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Tectonic plates rattle- more turbulence at the South Pole
June 21, 2011 – ANTARCTICA – A 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck the South Sandwich Islands region, situated around 750km south east of South Georgia, in the South Atlantic early Sunday. It was the latest in a series of quakes to hit the Antarctic Region during the past 24 hours. The moderate quake struck at 9.37am GMT at a depth of 137km and was centered 69 km (42 miles) NNW of Visokoi Island and 330 km (205 miles) NNW of Bristol Island. The last significant earthquake to be recorded in the South Sandwich Islands region occurred on Read more…
World’s Oceans In ‘Shocking’ Decline
The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.In a new report, they warn that ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history”.
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
The panel was convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries scientists.
Its report will be formally released later this week.
“The findings are shocking,” said Alex Rogers, IPSO’s scientific director and professor of conservation biology at Oxford University.
“As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.
“We’ve sat in one forum and spoken to Read more…
800-Mile-Wide Hot Anomaly Found Under Seafloor off Hawaii
Hot lava spills into the sea from under a hardened lava crust on the Big Island of Hawaii (file picture).Photograph by Patrick McFeeley, National Geographic
Dave Mosher
Updated May 27, 2011 (First posted May 26, 2011)
Hawaii‘s traditional birth story—that the volcanic islands were, and are, fueled by a hot-rock plume running directly to Earth’s scorching core—could be toast, a new study hints.
(See pictures of a recent eruption Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano.)
Scientists say they’ve found solid evidence of a giant mass of hot rock under the seafloor in the region. But it’s not a plume running straight from the core to the surface—and it’s hundreds of miles west of the nearest Hawaiian island.
Until now, the researchers say, good seismic data on the region has been scarce, so it was tough to question the Read more…
Doomsday fire: Millions of volcanoes are stirring beneath the world’s oceans
In 1993, marine geophysicists aboard the research vessel Melville discovered 1,133 previously unmapped underwater volcanoes off the coast of Easter Island. Though some of the newly discovered volcanoes rose as much as one-and-a-half miles above the seafloor, their summits still remained half a mile below the water’s surface- all this in a comparatively small area of only 55,000 square miles, about the size of New York State. The geophysicists had increased the known supply of underwater volcanoes by more than ten percent just in a matter of months. That was 1993. Today, scientists estimate that there are more than three million underwater volcanoes. That’s a three followed by six zeroes! In 2007, oceanographers Hillier and Watts surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes. “From this they concluded an astounding total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes must reasonably exist worldwide,” said this article by John O’Sullivan. Hillier and Watts “based this finding on the earlier and well-respected observations of Earth and Planetary Sciences specialist, Batiza (1982) who found that at least 4 per cent of seamounts are active volcanoes.” According to Batiza’s survey, the Pacific mid-plate alone contains an incredible 22,000 to 55,000 underwater volcanoes, with at least 2,000 of them considered active. Thinking Read more…
7.1 earthquake strikes near Vanuatu
A strong 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the Pacific islands of Vanuatu and New Caledonia On Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage and a local official said that a tsunami was not expected.
The quake’s epicentre was 136 km southwest of Isangel in Vanuatu and 147 km north-east of Tadine, in the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, the USGS said in a bulletin. The quake was 26 km deep.
“Based on all of the local analytical data, a tsunami is not expected within Vanuatu,” an official for the Vanuatu Meteorological Services told Reuters by telephone from the capital, Port Vila.
A receptionist at a hotel in Ouvea in the Loyalty Islands said there was no immediate sign of damage.
“It was not a particularly strong tremor but we definitely felt it. There was no breakage, no damage,” the receptionist at the Hotel Paradis d’Ouvea said.
A large contingent of New Zealand Defence Force personnel are on Espiritu Santo, near the earthquake’s epicentre.
The Navy’s multirole ship HMNZS Canterbury is in the region serving in the “Pacific Partnership” civil aid operation.
It has been at the port of Luganville with the amphibious transport dock ship USS Cleveland, the Australian heavy landing craft HMAS Balikpapan and HMAS Betano.
New Zealand Army personnel are also with the mission.
There have been no reports of injury from the New Zealanders.
Fires and Drought Trouble Texas and Other US Plains States
Photo: Alberto Tomas Halpern
A volunteer firefighter fights a fire which began outside Marfa, Texas, and was carried by winds to nearby Fort Davis, April 9, 2011
Drought conditions and high winds have fueled destructive wildfires in northern Mexico and the southern U.S. plains states, especially Texas, where dozens of homes have burned in recent days. The dry weather is also having an impact on agriculture that is likely to cause some food prices to rise.
Fast-moving wildfires scorched around 32,000 hectares of land in the west Texas ranch country around Fort Davis on Saturday and Sunday, killing cattle and horses, and leaving pastures charred and smoky. The fires reached populated areas near Fort Read more…
Radiation in US rainwater likely from Japan
Health officials said Sunday that one sample of Massachusetts rainwater has registered very low concentrations of radiation, most likely from the Japanese nuclear power plant damaged earlier this month by an earthquake and tsunami.
John Auerbach, the Massachusetts commissioner of public health, said that the radioactive isotope iodine-131 found in the sample – one of more than 100 that have been taken around the country – has a short life of only eight days. He said the drinking water supply in the state was unaffected and officials do not expect any health concerns.
Nevada, California, Hawaii, Colorado and Washington state have also reported tiny amounts of radiation from the Japan Read more…
Scientists plan to drill all the way down to the Earth’s mantle
Credit: World Book illustration by Raymond Perlman and Steven Brayfield, Artisan-Chicago
(PhysOrg.com) — In what can only be described as a mammoth undertaking, scientists, led by British co-chiefs, Dr Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England and Dr Benoit Ildefonse from Montpellier University in France, have announced jointly in an article in Nature that they intend to drill a hole through the Earth’s crust and into the mantle; a feat never before accomplished, much less seriously attempted.
The Earth’s mantle is the part of the planet that lies between the crust and the iron ball at its center, and to reach it, would require drilling down from a position in the ocean, because the crust is much thinner there. Even still, it would mean drilling through five Read more…
Geologists warn another earthquake could tear Tokyo in two after weakening of fault line below capital
Geologists have warned that another powerful earthquake could inflict terrible damage on Tokyo because the Size 9 monster which struck on March 11 has altered the earth’s surface.
The quake has put pressure on the fault lines near the Japanese capital and experts have suggested that a size 7.5 magnitude earthquake could hit.
The structure of the tectonic plates and fault lines around the city makes it unlikely that Tokyo, home to 13million people, would be hit by a quake anywhere near the intensity of the one 10 days ago, said Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey.
Bustling: The busy Japanese capital Tokyo has 13million people living in its centre – and it could be Read more…The megaquake connection: Are huge earthquakes linked?
The recent cluster of huge quakes around the Pacific Ocean has fuelled speculation that they are seismically linked. New Scientist examines the evidence
A wave of activity (Image: Bernd Settnik/EPA/Corbis)
AT 2.46 pm local time on Friday last week, Japan shook like never before. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake wrenched the main island of Honshu 2.5 metres closer to the US and nudged the tilt of Earth’s axis by 16 centimetres. At the epicentre, 130 kilometres offshore, the Pacific tectonic plate lurched westwards, and a 10-metre-high tsunami sped towards the coastal city of Sendai and the surrounding region.
The devastation caused by the events is difficult to exaggerate – estimates suggest the number of fatalities could top 10,000. One of the few consolations is that quakes of magnitude 8.5 and above are rare: the Sendai earthquake is in the top 10 of the highest-magnitude quakes of the last 100 years.
Yet three of these – the December 2004 Sumatra quake, the February 2010 Chile quake, and now Sendai – have struck in just over six years. This presents a horrifying possibility: Read more…
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