Earthquakes

USGS

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Dominican Republic Shaken by 4.7-Magnitude Earthquake Near Constanza

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Dominican Republic was shaken by its second earthquake since Sunday on Tuesday night, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The quake had a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale, according to the USGS.

The epicentre was about 26 kilometres south-southwest of Constanza in La Vega, and 31 kilometres north-northwest of Azua.

It occurred at approximately 10:30 PM local time.

Light shaking was felt across the Dominican Republic, including in Peralta in Azul and in the capital, Santo Domingo.

The quake came just a few days after a 4.4-magnitude quake on Sunday off the coast of Samana on the country’s northern peninsula.

This one was towards the southern portion of the Dominican Republic, west of the capital, and far east of the border of Haiti.

It was not yet clear if any damage or injuries had been reported.

An earthquake in Southern Maine reverberated all the way to the Boston metropolitan area at 7:12 p.m. Tuesday evening.

“Notice how it seemed to kind of ‘roll’ through, shaking momentarily but kind of coming in a wave,” New England Sports Network, based in Boston, reported of feeling the quake.

Registering at a 4.5 magnitude, the temblor was centered 3.7 miles Maine’s Lake Arrowhead, Reuters reported.

There were no reported injuries or damage.

Maine has experienced over 80 earthquakes since 1997, according to the state’s Bureau of Geology. The state’s most serious earthquake was in 1904. It registered as a 5.1 on the Richter scale, and was felt through most of New England and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

4.0-M earthquake centered in ME shakes New England

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – An earthquake that hit southern Maine Tuesday night rattled nearby New England states as far as Connecticut, including the Boston area, but caused no injuries or apparent damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey at first estimated the 7:12 p.m. quake as a 4.6 magnitude, but later downgraded that to 4.0. The epicenter, about 3 miles west of Hollis Center, Maine, is about 3 miles deep. That location is about 20 miles west of Portland.

About 10 miles away in Waterboro, about 20 customers and staff at Waterboro House of Pizza ran outside when they heard a loud bang and the building shook.

“It was loudest bang you ever heard in your life. We actually thought it was an explosion of some type,” said owner Jessica Hill. “The back door and door to the basement blew open.”

In the same town, employees at the Milk Room said towels and other items started falling off shelves.

“I heard a bang, and it felt like the building was just shaking it went on for three seconds and then it started shaking again,” said George Moutsos, an employee.

In nearby Saco, Sue Hadiaris said, “The whole house shook. It felt like a train was coming right through the house. It was very unnerving because you could feel the floor shaking. There was a queasy feeling.”

Afterward, Hadiaris called her 15-year-old niece in Falmouth to make sure she was safe. “She said, `We can cross that off our bucket list. We’ve lived through an earthquake,”‘ Hadiaris said.

Lynette Miller, a spokeswoman for the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said her dogs started barking several seconds before the quake. “It was several seconds of good shaking but nothing falling down,” Miller said from her home in Readfield, about 60 miles north of Portland.

The Seabrook Station nuclear plant, about 63 miles away in New Hampshire, declared an unusual event — the lowest of four emergency classifications, but said it was not affected. The plant has been offline for refueling.

“There has been no impact at all to the plant from the earthquake and our refueling maintenance activities have not been affected,” said Alan Griffith, spokesman for Next EnergyEra Seabrook Station.

Jim Van Dongen, public information officer for the New Hampshire Department of Safety said New Hampshire 911 got about 1,000 calls in the first hour after the quake, but they later dropped off. He said no major damage was reported.

Brief, but noticeable shaking was felt in downtown Boston and the surrounding area.

In Melrose, just north of Boston, Peter Ward said the shaking he felt seemed to last about four seconds. “It felt like a big gust of wind shaking the house. I don’t want to overstate it, but the glass did rattle a little,” he said.

Former Maine resident Victoria Brett, who also has lived in San Francisco, felt the quake in Northampton, Mass.

“At first, it felt like something slowly wiggling the outside walls of the house. Then the table and floor started vibrating. I looked around and the water in the glass flower vase looked like a wave pool. I knew right away it was an earthquake,” she said.

Earthquakes are rare in New England but they’re not unheard of. In 2006 there was a series of earthquakes around Maine’s Acadia National Park, including one with a magnitude of 4.2 that caused boulders to fall from ledges onto Acadia National Park’s loop road. One of the park’s trails was closed for three years because of damage from the quake.

The strongest earthquake recorded in Maine occurred in 1904 in the Eastport area, near the state’s eastern border with Canada, according the Weston Observatory at Boston College. With a magnitude estimated at 5.7 to 5.9, it damaged chimneys and brick walls and could be felt in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

East Coast quakes are rarely strong enough to be felt over a wide area. A quake of magnitude 5.8 on Aug. 23, 2011, was centered in Virginia and felt all along the coast, including in New York City and Boston. Experts say the region’s geology can make the effects felt in an area up to 10 times larger than quakes of similar size on the West Coast.

Related Articles

• No major NH damage as quake rattles New England
• Gov. Patrick releases statement on earthquake

RENO, Nev. (KRNV & MyNews4.com) — Some rattling and rolling in the area has earthquake experts on alert. In the past week more than 100 small earthquakes have shaken the earth beneath Spanish Springs.

So far they’ve been too small to feel, but quake experts want you to know they’re happening. There’s no reason to panic – but it’s a good reminder to make sure you’re prepared.

“People can consider certain mitigation steps in case these earthquakes increase in intensity and there’s a larger one,” said Ken Smith, associate director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory.

Smith says most injuries from earthquakes are caused by falling or flying objects – and you don’t want to wait for a big quake to get ready.

“Secure your water heaters. Secure your valuables. Secure your book cases,” Smith said.

It’s not strange for a dozen quakes this size to happen in a week, but there have been at least 115 since October 8, and about 60 of those have been since Thursday.

“These things are totally unpredictable,” Smith said. “It could stop today, or it could keep going at a level of very small events that no one would feel.”

Or they could get stronger. so far they’re small – with the biggest two quakes shaking at magnitude one – but there’s potential for one that really rocks Reno.

“We have faults around here that are capable of magnitude seven type events,” Smith said.

So this week the Great Nevada Shakeout will teach people to drop, cover and hold-on just in case there’s a big quake. It’s Nevada’s largest earthquake drill and it’s this Thursday, October 18 at 10:18 am.

Earthquake Rattles Western Nebraska

The US Geological Survey (USGS) says an  earthquake occurred Wednesday evening in Western Nebraska.  About 1330 miles southeast of Rapid City.

The 3.6 magnitude earthquake occurred at 11:21 pm at a  depth of about4 miles ,  18 miles northwest of Hyannis, Nebraska.

Although not as common as in some other   states earthquakes do occur in Nebraska.  The strongest occurred on November 15, 1877 with a magnitude of 5.1.  Two  shocks 45 minutes apart rocked most of Nebraska and portions of surrounding  states , including South Dakota.

California, Other States Preparing for Earthquakes

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Get ready to rumble. Millions in the United States and several countries are set to participate in an earthquake preparedness drill Thursday.

Dubbed the “Great ShakeOut,” homeowners, schoolchildren and office workers across the West and Southeast will practice dropping to the ground, covering their heads and holding on to something sturdy – a technique that experts say minimizes injuries during strong shaking. Residents in British Columbia, Italy, Puerto Rico and Guam also signed up for the exercise.

(MORE: Earthquake Safety and Preparedness)

Organizers estimated some 14 million people, including 9.3 million in California, will participate. Newcomers include Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, where a magnitude-5.8 hit last year that was felt along the East Coast.

In Los Angeles, commuters at Union Station will be asked to duck and take cover. Subways and light-rail trains will slow down so that operators can visually inspect the tracks – a process that’s expected to take 15 minutes. In an actual quake, trains can be stopped. Transportation officials also planned to show the public tips to safely evacuate a train.

Southern California held the first safety drill in 2008 based on a fictional magnitude-7.8 event on the southern San Andreas Fault. The entire state participated the following year and the exercise has since spread around the world.

“It’s not looking at earthquakes as doom and gloom,” said organizer Mark Benthien. “It’s all about what we’re going to do as a community to be prepared so that when there’s an earthquake, we’ll get back on our feet and recover.”

Southern California has not experienced a seismic disaster since the 1994 Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage to the Los Angeles region.

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Volcanic Activity

Katla Eruption Levees in South Iceland Checked

Chief of Police in Hvolsvöllur, a representative of the Icelandic Road Administration and geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson will discuss at a meeting on Thursday whether the levees to the east of Vík, which lies across the Ring Road near the river Múlakvísl, must be raised to prove effective in case of a volcanic eruption in Katla.

Vík. Photo by Bernhild Vögel.

Geologist Ari Trausti Guðmundsson stated in an article in Morgunblaðið yesterday that it is important to raise the levees judging by the information available on the volume and depth of flooding from Katla, ruv.is reports.

The volcano lies underneath the Mýrdalsjökull icecap and a volcanic eruption is likely to cause a major glacier outburst.

The levees are the responsibility of the Icelandic Road Administration and according to a report conducted by Einar Hafliðason, a representative of the Road Administration, last spring there was no need to raise the levees given the conditions at hand.

The levees are now five meters high and 4,000-5,000 meters long.

Scientists are monitoring the volcano closely due to ongoing seismic activity.

Kilauea Volcano lava lake reaches highest level

Published on Oct 16, 2012 by bigislandvideonews

16.10.2012 06:37 PM

Pacific Ocean – Northwest, Japan

Unnamed Underwater Volcano, About 3 miles north-northeast of Minami-Iwoto island

Volcano Eruption

0804-093

Submarine volcano ?

No. 0

Volcano Eruption in Japan on Tuesday, 16 October, 2012 at 18:37 (06:37 PM) UTC.

15.10.2012 12:23 PM

Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia [Asia]

Klyuchevskaya Sopka Volcano

Volcano Eruption

1000-26=

Stratovolcano

2009

No. 0

Volcano Eruption in Russia [Asia] on Monday, 15 October, 2012 at 12:23 (12:23 PM) UTC.

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Extreme Temperatures/ Weather

Global drought a ‘new normal’: report

by Staff Writers
New York (UPI)

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

Related Links
Climate Science News – Modeling, Mitigation Adaptation

Today

Extreme Weather

Malaysia

State of Pulau Pinang, Kampung Sungai Burung

Extreme Weather in Malaysia on Friday, 19 October, 2012 at 15:01 (03:01 PM) UTC.

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Storms / Flooding / Tornadoes

Active tropical storm system(s)
Name of storm system	Location	Formed	Last update	Last category	Course	Wind Speed	Gust	Wave	Source	Details
Maria (23W)	Pacific Ocean	14.10.2012	19.10.2012	Tropical Depression	100 °	56 km/h	74 km/h	4.57 m	JTWC

Tropical Storm data

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HOUSTON -

Tropical Cyclone Anais is estimated to have a maximum wind of 115 mph as of early this morning, which is equivalent to a category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean.
The southwestern Indian Ocean is prone to tropical cyclones but what makes Anais so rare is that it is occurring in October, which is early springtime in the southern Hemisphere.

The peak period for tropical events in this part of the world is normally during our winter months of January-March.

Anais is forecast to move southwest in the general direction of Madagascar for the next five days and weaken as it moves into cooler waters and unfavorable winds.

We rarely hear much about the southern Indian Ocean storms as the area has little land and the storms mostly stay at sea.

Occasionally Madagascar or the island nations of Mauritius and Reunion will take a hit, and more rarely a storm will reach mainland Africa.

Forecast responsibility for this region is through the French weather service, Meteo France, located in La Reunion to the east of Madagascar.

The countries in the Indian Ocean simply refer to these storms as Tropical Cyclones, regardless of intensity.

Tropical Cyclone Anais is the same thing as a hurricane in the Atlantic or typhoon in the western Pacific.

However, note that it rotates the opposite direction, clockwise, because it is in the southern Hemisphere.

To illustrate how unusual this event is, Anais is like having a Category 3 hurricane in the Caribbean in April.

Tropical cyclones are occurring more frequently than before

by Staff Writers
Copenhagen, Denmark (SPX)

Storm surges are considered to be the most dangerous and the most destructive aspect of tropical cyclones. The study shows that globally warm years has been associated with a significantly higher risk of extreme hurricane storm surges like the one that followed Katrina, which hit the New Orleans area in 2005 and caused devastating floods and thousands of deaths. Credit: Credit: LCDR Mark Moran, NOAA Corps, NMAO/AOC.

Related Links
University of Copenhagen
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

At least eight people were injured as a round of severe storms, including a few tornadoes, swept through the Mississippi Valley and South Wednesday and Wednesday night.

According to preliminary reports compiled by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), at least four tornadoes touched down across Arkansas and Mississippi.

Photos: Late-Night Tornadoes Keep People Up All Night

A potent cold front moving across the Lower Mississippi Valley acted as the ignition for the thunderstorms. Enough humid air was in place to support the growth of severe thunderstorms capable of spawning tornadoes. Twisting winds in the atmosphere aided the rotation in thunderstorms, further aiding tornado development.

Strong winds, wind damage or hail was reported across a half dozen states in total, from Illinois to Mississippi.

One particularly damaging tornado tracked across Sharkey County, Miss., shortly before 11:00 p.m. local time, destroying numerous mobile homes and injuring five near the town of Louise, which sustained “heavy” damage according to local law enforcement.

The same tornadic thunderstorm narrowly missed nearby Yazoo City, which was devastated by a pair of tornadoes in 2010.

The towns of Clarendon and West Jericho, Ark., and Shelby, Miss., were also impacted by tornadoes Wednesday evening, according to various reports.

Severe storm reports from Wed., Oct. 17. Strong winds and wind damage incidents are indicated in blue, while tornadoes are plotted in red and hail in green. (SPC)

It is possible that more tornadoes will be confirmed to have touched down across the region as other incidents of wind damage are assessed by the National Weather Service over the next couple of days.

One such incident occurred in Scott County, Miss., where a person was injured when a tree fell onto their mobile home.

Strong thunderstorm winds heavily damaged about a dozen buildings in Bland, Mo., earlier in the day, including the town’s post office, where two people sustained minor injuries.

As of 4:30 a.m. EST Thursday, there were nearly 100 reports of severe weather and damage from the severe weather outbreak. Eighty of the reports alone were wind damage, ranging from downed trees and power lines to partially collapsed structures.

While not as prolific, a few storms produced one-inch diameter hail stones in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Today

Tornado

USA

State of Mississippi, [East of Jackson]

Today

Tornado

USA

State of Arkansas, Clarendon

Tornado in USA on Friday, 19 October, 2012 at 02:59 (02:59 AM) UTC.

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Radiation / Nuclear

By John Breneman
jbreneman@seacoastonline.com
SEABROOK — An “unusual event” indeed. The 4.0 magnitude earthquake that rumbled across the Seacoast and beyond Tuesday evening triggered normal safety protocols at the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an “unusual event” — NRC-speak for the lowest of its four levels of emergency classifications — at 7:20 p.m. Tuesday. The declaration was prompted by on-site ground motion resulting from an earthquake centered near Hollis, Maine — about 50 miles from the plant.

“There was absolutely no impact to the plant from the earthquake,” said Al Griffith, spokesman for NextEra Energy, the plant’s owner. Griffith said a series of mandated safety checks were conducted at the plant, concluding at 1:49 a.m., some six and a half hours after the tremor.

Citing the “robustness” of the plant’s design, Griffith assured that it is capable of withstanding a far, far greater impact than Tuesday’s quake.

There are seismic monitors on site and Griffith said officials will be conducting “a very thorough examination and analysis of all of our data.”

An NRC resident inspector assigned to Seabrook responded to the site last night to confirm that there were no immediate safety issues at the plant, which is currently shut down for a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage.

“The reactor was fully shut down at the time the earthquake occurred,” said Neil Sheehan, regional public officer for the NRC.

“Following procedures used when there is seismic activity affecting the plant, NextEra personnel conducted initial walkdowns, i.e., visual inspections, and confirmed that all key safety systems were functioning properly and that there was no significant structural damage,” Sheehan said in a statement. “The company will subsequently gather more seismic data and perform more detailed inspections.”

Asked about the need to be vigilant in preparing for and reacting to any seismic activity, particularly in the wake of the March 2011 disaster following an earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, Sheehan said, “What happened at Fukushima served as a vivid reminder” of why the highest safety protocols are put in place and enforced.

Last April, NextEra Energy conducted a tsunami drill Tuesday at the Seabrook Station plant in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the plant in case of such a disaster.

Gavin Allwright Talks About Fukushima.

Published on Oct 16, 2012 by Goodisplanetearth gipetv

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Epidemic Hazards / Diseases

Today

Epidemic Hazard

Uganda

Western Uganda, [Kabale District]

Epidemic Hazard in Uganda on Friday, 19 October, 2012 at 10:56 (10:56 AM) UTC.

17.10.2012

Epidemic Hazard

Portugal

Atlantic Ocean – North, [Madeira Autonomous Region]

Epidemic Hazard in Portugal on Friday, 12 October, 2012 at 16:59 (04:59 PM) UTC.

Epidemic Hazard in Portugal on Friday, 12 October, 2012 at 16:59 (04:59 PM) UTC.

Back

17.10.2012

Epidemic Hazard

Zambia

Central State, [Lukanga Swamps (Kapiri Mposhi district)]

Epidemic Hazard in Zambia on Friday, 12 October, 2012 at 15:30 (03:30 PM) UTC.

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Climate Change

VIEW GALLERY

Scientists have found support for the controversial idea that global warming is causing more frequent and destructive hurricanes, a subject that has been hotly debated during the past decade.

Data gathered from tide gauges, which monitor the rapid changes to sea levels caused by storm surges, show a significant link between both the frequency and intensity of tropical storms and increases in annual temperatures since the tidal records began in 1923.

The study found that during the 90-year period, when the average global temperature has increased by 0.7C, extreme hurricanes similar to Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, were nearly twice as likely in warmer years as colder years.

Although scientists were not able to prove that climate change is causing more large hurricanes, they believe the study is consistent with the predictions that global warming and warmer seas could bring about more intense tropical storms.

Hurricanes form when the sea’s surface temperature increases above 26C. However, they result from a chaotic interaction between the difference in sea and air temperatures, humidity and wind, so there is disagreement about how frequent they will become in a warmer world.

Studying the link between global warming and tropical storms has been hampered by the lack of data on hurricanes before the satellite age. Many hurricanes out at sea were missed before the first weather satellites were launched about 40 years ago.

However, a network of tide gauges around the south-east coast of the US has produced a reliable record of the rapid changes to sea level caused by storm surges resulting from tropical cyclones, said Aslak Grinsted of the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University.

“I found that there were monitoring stations along the eastern seaboard of the United States where they had recorded the daily tide levels all the way back to 1923. I have looked at every time there was a rapid change in sea level and I could see there was a close correlation between sudden changes in sea level and historical accounts of tropical storms,” Dr Grinsted said.

Once the correlation between storm surges and tropical storms was established, the researchers analysed global temperature records to compare the number of storm surges in warm years with the number observed in cold years.

“We simply counted how many extreme cyclones with storm surges there were in warm years compared with cold years and we could see that there was a tendency for more cyclones in warmer years,” Dr Grinsted said.

Storms of destruction: devastating weather

Wilma (2005)

The most intense Atlantic hurricane on record started in the Caribbean Sea near Jamaica, moving across the Gulf of Mexico to Cancun where it hit land with devastating consequences.

Katrina (2005)

The most costly hurricane in history caused damages of $85bn. The category-3 storm formed over the Bahamas crossed Florida and the Gulf of Mexico before striking New Orleans.

Gilbert (1988)

The second most intense hurricane observed in the Atlantic. It began to the east of Barbados before hitting Jamaica and the Gulf of Mexico. It raged for nine days, killing 433 people.

Dinosaur-era acoustics: Global warming may give oceans the ‘sound’ of the Cretaceous 

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX)

illustration only

Global temperatures directly affect the acidity of the ocean, which in turn changes the acoustical properties of sea water. New research suggests that global warming may give Earth’s oceans the same hi-fi sound qualities they had more than 100 million years ago, during the Age of the Dinosaurs.

The reason for this surprising communication upgrade is that whales vocalize in the low-frequency sound range, typically less than 200 hertz, and the new research predicts that by the year 2100, global warming will acidify saltwater sufficiently to make low-frequency sound near the ocean surface travel significantly farther than it currently does – perhaps twice as far.

Rhode Island acoustician David G. Browning, lead scientist on the research team, will present his findings at the 164th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), held Oct. 22 – 26 in Kansas City, Missouri.

He explains the sea change this way: “We call it the Cretaceous acoustic effect, because ocean acidification forced by global warming appears to be leading us back to the similar ocean acoustic conditions as those that existed 110 million years ago, during the Age of Dinosaurs.”

Their work builds on the recent investigation by other researchers who analyzed historic levels of boron in seafloor sediments to reconstruct ocean acidity for the past 300 million years.

Using boron’s sound absorption traits and impact on low-frequency transmission, Browning and his colleagues were able to predict the soundscape of ancient oceans to conclude that 300 million years ago, during the Paleozoic, the low frequency sound transmission in the ocean was similar to conditions today.

They also found that transmission improved as the ocean became more acidic, reaching its best transmission value around 110 million years ago – allowing low frequency sound to travel twice as far.

“This knowledge is important in many ways,” notes Browning.

“It impacts the design and performance prediction of sonar systems. It affects estimation of low frequency ambient noise levels in the ocean. And it’s something we have to consider to improve our understanding of the sound environment of marine mammals and the effects of human activity on that environment.”

If further work validates this model, future SCUBA divers might hear in the oceans with the same clarity as the dinosaurs.

Related Links
American Institute of Physics
Water News – Science, Technology and Politics

Tropical collapse caused by lethal heat

by Staff Writers
Leeds UK (SPX)

illustration only

Scientists have discovered why the ‘broken world’ following the worst extinction of all time lasted so long – it was simply too hot to survive.

The end-Permian mass extinction, which occurred around 250 million years ago in the pre-dinosaur era, wiped out nearly all the world’s species. Typically, a mass extinction is followed by a ‘dead zone’ during which new species are not seen for tens of thousands of years. In this case, the dead zone, during the Early Triassic period which followed, lasted for a perplexingly long period: five million years.

A study jointly led by the University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), in collaboration with the University of Erlangen-Nurnburg (Germany), shows the cause of this lengthy devastation was a temperature rise to lethal levels in the tropics: around 50-60 degrees C on land, and 40 degrees C at the sea-surface.

Lead author Yadong Sun, who is based in Leeds while completing a joint PhD in geology, says: “Global warming has long been linked to the end-Permian mass extinction, but this study is the first to show extreme temperatures kept life from re-starting in Equatorial latitudes for millions of years.”

It is also the first study to show water temperatures close to the ocean’s surface can reach 40 degrees C – a near-lethal value at which marine life dies and photosynthesis stops. Until now, climate modellers have assumed sea-surface temperatures cannot surpass 30 degrees C. The findings may help us understand future climate change patterns.

The dead zone would have been a strange world – very wet in the tropics but with almost nothing growing. No forests grew, only shrubs and ferns. No fish or marine reptiles were to be found in the tropics, only shellfish, and virtually no land animals existed because their high metabolic rate made it impossible to deal with the extreme temperatures. Only the polar regions provided a refuge from the baking heat.

Before the end-Permian mass extinction the Earth had teemed with plants and animals including primitive reptiles and amphibians, and a wide variety of sea creatures including coral and sea lillies.

This broken world scenario was caused by a breakdown in global carbon cycling. In normal circumstances, plants help regulate temperature by absorbing Co2 and burying it as dead plant matter. Without plants, levels of Co2 can rise unchecked, which causes temperatures to increase.

The study, published [19 October 2012] in the journal Science, is the most detailed temperature record of this study period (252-247 million years ago) to date.

Sun and his colleagues collected data from 15,000 ancient conodonts (tiny teeth of extinct eel-like fishes) extracted from two tonnes of rocks from South China. Conodonts form a skeleton using oxygen.

The isotopes of oxygen in skeletons are temperature controlled, so by studying the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the conodonts he was able to detect temperature levels hundreds of millions of years ago.

Professor Paul Wignall from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, one of the study’s co-authors, said: “Nobody has ever dared say that past climates attained these levels of heat.

Hopefully future global warming won’t get anywhere near temperatures of 250 million years ago, but if it does we have shown that it may take millions of years to recover.”

The study is the latest collaboration in a 20-year research partnership between the University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. It was funded by the Chinese Science Foundation.

‘Lethally hot temperatures during the early Triassic greenhouse’ by Yadong Sun (University of Leeds and China University of Geosciences), Michael Joachimski (University Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany), Paul B. Wignall (University of Leeds), Chunbo Yan (China University of Geosciences), Yanlong Chen (University of Graz, Austria), Haishui Jiang (China University of Geosciences, Lina Wang (China University of Geosciences) and Xulong Lai (China University of Geosciences) is published in Science on 19 October 2012.

Related Links
University of Leeds
Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com

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Solar Activity

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Space

By Lori Preuitt

|Watch NBC  Video  Here

The Bay Area was buzzing Wednesday night after a bright streak moved across the sky. It was accompanied by a loud boom.

This happened around 7:40 p.m.

Early bets said it was a meteor.  The Orionids meteor shower is happening right now, but experts told NBC Bay Area that Wednesday’s streak was not from Orion because the earth is shielding us from those meteors tonight.

Whatever it was, it caught the attention of hundreds, if not thousands of people.

NASA Ames astronomer Peter Jennikens helped us get the photo at the top of this article and below. Jennikens said he will be up all night researching where the meteor may have landed. He will be out early Thursday morning looking for remnants. He’s hoping to get more video from security cameras that might have been rolling when the meteor hit.

Beppy Tobeler told us on our Facebook page that she saw it from Dublin Security Storage. “It was so low and close I thought it was someone setting off fireworks,” Tobeler said. She said it sailed across the sky and broke up in several pieces.

Steve Siegel said he saw it from Sunnyvale. He described it as a super bright streak going north about 30 degrees into the sky. He said it lasted for 7 or 8 seconds.

 ”I saw one giant, bright as close as a firework ball of light with long tail out visiting my parents in Forestville. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen nothing at all like a shooting star,” Jessica Collins said on our Facebook page.

People at the Lick Observatory posted two raw clips of the what they said was a meteor breaking up over San Jose. It was taken by a security camera from the top of the observatory.

NASA posted on a science Website earlier this week that said this is the week to watch for the Orionid meteor shower caused by Halley’s Comet.

An article on NASA Science News said that every year in mid-to-late October, the Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris from Comet Halley. It promised sightings in the pre-dawn hours. Wednesday night’s streak was in the evening hours. Also, usually the meteor showers related to Hailey’s Comet are much smaller than what is being described.

NASA said that the highlight of the Orionid meteor shower is coming this weekend

“We expect to see about 25 meteors per hour when the shower peaks on Sunday morning, Oct 21st,” says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

Read more about the Orionid meteor shower here.

Earth approaching objects (objects that are known in the next 30 days)
Object Name	Apporach Date	Left	AU Distance	LD Distance	Estimated Diameter*	Relative Velocity
214869 (2007 PA8)	05th November 2012	17 day(s)	0.0433	16.8	1.5 km – 3.3 km	10.79 km/s	38844 km/h
(2011 UG21)	06th November 2012	18 day(s)	0.1784	69.4	340 m – 760 m	19.73 km/s	71028 km/h
(2010 WT)	07th November 2012	19 day(s)	0.1251	48.7	53 m – 120 m	6.53 km/s	23508 km/h
333358 (2001 WN1)	09th November 2012	21 day(s)	0.1285	50.0	370 m – 830 m	8.73 km/s	31428 km/h
330233 (2006 KV86)	11th November 2012	23 day(s)	0.1876	73.0	450 m – 1.0 km	23.35 km/s	84060 km/h
(2008 LH2)	12th November 2012	24 day(s)	0.1487	57.9	35 m – 78 m	5.10 km/s	18360 km/h
(2001 YM2)	12th November 2012	24 day(s)	0.0860	33.5	440 m – 980 m	9.26 km/s	33336 km/h
(2012 KF25)	15th November 2012	27 day(s)	0.1528	59.5	23 m – 51 m	9.75 km/s	35100 km/h
1 AU = ~150 million kilometers,1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers Source: NASA-NEO

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Earth Changes

An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a super volcano

An extremely brief reversal of the geomagnetic field, climate variability and a super volcano

41,000 years ago, a complete and rapid reversal of the geomagnetic field occured. Magnetic studies of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences on sediment cores from the Black Sea show that during this period, during the last ice age, a compass at the Black Sea would have pointed to the south instead of north. Moreover, data obtained by the research team formed around GFZ researchers Dr. Norbert Nowaczyk and Prof. Helge Arz, together with additional data from other studies in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific and Hawaii, prove that this polarity reversal was a global event. Their results are published in the latest issue of the scientific journal “Earth and Planetary Science Letters“.

What is remarkable is the speed of the reversal: “The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today’s configuration, lasted for only about 440 years, and it was associated with a field strength that was only one quarter of today’s field,” explains Norbert Nowaczyk. “The actual polarity changes lasted only 250 years. In terms of geological time scales, that is very fast.” During this period, the field was even weaker, with only 5% of today’s field strength. As a consequence, the Earth nearly completely lost its protection shield against hard cosmic rays, leading to a significantly increased radiation exposure.

This is documented by peaks of radioactive beryllium (10Be) in ice cores from this time, recovered from the Greenland ice sheet. 10Be as well as radioactive carbon (14C) is caused by the collision of high-energy protons from space with atoms of the atmosphere.

The Laschamp event

The polarity reversal now found with the magnetisation of Black Sea sediments has already been known for 45 years. It was first discovered after the analysis of the magnetisation of several lava flows near the village Laschamp near Clermont-Ferrand in the Massif Central, which differed significantly from today’s direction of the geomagnetic field. Since then, this geomagnetic feature is known as the ‘Laschamp event’. However, the data of the Massif Central represent only some point readings of the geomagnetic field during the last ice age, whereas the new data from the Black Sea give a complete image of geomagnetic field variability at a high temporal resolution.

Abrupt climate changes and a super volcano

Besides giving evidence for a geomagnetic field reversal 41,000 years ago, the geoscientists from Potsdam discovered numerous abrupt climate changes during the last ice age in the analysed cores from the Black Sea, as it was already known from the Greenland ice cores. This ultimately allowed a high precision synchronisation of the two data records from the Black Sea and Greenland. The largest volcanic eruption on the Northern hemisphere in the past 100 000 years, namely the eruption of the super volcano 39400 years ago in the area of today’s Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy, is also documented within the studied sediments from the Black Sea. The ashes of this eruption, during which about 350 cubic kilometers of rock and lava were ejected, were distributed over the entire eastern Mediterranean and up to central Russia. These three extreme scenarios, a short and fast reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, short-term climate variability of the last ice age and the volcanic eruption in Italy, have been investigated for the first time in a single geological archive and placed in precise chronological order.

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Biological Hazards / Wildlife / Hazmat

Massive fish kill continues in the Neuse River

A massive fish kill on the Neuse River Tuesday washed up on the beach by Neuse Harbor. Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper, viewed the fish kill Tuesday afternoon, saying there were several hundred thousand washed up on the beach and in the river. For 21 days, mostly Atlantic menhaden have been dying over a large portion of the river from New Bern to Hancock Creek, Blake said.

Chuck Beckley/Sun Journal

A massive fish kill on the Neuse River that has been ongoing for nearly a month has resulted in thousands of menhaden washed up on beaches near Neuse Harbor.

Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper, viewed the area Tuesday afternoon, saying there were several hundred thousand dead fish washed up on the beach and in the river.

For 21 days, mostly Atlantic menhaden have been dying over a large portion of the river from New Bern to Hancock Creek, Blake said in an email.

Some of the dead menhaden have ulcers that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials have identified as Aphanomyces invadans from six samples analyzed in Beaufort. Fish samples were taken from the Neuse River in an impaired region by the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation at the first sign of menhaden showing problems, Blake said.

“Over the 21-day period fish have been reported dead from New Bern to Hancock Creek and include areas in Slocum, Beard, Goose, Upper Broad, Northwest and Duck Creek,” he said.

Very few other species have been reported dead during the fish kill, except for isolated spots around Bay Point, which also had red drum, striped bass and spot.

“At this time we continue to see large schools of Atlantic menhaden, some floating, some are sinking to the bottom upon death,” Blake said. “An accurate count has not been totaled due to the massive area but just (Tuesday) I counted areas that were over 500 yards in length with approximately 90 dead fish per foot. With numbers like this it could easily go into the millions. In these areas there are dead, decaying, and in some cases just bones to reveal the timeline and magnitude of the kill.”

Joe Freemon, who lives in Neuse Harbor, said that on Tuesday there was a solid belt of dead fish on the beach of the river that bordered his property.

“You could stand there and see lots of others floating on top of the water,” Freemon said. “It’s the biggest (fish kill) I’ve seen and I’ve been on the water here over 50 years. You could smell it a couple of hundred feet away. … It’s a bad situation and unfortunate. ”

Blake said experts have told him the fish kill may continue due to the complexity of the area and lack of funding to run the proper analyzing equipment.

“There have been issues with oxygen, phytoplankton, stratification, nitrogen, pollutants among others, so the exact cause of death in the areas listed, has been complex to say the least,” he said.

Blake said he has been talking to a lot of people in the scientific community about what is causing the fish to die.

“I’m trying to put together a team to analyze it better,” Blake said.

As a nonprofit and staff of three to cover the Neuse Basin, The Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation depends on community support and volunteers.

“I’ve been working diligently to get information to the scientific community, the translation that comes from that is very important to the communities and people along the Neuse,” Blake said. “I think these menhaden stocks are extremely important to the dynamics of the estuary and millions of dead fish adding to the nutrient load creates its own set of concerns. As a community we have to address the impacts we have on the basin and we deserve to know where these impacts are coming from.”

Jill Paxson, environmental senior specialist with the N.C. Division of Water Quality, said for the past three weeks her office has been inundated with calls about menhaden fish kills, and not only in the Neuse River. There has been large kills in the Pamlico Sound also, she said.

Paxson said menhaden have a tough time living in a fresh and salt water estuary like the Neuse River. Some of the tributaries are shallow and the water can cool or warm up fast, causing a strain for the fish, she said.

“It is a very difficult place if you are a fish,” she said.

Paxson said as a precaution people should not go in the water around the fish or let their pets in the water and should wash if they do come in contact with the fish or water.

People usually don’t eat menhaden. They are on the bottom of the food chain and are eaten by larger fish like tuna and sharks, Paxson said.

Eddie Fitzgerald can be reached at 252-635-5675 or at eddie.fitzgerald@newbernsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @staffwriter3.

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Chemical Accident in United Kingdom on Friday, 19 October, 2012 at 11:08 (11:08 AM) UTC.

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Articles of Interest

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Power Outage

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