really is [such a strange spring],” Steele said. “That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm.”
“CNN Newsroom” host Carol Costello said it made her “afraid” about what is in store for next spring.
“It might be unnaturally cold,” said Costello. Steele agreed that future weather would be less predictable.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.
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Storms
At least 14 dead in Argentina storms
At least 14 people died overnight into Thursday in Argentina following storms that saw strong winds cause damage across the capital region.
“Seven people died — six were crushed and one was electrocuted,” near Buenos Aires, local emergency coordinator Luciano Timerman told reporters.
Police also said three other people died in a neighborhood to the south of Buenos Aires when an illegally built home collapsed.
In the capital, a man died when the walls of his home collapsed, authorities also said in an initial report.
They later reported the death of another man crushed by the wall of a gas station abandoned in Florencio Varela to the south of Buenos Aires. A woman was killed after another wall fell on her.
In central-eastern Santa Fe province, a high tension cable snapped by the high winds killed a man, Timerman said.
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Radiation
Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident
….In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet…..
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Solar Activity
2MIN News Apr6: MAJOR UPDATES! Gas Leak, Alaska Animals, Spaceweather
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Solar System
Daytime Fireball Seen Over San Antonio, TX and Surrounding Areas
Uploaded by Sheilaaliens on Apr 5, 2012
http://sheilaaliens.net/?p=504 Old news by now but still interesting considering the one right before it in New Zealand. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dXJBNSRAyE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-5Do82swFI) bonus: Check out this HUGE fireball from April 2010 (bet you’ve seen the video before): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-TYo1LgHr4
“SAN ANTONIO – We’ve received a bunch of phone calls Monday about a ball of fire in the sky.
John Haley says that’s exactly what it looked like.
“It was like a fireball falling right out of the sky,” Haley told News 4 WOAI. “It was so bright! It was like a little piece of the sun falling with a big torch behind it.”
I spoke to our astronomer expert Bob Kelley with the Scobee Planetarium, and he explained that it was a phenomenon called “April Fireballs.”
Chunks of meteors enter and burn up in our atmosphere. The fireballs are brighter than a shooting star and can happen at any time of the day. For reasons astronomers don’t fully understand, they occur in early April.
San Antonians weren’t the only ones who saw the April Fireball Monday morning. Sightings were reported in New Braunfels, Kerrville, Floresville and other cities nearby.
“I can chalk that up on the old bucket list — I saw a meteorite during the day,” laughed Haley.”
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/April-Fireball-streaks-across-the-daytim…
http://fireballs-meteorites.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-2011.html
http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com
Mars Twister On The Move – Video Animation
Uploaded by VideoFromSpace on Apr 5, 2012
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured imagery of a Red Planet dust devil on March 14, 2012. Different from a tornado, this phenomena sometimes occurs on clear days when the heated surface interacts with pockets of cool air above it.
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Articles of Interest
Mexican plan for Gulf deepwater wells sparks new worries
Tim Johnson
MEXICO CITY — Two years after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, Mexico’s state oil company is about to test its hand at drilling at extraordinary depths in the Gulf of Mexico.
If all goes as planned, Petroleos de Mexico, known as Pemex, will deploy two state-of-the-art drilling platforms in May to an area just south of the maritime boundary with the United States. One rig will sink a well in 9,514 feet of water, while another will drill in 8,316 feet of water, then deeper into the substrata.
Pemex has no experience drilling at such depths. Mexico’s oil regulator is sounding alarm bells, saying the huge state oil concern is unprepared for a serious deepwater accident or spill. Critics say the company has sharply cut corners on insurance, remiss over potential sky-high liability.
Mexico’s plans come two years after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible rig that the British oil firm BP had contracted to drill a well known as Macondo exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers and spewing 4.9 million barrels of oil in the nearly three months it took engineers to stop the spill.
BP has said the tab for the spill — including government fines, cleanup costs and compensation — could climb to $42 billion for the company and its contractors.
Pemex’s plans to sink even deeper offshore wells underscore Mexico’s pressing need to maintain sagging oil production — exports pay for one-third of government operating expenses — along with oil companies’ desire to leverage technology and drill at ever more challenging depths.
Carlos A. Morales, the chief of the Pemex exploration and production arm, which employs 50,000 people, voiced confidence that his company has to the ability to sink wells in ultra-deep water.
“Pemex is ready to undertake the challenge and to do it safely,” Morales said in an interview in his 41st-floor office at Pemex headquarters in this capital city.
“You have to bear one thing in mind,” he said. “Pemex is the biggest operator in the Gulf — including everyone — both in production and in the number of rigs we operate. We are operating more than 80 rigs offshore.”
Drug-Resistant Malaria Is Spreading, and It Could Be a Public Health Disaster
Artemisinin-resistant malaria parasites first emerged in Cambodia in 2006. Now researchers say the deadly bugs are quickly spreading.
Malaria remains one of the world’s great unnecessary killers. More than 650,000 people succumb to the disease each year — that’s more than one per minute — mostly in the poor nations of sub-Saharan Africa, but as deadly as malaria is, it doesn’t have to kill. Prevention and better treatment can stop the progression of the disease, and death tends to be a matter of extreme poverty.
Indeed, in recent years great progress has been made in controlling malaria, with deaths down 30% over the past decade. That’s thanks largely to more effective treatment regimens that make use of artemisinin, a plant-derived antimalarial drug originally developed in China. Artemisinin is the closest thing we have to a miracle drug for malaria.
That’s what makes the results of two studies out this week in the Lancet and Science so disturbing. Health officials have known for a while that some malaria parasites in the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia have begun to develop resistance to artemisinin, but they hoped the resistance wasn’t spreading. Now researchers in the region have shown that artemisinin is becoming dramatically less potent in malaria cases in western Thailand, and they know it’s due to growing drug resistance in the malaria parasites themselves. If resistance to artemisinin were to spread to sub-Saharan Africa, the result could be a “public health disaster,” in the words of lead Lancet author Standwell Nkhoma of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
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