CONCEPCION, Chile — An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 struck on Sunday evening in southern Chile.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake was located south of Concepcion and occurred about 10 miles below the surface. There were no immediate reports of damage or major injuries from the tremblor.
Ironically, the quake struck on the first anniversary of an 8.8 magnitude quake that left 521 people dead and several thousand homeless in 2010.
USGS New Ireland Region, Papua New Guinea
Apr 07 00:57 AM
4.4 113.2 MAP
EMSC New Ireland Region, P.n.g.
Apr 07 00:57 AM
4.4 113.0 MAP
EMSC New Siberian Islands, Russia
Apr 07 00:12 AM
3.9 20.0 MAP
Earthquake Recap: Upward of 10 Quakes Hit Santa Clara County
Multiple earthquakes hit Los Altos, Gilroy and Morgan Hill from April 2 to 6.
By Corinne Speckert
Thirteen earthquakes, averaging a magnitude of 1.9 on the Richter scale, struck Santa Clara County this week.
The largest quake, with a magnitude of 2.9, occurred just nine miles north of Morgan Hill at 2:42 a.m. Thursday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website.
Three tremors rocked the county on Friday alone, with a 1.8 magnitude quake striking three miles south of Los Altos and 20 minutes from Campbell at 5:11 p.m. A slightly smaller quake, registering at 1.5, hit three miles from Los Altos the day before at 11:59 a.m…..
Rise in small Midwestern earthquakes probably due to oil and gas production, study suggests
By Associated Press,
NEW YORK — Oil and gas production may explain a sharp increase in small earthquakes in the nation’s midsection, a new study from the U.S. Geological Survey suggests.
The rate has jumped six-fold from the late 20th century through last year, the team reports, and the changes are “almost certainly man-made.”
The study said a relatively mild increase starting in 2001 comes from increased quake activity in a methane production area along the state line between Colorado and New Mexico. The increase began about the time that methane production began there, so there’s a “clear possibility” of a link, says lead author William Ellsworth of the USGS.
The increase over the nation’s midsection has gotten steeper since 2009, due to more quakes in a variety of oil and gas production areas, including some in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the researchers say.
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.
Pakistani rescuers search for up to 135 people trapped in avalanche
From Aliza Kassim, CNN
(CNN) — Pakistani rescuers continued to tunnel around a Himalayan military outpost on the Siachen glacier, where up to 135 people were buried by a massive avalanche near the Indian border.
A blanket of rock and snow, covering one square kilometer, slid over the base near the northeastern city of Skardu early Saturday morning, according to a statement from the military.
“It’s a very massive scale slide,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “They are under the slide but we haven’t lost hope. The rescue work is on, and we are keeping our fingers crossed.”
A total of 124 army soldiers and 11 civilians were housed at the outpost, having been employed in one of the world’s highest elevation battlegrounds where a series of past conflicts with India have occurred.
Mexican plan for Gulf deep water 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.”
A cloud of fear: Greenpeace releases infrared image of giant ‘explosive’ gas spewing from Elgin rig
By Lucy Osborne
It looks like a bizarre piece of 1960s pop art – or perhaps a highly-coloured graphic from an old-style computer game.
But in reality, this neon-bright image of the North Sea is a chilling illustration of just how large the potentially explosive gas cloud spewing from the Elgin platform has become.
The infrared picture, which was taken using a special camera by environmental campaigners, lays bare the extent of the leak’s impact on the atmosphere.
The photograph was released by the Greenpeace activists who have been assessing the potential dangers of the situation since Monday.
The image shows the temperature of the surface of with light tones showing hot areas, and dark tones indicating cold
What’s Under Antarctica?
Quake Waves Give First Look
Andrea Mustain, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer
Thanks to a technological explosion in the century since humans first set foot at the South Pole, Antarctic research is thriving.
Yet despite the incredible scientific advances, there are still gaping holes in some very basic knowledge about the frozen continent. Namely, what, exactly, is under all that ice.
It’s not simply a question for idle speculation. Figuring out what’s going on underneath the colossal Antarctic ice sheets is one important puzzle piece in better forecasting what is happening to the ice itself in a changing climate, some glaciologists say.
Scientists have used radar and other imaging technology to uncover some astounding finds under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet: A vast mountain range that rivals the Alps, and Lake Vostok, one of Earth’s largest lakes…..
If you ever frequent Jon Frímann’s blog, you know that he tends to find all the news about potential Icelandic rumblings before pretty much everyone. Well, he seems to have found something interesting going on up in Iceland – a few news reports (in Icelandic) have been talking about the crater lake on Askja caldera having mysteriously become ice-free over the last month while lakes around it (that aren’t on volcanoes) and at lower elevations are still ice-covered – not to mention that normally the lake isn’t ice-free until June or July. This has lead to a lot of speculation about what exactly is going on at Askja, but thanks to its remote location almost in the middle of Iceland, few people have been out there to see what is going on.
A little background on the volcano. Askja is a very complex volcano made up of three calderas. The volcano has mostly erupted basaltic material over its recent history, but it has also had a rhyolitic eruption over 10,000 years ago. Now, usually at a basaltic volcano, the calderas are formed by passive sinking of the land surface, much like we see in Hawai’i. However, at Askja, it appears that the calderas are formed more violently due to explosive eruptions out of the ring fractures bounding the calderas. The youngest caldera formed only 137 years ago (in 1875) and the ~4.5 km diameter feature is home to two crater lakes, Öskjuvatn and Víti. The former is the larger lake, over 200 meters deep, while the latter is a very small, warm crater lake (marked in the photo above near the word “ash?”).
The most recent activity at Askja was in 1961 that produced lava flows near Öskjuvatn – a pattern of eruption that was seen in numerous times since the VEI 5 eruption in 1875. That caldera-forming eruption in 1875 was large enough that ash and tephra fell as far away as Norway and Sweden. Much like the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the explosivity of the eruption was likely aided by the meltwater that is readily available at Askja. If you go back to the rhyolite eruption in ~8910 B.C., that ash from that caldera-forming event is found over much of Europe…..
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The image shows the temperature of the surface of with light tones showing hot areas, and dark tones indicating cold
