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Posts Tagged ‘Louisiana’

March 9.0 Japanese quake set off tremors around the world

April 19, 2011 1 comment

ouramazingplanet

earthquake magnitude comparison

The earthquake that launched a series of disasters in Japan in March triggered micro-quakes and tremors around the world, scientists find.

The catastrophic magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of the Tohoku region of Japan March 11 set off tremors mostly in places of past seismic activity, including southwest Japan, Taiwan, the Aleutians and mainland Alaska, Vancouver Island in Canada, Washington state, Oregon, central California and the central United States. It was unlikely that any of these events exceeded magnitude 3.

Researchers noted, however, that temblors also were detected in Cuba. “Seismologists had never seen tremor in Cuba, so this is an exciting new observation,” Justin Rubinstein, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at Menlo Park, Calif., told OurAmazingPlanet.

Part of the excitement of the find is the insight it could add into the inner workings of earthquakes.

“Studying long-range triggering may help us to better understand the underlying physics of how earthquakes start,” explained seismologist Zhigang Peng at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

Quakes where normally quiet

Most of these micro-earthquakes and tremors occurred in places that already had high background levels of seismic activity, including California’s Geysers Geothermal Field and the San Andreas Fault. Some of the quakes occurred in low-activity areas, such as central Nebraska, central Arkansas and near Beijing.

“Seismologists generally think of the central U.S. as relatively Read more…

Categories: Earthquake, Japan, world Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Has BP really cleaned up the Gulf oil spill?

April 14, 2011 Comments off

guardian

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the Louisiana surf, June 2010.

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the Louisiana surf, June 2010. Photograph: Win Mcnamee

There are few people who can claim direct knowledge of the ocean floor, at least before the invention of the spill-cam, last year’s strangely compulsive live feed of the oil billowing out of BP‘s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. But for Samantha Joye it was familiar terrain. The intersection of oil, gas and marine life in the Mississippi Canyon has preoccupied the University of Georgia scientist for years. So one year after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killed 11 men and disgorged more than 4m barrels of crude, Joye could be forgiven for denying the official version of the BP oil disaster that life is returning to normal in the Gulf.

The view from her submarine is different, and her attachment is almost personal. On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP’s well in December, Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. “Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run,” she says. “They weren’t running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren’t behaving as normal.” Her conclusion? “I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there.”

At a time when the White House, Congress, government officials and oil companies are trying to put the oil disaster behind them, that is not the message from the deep that people are waiting to hear. Joye’s data – and an outspoken manner for a scientist – have pitted her against the Obama adminstration’s scientists as well as other independent scientists who have come to different conclusions about the state of the Gulf. She is consumed Read more…

Categories: BP, Gulf of Mexico, Oil Spill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dolphin deaths in Alabama, Mississippi may be caused by measles-related illness

March 2, 2011 Comments off

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/03/dead_dolphins_measles_related.html

dead-dolphin-map.jpg

MOBILE, Ala. — With six new dolphin carcasses discovered in Mississippi and Alabama since Saturday, a review of the scientific literature associated with similar mass die-offs of marine mammals around the world suggests a common culprit: a morbillivirus.

In the same family as the viruses that cause measles in humans and canine distemper in dogs, there are well-documented outbreaks of fatal morbillivirus infections in dolphins, whales and seals around the world since the 1980s.

Jerry Saliki, a University of Georgia researcher and veterinarian who has published a number of scientific papers on morbillivirus infections in dolphins, said the virus could be responsible for the current mass die off.

“It is certainly possible. In the past, there have been significant die offs in the Gulf with dolphins that were attributed to morbillivirus,” Saliki said Monday. “But, there are Read more…

Categories: Animal deaths, disease and pestilence, Gulf of Mexico Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

BABY DOLPHINS ARE WASHING UP DEAD ALONG THE GULF

February 23, 2011 Comments off

www.sunherald.com

By KAREN NELSON – klnelson@sunherald.com

HORN ISLAND — The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies has confirmed that a fourth baby dolphin has washed ashore on Horn Island,

The island, one of the longest in the chain that comprises the Gulf Islands National Seashore Park, is about 12 miles south of Ocean Springs.

Three baby dolphins were pinpointed Monday and a fourth was reported today by National Resource Advisory employees who are working with BP cleanup crews on the island.

Categories: Animal deaths, Oil Spill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Very disturbing findings” in chemical tests of Gulf residents -Bleeding from ears

January 31, 2011 Comments off
Categories: BP, Oil, Oil Spill Tags: , , , ,

No baby oysters being found in Louisiana’s most productive areas

January 28, 2011 Comments off

Oyster fishermen worried about problem area along the coast

NEW ORLEANS — In the waters stretching from the MR-GO, down to the mouth of the Mississippi River, oysters are having a tough time, and a mystery is unfolding in one of the state’s most productive areas for oysters.

“It’s not a good sign,” said John Tesvich, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force.

The sign is a lack of oyster spat, in what is known as coastal zone number two. Scientists are baffled, and they said so at a meeting on Tuesday of the Oyster Task Force.

“That’s really alarming, when we see large areas, some of the areas that are the heart of the predominant oyster seed ground, we’re not seeing the young spat this year,” Tesvich said. Read more…

Categories: BP, Louisiana, Oil Spill Tags: , , , , , , ,

Louisiana officials: Parts of coastline still heavily oiled

January 10, 2011 1 comment

More than eight months after an oil rig explosion launched the biggest oil disaster in U.S. history, Louisiana officials say they’re still finding thick layers of oil along parts of the state’s coastline.

“Every day, this shoreline is moving inland,” lessening flood protection for residents, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

On Friday, Robert Barham, secretary of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, joined Nungesser on a tour of portion of Louisiana’s coastline still heavily oiled by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a statement from the wildlife and fisheries department.

“It has been eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and five months since the well was capped. While workers along the coast dedicated themselves to cleaning up our shores there is still so much to be done,” Barham said in the statement.

During a walking tour of an area called Bay Jimmy, Nungesser said oil can be seen from a distance.

“When the tide is out … you can see thick oil onto the water for 30, 40 feet out,” the parish president said. “There’s been no mechanism to clean that up thus far.” Read more…

Categories: Louisiana, Oil Spill Tags: , , , ,

BP Oil Spill: “People are getting sick all over the Gulf Coast”

January 6, 2011 Comments off

The effects of the disaster that poured millions and millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last spring will have global ramifications, a Gulf Coast activist recently warned.

“What’s been done in the Gulf is going to eventually affect every single American citizen,” Kindra Arnesen told Project Gulf Impact in a recent interview.

She continued, “This is still going to go global because as the economy and the United States goes under the sledgehammer… the rest of the world is going to feel it.”

“This isn’t just about the United States. This isn’t just about the Gulf Coast. This is about a whole planet because one hand washes the other,” she added.

Arnesen, a South Louisiana mother who with BP’s invitation toured areas devastated by the Macondo Well explosion, described the negative health effects to which she and others, including oil spill clean up crews, were exposed around the Gulf Coast.

One such crew she encountered had brown spots on their bodies. Her friend on the same crew currently has bruising across her stomach, she said.

“It didn’t look like someone punched her in the stomach,” Arnesen explained. “It looked like the blood vessels underneath the skin surface were literally breaking and the blood was slowly coming to the surface.”

“People are getting sick all over the Gulf Coast,” she added. “If people who live here can get sick, then people who come here can very well get sick.”

Arnesen also noted that the chemicals used in the clean up are known to make animals sterile.

“We’re not that much different than a species in the Gulf,” she said, taking into account the area’s children.

According to the coastal zone director of Plaquemine Parish, the oil spread across the Louisiana shoreline after the well was capped in September from 287 miles in July to 320 miles in late November.

“The government does not have a plan,” Arnesen said. “BP is about to pull the response efforts out of the gulf. We’ve got to step up to the plate and say something.”

Video:

Categories: BP, Oil, Oil Spill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Birds Fish Dead in Arkansas

January 3, 2011 Comments off

On New Years Eve 2010 in Beebe, Arkansas 5,000 blackbirds mysteriously plummeted to their death while in mid-flight.  The birds were found in an area that is 1 mile long and 1/2 of a mile wide beginning around 11:30 p.m . No dead birds were found outside of this area. Arkansas’ top veterinarian, Dr. George Stevens, said preliminary autopsies on 17 of the blackbirds, which ruled out poison, indicate they died of blunt trauma and midair.  The dead birds were collected from rooftops and streets, but initial tests found no toxins.

100,000 drum fish were found dead near the town where the 5,000 blackbirds died.   It was reported that the fish died Dec. 29, covered about 17 river miles from Ozark Lock and Dam down to river mile 240, directly south of Hartman, Chris Racey, the Game and Fish Commission’s assistant chief of fisheries, said today in a release. The two events happened  apparently within a 24 hour time period

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens said mass “kills” of fish occur every year but he revealed that the magnitude of the latest one was unusual.  “This kill only affected one species,” he said. “If it had been caused by a pollutant it would have affected all kinds, not just drum fish.”

In a seemingly separate incident, some 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings and grackles were found dead in southern Louisiana in Labarre.Another situation near Little Rock that hasn’t gotten much media attention is the numerous earthquakes that have happened in Guy. According to CNN, there have been 487 “measurable earthquakes” since September 20 of 2010, and the depth of the quakes has been between one-and-a-quarter and five miles below the surface.  What’s especially interesting is that Guy is near a major earthquake fault known as the New Madrid.

Things that make you go hmmmm…

Categories: Strange Events Tags: , , , , , , ,