# Earth Anomalies



## Gabriel

There is no thread to put interesting earth stuff, and I have been finding lots of articles on them.

Rare cloud formations in Antartica

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14132160/


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## Gabriel

New type of Volcanoes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14077362/


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## InfernoReaper

Aha!!! So if there was global warming it would be too warm to form those clouds!!!
I just disproved all the greatest minds in the world!!!!

Actually i saw an article that has almost nothing to do with this about a weather machine that controls the weather
it showed cloud formations in grid patterns it was really creepy
ill try to find the article


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## Gabriel

Magnetic pole flip

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2152

This is a cool one

Wandering hot spots...magma alert 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1685


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## Gabriel

Whoa...check this out...what are the odds of this synchronistic shared measure?

http://www.mufor.org/plananom.htm

Or how about this one called "Extraterrestrial Life" in Red Rain of Kerala, India?

http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1103&category=Science


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## InfernoReaper

Found it!!!

http://www.cheniere.org/clouds/http://www.cheniere.org/clouds/

And a preview pic...


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## bill.aam

I thought this was a thread about Bassetman....


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## InfernoReaper

bill.aam said:


> I thought this was a thread about Bassetman....


Oh snap!
A burn!


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## DiSaidSo

Cool thread, Gabriel!!! :up:


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## lizard

The whole place is an anomaly and so are we 

S p i k e d !
Giant Slab of Earth's Crust Found Near Core
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060517_inside_earth.html

Very interesting article on that 19.5º. Thanks.


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## Gabriel

DiSaidSo said:


> Cool thread, Gabriel!!! :up:


 Thanks Di...this ought to be fun


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## lizard

Earth Surrounded by Giant Fizzy Bubbles  
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060620_space_bubbles.html



> The newfound bubbles are technically called density holes. In them, gas density is 10 times lower. The gas in the bubbles is 18,000,000 Fahrenheit (10,000,000 Celsius) instead of the 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit of the surrounding hot gas, which is known as plasma


Hot Stuff!!


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## Gabriel

Whoa..that is wild


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## DiSaidSo

I think the only thing to say about plasma bubbles is.....


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## InfernoReaper

I wish i could make a plasma bubble...  

yay post #702
(cuz i missed #700)


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## lizard

We're Rich! We're ALL Rich, I Tell 'Ya !  

Earth's heart of gold
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/ancient/AncientRepublish_1663566.htm

Anybody got a shovel with a _really _long handle?


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## Gabriel

Speaking of gold, here is an interesting article on it

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060802103513.htm


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## Gabriel

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074039.htm

Here is one on primordial air


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## Gabriel

Our Wobbling Planet

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1705212.htm


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## Gabriel

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/GRACEqke.htm

Satellite Imagery/ Before and After/ Eathquake Zone

(Excerpt)The earthquake changed the gravity in two ways that we were able to detect. First, the quake triggered the massive uplift of the seafloor, changing the geometry of the region, and second, the density of the rock beneath the seafloor was changed after the slippage. An increase or decrease in density produces a detectable gravity change, Han said.


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## Gabriel

Nasa Coral Reef Mapping

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/coral_assessment.html


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## Chicon

Warning : Perseids meteor showers ( Max : August 12 23h UT )










Link : http://skytour.homestead.com/met2006.html


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## Gabriel

Continental Split

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060523231354.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060801132202.htm


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## Gabriel

Inorganic Oil Formations......

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645

(Quoted from Article) Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."


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## iltos

Gabriel said:


> Inorganic Oil Formations......
> 
> http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645
> 
> (Quoted from Article) Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."


that is a fascinating article, gabriel :up: .....nearly as fascinating is this snippet at the end


> A Hedberg Conference, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was scheduled to discuss and publicly debate this issue. Papers were solicited from interested academics and professionals. The conference was scheduled to begin June 9, 2003, but was canceled at the last minute. A new date has yet to be set.


the article you posted was published almost a year later, and you think that if this issue was still being discussed publicly, we'd have heard more about it (tho i've done no research)....makes me wonder a little what's goin on...hoax...or something more?


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## Gabriel

I'll google it further


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## Gabriel

Here's more up to date stuff...I haven't had time to read it all.....

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_27/ai_100755208

http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/oct05/feature_abiogenicoil.html

http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/oct05/feature_abiogenicoil.html

and here's the whole Google search page...I don't have time to figure it out right now

http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Inorganic Oil Formations.


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## iltos

Gabriel said:


> Here's more up to date stuff...I haven't had time to read it all.....
> 
> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_27/ai_100755208
> 
> http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/oct05/feature_abiogenicoil.html
> 
> http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/oct05/feature_abiogenicoil.html
> 
> and here's the whole Google search page...I don't have time to figure it out right now
> 
> http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Inorganic Oil Formations.


thanks gabriel...the 2nd article on your list is the most important, describing a meeting in calgary in the summer of 2005 where the issue was actually debated by geologists and the like.....the question is apparently still open

i did a little digging, too, but used "sustainable oil" as my search term

between the two google pages, there is nothing more current than the meeting in calgary...i'm still a bit bewildered that this is not a hotter topic in the scientific world

the university of maryland sponsored a "peak oil" conference just two months ago...it wasn't even a topic 

found one interesting article (also from 2005) that suggests corroboration from an unlikely source....the moon titan....not an earth anomaly, but interesting nonetheless


> Sustainable Oil Redux
> 
> A while back I did a piece on sustainable oil. Apparently the topic is making the rounds.
> 
> Thomas Gold was not your typical radical. Far from being a mad scientist, he was a brilliant professor of astronomy at Cornell University, but he succeeded in driving many others mad with theories that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.....
> 
> Now, a couple of decades after Gold first suggested that hydrocarbons are formed deep underground by geological processes and not just below the surface by biological decay, there is increasing evidence that he may have been on to something.
> 
> .....Gold argued that all hydrocarbons are formed in the intense pressure and high heat near the Earth's mantle, around 100 miles under the ground. If he was right, it means the finite limits of the resources that power our cities and our factories and our vehicles have been vastly overstated.
> 
> Here's the "current event" part:
> 
> And the evidence so far suggests that methane, at least, can be produced independent of biological materials.
> 
> How's this for a suggestion:
> 
> One photo released Tuesday showed a large body of liquid - possibly liquid methane - jutting into what appeared to be rough, frozen terrain, with the probe appearing to be just meters (yards) from the shoreline.
> 
> That article from space.com is talking about liquid methane on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Needless to say, at this point, we are not aware of any biological materials on Titan. Furthermore:
> 
> "If it's not a sea, it appears to be a lake of tar-like material," said John Zarnecky, principal investigator for the Huygens' Surface Science Package, which is taking data from the surface of Titan.
> 
> On Titan, with no known biological material, there is tar and methane, the precursors to usable oil.
> 
> I think Gold may be on to something.
> 
> http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/moonage_spacedream/2005/01/sustainable_oil.html


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## Gabriel

Wow ...that is cool


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## Gabriel

Maybe if Stoner sees this, he can shed a little light on it too


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## Gabriel

Bio diversity of our oceans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5232928.stm

Quote from the article...The scientists expected to find about 2,000 species per litre of seawater. They were shocked to discover 10 times more biodiversity.


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## lizard

Hi Gabriel! 

You had a link to an interesting article on shared measure on page 1. Here's one about ratios.

*The Ratio of the Spheres*
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1993


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## Gabriel

lizard said:


> Hi Gabriel!
> 
> You had a link to an interesting article on shared measure on page 1. Here's one about ratios.
> 
> *The Ratio of the Spheres*
> http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1993


Whoa Lizard..that is a trip...it will take me a while to cogitate it if you know what I mean


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## Gabriel

Topic...Earth

http://planetary.org/explore/topics/earth/

Cool site for not just earth stuff


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## Gabriel

Crab Invasion....Norway

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4775155.stm?ls

Jellyfish Invasion...Mediterranean

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/09/wjelly09.xml

Spider Invasion...Australia

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/ap_060803_spiders_creep.html

Butterfly Invasion...San Antonio, Tx.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=C14AF626-DF05-4E89-B5E5-E1C2F0B9C794


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## DiSaidSo

lizard said:


> Hi Gabriel!
> 
> You had a link to an interesting article on shared measure on page 1. Here's one about ratios.
> 
> *The Ratio of the Spheres*
> http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1993


Oooh keep 'em comin! I send these to my friends and they make me look smart.


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## lizard

DiSaidSo said:


> Oooh keep 'em comin! I send these to my friends and they make me look smart.


Hi Di! 



Me, I stick to articles. It beats reading all these dern books....

so you wanna look smart?


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## DiSaidSo

LOL lizard, that's awesome!!! :up: I actually have one friend in particular that I love to buy books for. Not for him to read. Because his bookshelf looks so sad and he really is a smart guy and I just thought his bookshelf should reflect that. I'm trying to get him the complete set of On the Shoulders of Giants, which is a bunch of books about stuff that is totally over my head.



I was actually a little surprised to find out that he was really reading one of them! :up: 

Here's another one I got for his bookshelf.  I doubt he'll read it, but he'll really enjoy looking at it.


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## lizard

Hi *Gabriel*! 

It looks like a full blown creature invasion out there! Somebody's going to make a movie, for sure.

Umm, I think we have an anomalous volcano in our midst....rather, their midst.
Mount Mayon, the volcano in the Philippines that is threatening to erupt within days, sure is an anomaly.
Sometimes, a full moon is all it takes.... 

*Moon may trigger Philippines volcano*
http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20060809-08070300-bc-philippines-mayon-1stld.xml



> Mayon's two most recent eruptions in 2000 and 2001 coincided with a full moon, the BBC reported.


I'd get a lot further away than 6 miles though.....
Mount Pinatubo was also in the Philippines and it had Pyroclastic Flow.

*Pyroclastic Flows* They're fast, they're hot, and they're deadly.
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/hazards/primer/pyro.html
(this link has a clip of a pyroclastic flow at Mount Pinatubo)


> Pyroclastic flows can be very hot. In fact, pyroclastic flows from Mount Pelee had temperatures as high as 1075 degrees C (Bryant, 1991)! Some Pyroclastic flows from Pinatubo had temperatures of 750 degrees C and pyroclastic flows from Mount St. Helens had temperatures of 350 degrees C ( Bryant, 1991). Such high temperature flows can burn manmade structures, vegetation, and, for those unlikely enough to be caught by then, human skin.


It is a disturbing thought, but the pyroclastic flows that killed most of the victims at Pompeii was so hot it immediately roasted their lungs and boiled their brains. Victims skulls were exploded from the heat. I'd stay _very _far away and let nature have fun.


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## lizard

DiSaidSo said:


> LOL lizard, that's awesome!!! :up: I actually have one friend in particular that I love to buy books for. Not for him to read. Because his bookshelf looks so sad and he really is a smart guy and I just thought his bookshelf should reflect that. I'm trying to get him the complete set of On the Shoulders of Giants, which is a bunch of books about stuff that is totally over my head.
> 
> 
> 
> I was actually a little surprised to find out that he was really reading one of them! :up:
> 
> Here's another one I got for his bookshelf.  I doubt he'll read it, but he'll really enjoy looking at it.


Hi Di!  
I think I've read one or two from that list myself. (must have been compulsory)  
I basically just have a couple of sets of encyclopedias that I have been through and some I still have on my bookshelf.
I don't know much about physics or astronomy so 'On the Shoulders of Giants' might be a bit thick for me.
Amazingly though, more and more I find that my basic education has _*still *_ left me with enough free space to pretty much get a grasp of these concepts!  (it was probably the hookey)

But really though, 'The History Of Pi', from Di? 
Do I detect a pattern here? Umm..what's your boyfriend's name?


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## DiSaidSo

lizard said:


> But really though, 'The History Of Pi', from Di?
> Do I detect a pattern here? Umm..what's your boyfriend's name?


Hee! It would be awesome if I had a bf named Ty. This is Texas, after all, so not entirely out of the question.  

But alas.... no boyfriend. Men don't like me because I'm scary.


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## iltos

DiSaidSo said:


> Hee! It would be awesome if I had a bf named Ty. This is Texas, after all, so not entirely out of the question.
> 
> But alas.... no boyfriend. Men don't like me because I'm scary.


methinks its only cause you THINK, di :up:

and they don't know what they're missin, i'll wager


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## Gabriel

More volcano stuff

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0414_060414_volcano.html

And this one has a scary scenario

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191478,00.html

Quoted...An undersea volcano in the Pacific is growing from its summit and could breach the ocean surface within a few decades, a new study reveals.


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## DiSaidSo

iltos said:


> methinks its only cause you THINK, di :up:
> 
> and they don't know what they're missin, i'll wager


  

Thanks, honeybunches.


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## Gabriel

Gravity can be shaken

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/science/08find.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin


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## InfernoReaper

weird


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## Gabriel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1482382.stm

Interesting theory of plant life earlier in earths history than previously thought


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## Gabriel

Latest Volcanic Eruption

http://sandiego.cox.net/cci/newsnat...=article&id=D8JI9EHG1&_action=validatearticle


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## Gabriel

Global Volcanic Activity Site

http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/current_volcs/current.html

And here is a page full of links to all kinds of volcano sites

http://geology.about.com/od/v_news/

And here is a volcano that blew smoke rings

http://geology.about.com/library/weekly/aa072901a.htm

Page with photos of rings

http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/etna/etna00/index-en.html


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## Gabriel

Gee...I wish I could vent like that


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## katonca

Hi Gabriel  

Those rings are very nice aren't they?


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## Gabriel

Hi Katonca...yes they are


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## ekim68

Thank you Gabriel. Good stuff. I'm saving it....BTW,
Does your sig strum to the tune of a song on the Wizard of Oz?


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## ekim68

And, BTW, have you gotten your rest?


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## Gabriel

Yes Eskim...that is the tune.
And I am burning up with fever all day now. I think I'm sick. It felt like stomach flu when I first woke up, and had a killer headache last night. I am still exhausted, restless and extremely irritable. Slept most of the day. If it doesn't pass in a few days, I'll make an appoinment to see someone.

I am gonna take a few days off from CD though


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## Gabriel

Hydrologic Trends...oh my

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/F...Atlantic_And_Arctic_Ocean_Freshening_999.html

Satellite Image of flooding Nile

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Nile_Overflow_Washes_Away_Hundreds_Of_Homes_In_Sudan_999.html


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## Gabriel

Ever wonder what it feels like to be picked up by a tornado....this person will give a little insight to you

http://lifestyle.msn.com/men/articlees.aspx?cp-documentid=678732&GT1=8463


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## ekim68

This is cool.

http://www.stormgasm.com/photo gallery/supercells/supercells.htm


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## Guest

> http://lifestyle.msn.com/men/article...78732&GT1=8463


very interesting.....experience from first hand....and what an experience...



> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14077362/


thank you for the interesting article.


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## Gabriel

The Day The Earth Fell Over

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060825_earth_tilt.html


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## Gabriel

ODIN 0ERO said:


> very interesting.....experience from first hand....and what an experience...
> 
> thank you for the interesting article.


Your welcome ODIN...glad you are enjoying them


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## Gabriel

GOT WATER?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5269296.stm


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## Gabriel

A bit about Swamps .....warning....light reading

http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/nwep7i.htm


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## Guest

> GOT WATER?


interesting.....thank you for the articles Gabriel.


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## ekim68

Looks like we have some anomalies here, too. You know, in spite of how we perceive our
world, as in large and rugged, we need to treasure it more. And protect it more...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0825/p01s04-usgn.html


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## Gabriel

Thanks Ekim, Here is some more info on Dead Zones worldwide

http://www.conservationinstitute.org/ocean_change/ocean_pollution/deadzones.htm


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## Gabriel

Singing Volcanoes

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/08/30/singingvolcano_pla.html?category=earth&guid=20060830113030


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## ekim68

Wow, thanks Gabriel, that's cool. Nature sings...


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## Gabriel

Ocean Study from Space

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/NASA_Study_Solves_Ocean_Plant_Mystery_999.html


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## DiSaidSo

ekim68 said:


> This is cool.
> 
> http://www.stormgasm.com/photo gallery/supercells/supercells.htm


I think that gave me a stormgasm.  

Thanks for all the links, you guys. I really really enjoy them. :up:


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## Gabriel

Hey...How'd I miss those Supercells


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## DiSaidSo

Gabriel said:


> Hey...How'd I miss those Supercells


Very sneaky supercells.


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## Gabriel

Mineral deficiencies in our oceans....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060830220448.htm

A new study has found that large segments of the Pacific Ocean lack sufficient iron to trigger healthy phytoplankton growth and the absence of the mineral stresses these microscopic ocean plants, triggering them to produce additional pigments that make ocean productivity appear more robust than it really is.


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## ekim68

"Eureka! New tallest living thing discovered
THE CHAMPION: At 378.1 feet, Hyperion in Redwood National Park on North Coast towers 8 feet above Stratosphere Giant"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/07/MNGQRL0TDV1.DTL


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## Gabriel

Those redwoods are absolutely incredible. I have spent some time with them, though not nearly enough


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## Gabriel

Earths magnetism and beached whales

http://www.earthsky.com/shows/show.php?date=20060130

Burping Siberian Lakes

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Siberian_Lakes_Burp_Time_Bomb_Greenhouse_Gas_999.html

More about Siberias melting permafrost

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060907102808.htm


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## Gabriel

Here is an interesting scenario combining past climatic changes and civilization

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_Change_Rocked_Cradles_Of_Civilization_999.html


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## Gabriel

Gulf Quake considerations

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/...rth&guid=20060911170000&dcitc=w01-101-ae-0000


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## LANMaster

Hope this fits in this thread. 

WOW!

The following is a picture taken of camels in the desert. It is considered one of the best pictures of the year (2005). Look closely, the camels are the little white lines in the picture. The black you see is just the shadows!










Hat tip, Snopes


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## ekim68

Cool picture lan.


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## Gabriel

That is super LAN


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## DiSaidSo

That. Is. So. COOL!!!  

Thanks, LAN!


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## Gabriel

Oh My...What a find. This is very helpful to me.

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/contents.html

FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY


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## Gabriel

Monster Waves

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060926_nasa_sra.html

The Day the Earth Fell Over

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060825_earth_tilt.html


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## ekim68

Well not quite an Earth Anomaly. More like a people anomaly. 

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2005_hb_sf.htm


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## Gabriel

Those are incredibly beautiful....thanks Ekim


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## ekim68

"World's tallest, oldest tree in California"

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061003-012802-3492r

Good grief. It's taller than a football field is long.


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## LANMaster

ekim68 said:


> "World's tallest, oldest tree in California"
> 
> http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061003-012802-3492r
> 
> Good grief. It's taller than a football field is long.


How old is it?


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## ekim68

Alaskan Storm Cracks Iceberg in Antarctica

"WASHINGTON (Oct. 3) - A bad storm in Alaska last October generated an ocean swell that broke apart a giant iceberg near Antarctica six days later, U.S. researchers reported on Monday."

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/alaskan-storm-cracks-iceberg-in/20061002183609990004


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## Gabriel

Here is an interesting earth anomaly possibility

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1774050.htm?enviro


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## MSM Hobbes

Great thread :up: 

Here be this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061026/sc_space/amazonriverflowedbackwardsinancienttimes

Like the part regarding how we view things as 'permanent', yet we exist in a quite dynamic system. And at times are 'blind' or ignorant of the beauty, anomalies, diversity, etc. around us.


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## Gabriel

Thanks MSM


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## lotuseclat79

A recent episode on PBS entitled Catastrophe explored the notion that either asteroids, comets or volcanic eruptions may have caused the tree record from 535AD for about a year and one-half to indicate that the Earth's sun only shown for about 4 hours a day, as recorded in several ancient records like the "Book of Kings" in Indonesia, observations from 3000 miles away in China, etc. essentially encompassing the Earth in darkness for that time period.

The culprit turns out to (probably) be the volcano Krakatoa which also was the cause of a major eruption in about 1833 or thereabouts. The evidence spans at best the period of the entire first millenium with the event smack-dab in the middle. The evidence is embedded in charcoal from before and after the event in strata taken from Krakatoa.

Interestingly, Krakatoa is not even mentioned in the list of terrestial active volcanos in Wikipedia - a discussion anomaly I recently posted there, but did not update edit an entry for (oops, ending a sentence with a preposition).

-- Tom


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## lotuseclat79

Another episode on PBS - Secrets of the Dead - highlighted how ancient pottery showed the way about how the Earth's Magnetic Field shifts. Seems that pottery when fired in a kiln, the magnetite in clay loses its magnetic bond, and recovers it when the pottery cools. What is unique, is that the pottery becomes an indicator of how strong or weak the Earth's Magnetic Field is because the magnetite after it cools becomes aligned with Magnetic North at that point in time. :cool

It seems on average, every 200,000 years or so, the Earth's Magnetic Field shifts direction whereby North becomes South, and South becomes North. Its been calculated that the last shift occurred about 780,000 years ago, so we are due for a shift. Recent evidence indicates that the South Atlantic in Earth's Magnetic Field is undergoing the shift process right now. They have done some very cool software modeling to show the shift in colors.

During the total shifting period of about (calculated at) 3000 years, humans would become exposed to more extra-terrestrial solar and cosmic radiation. One interesting side-effect of this would be that every night the sky would light up and we would be able to see something like the Aurora Borealis every single night from anywhere on Earth (I think).

Humans would experience higher rates of cancer due to radiation exposure from Space. Hopefully, research will help to provide protection by the time the shift swing is in full motion.

I'm ready, my compass has one of those bevels that turns! 

-- Tom


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## LANMaster

Bush's fault.


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## ekim68

MSM Hobbes said:


> Great thread :up:
> 
> Here be this:
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061026/sc_space/amazonriverflowedbackwardsinancienttimes
> 
> Like the part regarding how we view things as 'permanent', yet we exist in a quite dynamic system. And at times are 'blind' or ignorant of the beauty, anomalies, diversity, etc. around us.


Thanks. Fascinating stuff..


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## Gabriel

lotuseclat79 said:


> Another episode on PBS - Secrets of the Dead - highlighted how ancient pottery showed the way about how the Earth's Magnetic Field shifts. Seems that pottery when fired in a kiln, the magnetite in clay loses its magnetic bond, and recovers it when the pottery cools. What is unique, is that the pottery becomes an indicator of how strong or weak the Earth's Magnetic Field is because the magnetite after it cools becomes aligned with Magnetic North at that point in time. :cool
> 
> -- Tom


Hi Tom...Thanks for this tidbit...it is fascinating to me. i haven't been able to get any info online yet about it, but will keep trying. I would like to know more.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Gabriel said:


> Hi Tom...Thanks for this tidbit...it is fascinating to me. i haven't been able to get any info online yet about it, but will keep trying. I would like to know more.


Hi Gabirel,

Upon visiting http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/ I see that the program Catastrophe is a "Secrets of the Dead" program.

This makes my ref to "Secrets of the Dead" about the pottery and changing Magnetic Fields of the Earth probably wrong. I'll have to Goggle for the show, but it was on PBS.

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Hi Gabriel,

The program about the pottery and Earth's Magnetic Field was on PBS, specifically on Nova, entitled "Magnetic Storm": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Sun Earth Connection

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15117711/


----------



## DiSaidSo

Gabriel said:


> Sun Earth Connection
> 
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15117711/


That's pretty cool, but I take issue with their diagram. If they're going to go through all the trouble of distinguishing the rotational axis and the magnetic axis... the least they could do is tilt the rotational axis 23.5 degrees.


----------



## Gabriel

New look into origins of Appalachians

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061117123212.htm


----------



## ekim68

Not exactly an anomaly, but....

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recent/


----------



## Gabriel

I love the shake maps...my link is tuned into S. Cal. all the time


----------



## Gabriel

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/07/cluster_plasma/

Plasma Whirlpools Breach Earths Magnetic Fields

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/04/organic_rain/

Organic Rain...Seeds of Life?


----------



## lizard

Hi Gabriel! 

I stumbled across this article about chevrons, and thought it was pretty interesting. Nice graphic too.
Ancient Crash, Epic Wave

Once every 1000 years or so, we experience a major impact.

We're overdue!


----------



## iltos

lizard said:


> Hi Gabriel!
> 
> I stumbled across this article about chevrons, and thought it was pretty interesting. Nice graphic too.
> Ancient Crash, Epic Wave
> 
> Once every 1000 years or so, we experience a major impact.
> 
> We're overdue!


nice find, lizard :up:


----------



## Gabriel

Nasas Earth Missions page... might be interesting to see what developes from it

http://science.hq.nasa.gov/missions/earth.html


----------



## Gabriel

Origin of oceans smell

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16928653/


----------



## ekim68

Thanks Gabriel. My first encounter with:

Scientists say it's the bacterial conversion of dimethylsulfoniopropionate into dimethyl sulfide.

Gonna have to keep my eyes and nose aware...


----------



## ekim68

*A sight as elusive as a Cheshire cat
Photographer spots rare heavenly arc*

No, this isn't an upside-down rainbow, and the photographer hasn't faked the picture. It's an unusual phenomenon caused by sunlight shining through a thin, invisible screen of tiny ice crystals high in the sky and has nothing at all to do with the rain.

Andrew G. Saffas, a Concord artist and photographer, saw the colorful arc at 3:51 p.m. on a beautiful day recently when a slight rain had fallen in the morning. He thought it was a rainbow, created by raindrops refracting sunlight the way glass prisms refract any bright beam of light.

Instead, what Saffas saw was what scientists call a circumzenithal arc, according to physicist Joe Jordan, a former NASA space scientist at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, who is now director of the Sky Power Institute in Santa Cruz, which promotes solar power and other alternative fuels.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/23/MNGD7O9UNL1.DTL


----------



## Gabriel

OMG.....I want to see one of those


----------



## lotuseclat79

See here.

-- Tom


----------



## Blackmirror

lotuseclat79 said:


> See here.
> 
> -- Tom


Thats an interesting link 
Thanks:up: :up: :up: :up:


----------



## Gabriel

lotuseclat79 said:


> See here.
> 
> -- Tom


I am living in a different world than the one I was in before I read that,Tom


----------



## DiSaidSo

lotuseclat79 said:


> See here.
> 
> -- Tom


I'm going to take my time reading that one, Tom. Excellent!

But I already knew the hottest & coldest extremes on Earth. Geography Nerd. Whattyagonnado?


----------



## Gabriel

Vast water reservoir revealed....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070210171556.htm


----------



## ekim68

Thanks Tom and Gabriel, good stuff....I've been reading about the monarch butterfly for a while now, and their demise. Seems their main grounds are in Mexico. Looks like they're going to be helped, at least a little.

*Mexico vows to protect monarch butterfly*

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will enforce a "zero tolerance" policy against logging that threatens to wipe out the monarch butterfly and will act to stop a rare and ancient oasis from drying up, President Felipe Calderon said on Saturday.

Calderon said soldiers will be deployed to clamp down on illegal logging in a protected forest where monarch butterflies winter after migrating thousands of miles from Canada and the United States.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2422244020070225


----------



## ekim68

*Ice collapse exposes Antarctic beauty*

The collapse of two Antarctic iceshelves has exposed an exquisite seabed ecosystem, including species of crustaceans and marine anemones that have never been identified, researchers say.

The insight into Antarctica's hidden marine world came from the break-up of the Larsen A and B ice shelves, 12 and five years ago respectively, that later formed huge icebergs.

Their collapse exposed 10,000 square kilometres of the seabed that had been covered by ice for millennia.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1856913.htm


----------



## ekim68

Oops. Just noticed Gabriel posted it somewhere else.


----------



## Gabriel

ekim68 said:


> Oops. Just noticed Gabriel posted it somewhere else.


That is OK Ekim...I was torn as to where it should go...I posted a follow up of it with the global warming concerns up in CD in the Global Warming thread...but they are too busy argueing the political side of the issues to even notice


----------



## ekim68

*Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril*

VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23  David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nations most profitable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html/partner/rssnyt?_r=1&oref=slogin


----------



## lotuseclat79

ekim68 said:


> *Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril*
> 
> VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 - David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.
> 
> In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/business/27bees.html/partner/rssnyt?_r=1&oref=slogin


Hi ekim68,

I wonder if this problem is environmental in nature or at the microbe level or a combination of both. I wonder where the bees went. Do you think they are migrating at all perhaps because of changing weather conditions in the climate? Perhaps the colonies are growing too large - and are just splitting up? But all across the nation? Hmm, must be some kind of bee disease.

It takes at least a queen bee to rebuild a colony with a complement of drones and workers. There must have been queen bees left in the aftermath, eh?

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Maybe they know more about global warming than we do, and are one step ahead....they are able to make fast changes within the colony...could be their collective mind is linked with either each other,and/ or the cyclic changes occurring, and they are reading them much faster than we do......

Could be an assessing period of some kind


----------



## lotuseclat79

Study: Pygmy owl numbers down in Mexico
Article here.

A university study shows the population of a tiny endangered owl in northern Mexico has declined by an estimated 26 percent over the last seven years, a finding that environmentalists said bolsters their arguments for greater protection for the bird in Arizona.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

lotuseclat79 said:


> Hi ekim68,
> 
> I wonder if this problem is environmental in nature or at the microbe level or a combination of both. I wonder where the bees went. Do you think they are migrating at all perhaps because of changing weather conditions in the climate? Perhaps the colonies are growing too large - and are just splitting up? But all across the nation? Hmm, must be some kind of bee disease.
> 
> It takes at least a queen bee to rebuild a colony with a complement of drones and workers. There must have been queen bees left in the aftermath, eh?
> 
> -- Tom


Actually I think it's a combination of things, not the least of which 25% less hives according to the article. (Bee keeping used to be a local phenomena instead of a corporate one and consequently the bottom line rules.)
But, we should get back to it. We should maybe have a grassroots effort for everyone with room, and courage, to have a hive or two in their yard....

But, other factors include less land, more polluted air and land, and nitrates and pesticides have been a big tool for the last 50 years or so....It's much too complex to ignore.


----------



## Gabriel

More bee dilemna info

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/feb/15/answers-sought-bizarre-bee-disease/


----------



## lotuseclat79

Here's more info on the varroa mite with selected references.

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Longest Underground River Found

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...1286086_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEXICO-RIVER.xml&src=rss


----------



## ekim68

How deep was the river? I didn't read it in the article.


----------



## ekim68

This is really not an anomaly, but it's cool...Night time in Paris...

http://framboise78.free.fr/Paris.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Smog is changing the face of Earth's water cycle*

Smog may be having dramatic effects on the planet's water cycles, and in ways not previously apparent, researchers have warned. Revealing one aspect of this, they have shown that urban pollution and other aerosols have significantly reduced rainfall over hills in central China.

http://environment.newscientist.com...-changing-the-face-of-earths-water-cycle.html


----------



## ekim68

*New species of North American bamboo found*

POCATELLO, Idaho, March 13 (UPI) -- U.S. botanists have found a new species of North American bamboo -- the third known native species of North American bamboo discovered in 200 years.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Scienc..._American_bamboo_found/20070313-115810-8250r/


----------



## Gabriel

OMG...right under our noses


----------



## Blackmirror

There are a few new species in TSG if you look hard enough


----------



## Gabriel

Yes, indeed


----------



## ekim68

This isn't quite an anomaly, but kind of like a sign of the times....
*
Indian tribe defends "hill god" from foreign miner*

LANJIGARH, India (Reuters) - Their thick, ancient forests shelter leopards, elephants and even the odd tiger, their slopes are home to an isolated tribe, but the "curse" of eastern India's Niyamgiri hills lies beneath the soil.

_"If you hand the hill over, the hill god will eat us."_

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSDEL8215620070330

(We need to keep taking pictures of things that are disappearing on our earth.....)


----------



## ekim68

*Architect claims to solve pyramid secret*

PARIS -- A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built - with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place.

The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501ap_france_pyramid_theory.html?source=mypi


----------



## ekim68

*Sahara may have tamed hurricanes*

The Sahara may have helped make last year's hurricane season a relatively tame one, according to a NASA study.

Several major dust storms over the African desert in June and July kicked up vast amounts of dust that then drifted westward over the Atlantic Ocean and blocked sunlight from reaching the surface, researchers found. That cooled ocean waters, which might have made it harder for hurricanes to develop.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/03/MNGFEP0EKU1.DTL


----------



## ekim68

This is kind of an anomaly. My neighbor about 115 miles to the north.

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/


----------



## Gabriel

That is an anomaly for sure.....


----------



## Gabriel

Quake Caused Major Coral Reef Die-Off

Researchers who surveyed the island of Simeulue in recent weeks found that the March 2005 quake had exposed most of the coral along its 190-mile-long coast.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/...rth&guid=20070413120000&dcitc=w01-101-ae-0003


----------



## ekim68

*The Collapse of the Perito Moreno*

It was pandemonium this month at the Perito Moreno glacier. The Perito Moreno is a giant mess of ice that flows out of the mountains in the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, near El Calafate, looking for trouble. In a world of sissy nature that requires protection, handholding, wilderness reserves, careful study and constant medical attention, the Perito Moreno glacier is a refreshing throwback. This glacier wants you dead. It wants to come out and crush you under billions of tons of ice, carve its name into your face, and maraud out into the plains of Patagonia until it reaches the sea. You don't have to go into the mountains looking for the Perito Moreno - it's coming out of the mountains to look for you. It wants to come over there and mess you up good.

http://www.idlewords.com/2006/03/the_collapse_of_the_perito_moreno.htm

Here's a scene on youtube...


----------



## Gabriel

Happy Earth Day everyone...here is an MSN slideshow of endangered destinations...

http://travel.msn.com//Guides/MSNTravelSlideShow.aspx?cp-documentid=385955&gt1=9337


----------



## ekim68

*Oceanic Storms Create Oases In The Watery Desert*

For two decades, scientists have puzzled over why vast blooms of microscopic plant life grow in the middle of otherwise barren mid-ocean regions. Now a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has shown that episodic, swirling current systems known as eddies act to pump nutrients up from the deep ocean to fuel such blooms.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Oceanic_Storms_Create_Oases_In_The_Watery_Desert_999.html


----------



## ekim68

*Stone sea and volcano*

Maiken cruising through a sea of stones

http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-sea-and-volcano.html


----------



## ekim68

Water spout near Singapore....

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?collectionId=476


----------



## ekim68

*Blue Moon to show over N. America*

At 9:04 pm Eastern Daylight Time on May 31st, the full moon over North America will turn blue.

Not really. But it will be the second full moon of May and, according to folklore, that makes it a Blue Moon.

If you told a person in Shakespeare's day that something happens "once in a Blue Moon" they would attach no astronomical meaning to the statement. Blue moon simply meant rare or absurd, like making a date for "the Twelfth of Never."

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blue-moon-show-over-n-america-13336.html


----------



## ekim68

Kind of a man-made anomaly. This guy makes a trip to Harbin every year.

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2007_hb_sf.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Probing Arctic Lakes*

Summary (Jun 09, 2007): The discovery that subglacial lakes in Antarctica are interconnected means that proper procedures may need to be established before scientists can penetrate through the ice to study them. Sub-ice water appears to be important in many different processes fundamental to Antarctica and our planet, and they may also support unique and fragile microbial communities.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/module...=article&sid=2358&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0


----------



## Gabriel

Thanks so much Ekim...That was a fascinating article...
the related web links at the bottom of that article are interesting too.
My Favorites and bookmarks are further filling up with links...I think I'm going to have to hard copy some of them


----------



## ekim68

Envisat Captures First Image Of Sargassum From Space

Sargassum seaweed, famous in nautical lore for entangling ships in its dense floating vegetation, has been detected from space for the first time thanks to an instrument aboard ESA's environmental satellite, Envisat. The ability to monitor Sargassum globally will allow researchers to understand better the primary productivity of the ocean and better predict climate change.

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Envisat_Captures_First_Image_Of_Sargassum_From_Space_999.html


----------



## ekim68

*Plants 'recognize' their siblings*

Plants are able to recognise their siblings, according to a study appearing today in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but theyre accommodating when potted with their siblings.

http://pressesc.com/01181755074_plants_recognise_siblings


----------



## iltos

ekim68 said:


> *Stone sea and volcano*
> 
> Maiken cruising through a sea of stones
> 
> http://yacht-maiken.blogspot.com/2006/08/stone-sea-and-volcano.html


wow....thanks ekim....this is truely fascinating....gives me some wanderlust


----------



## Gabriel

Hi Iltos....haven't seen you around much. Hope all is well


----------



## iltos

Gabriel said:


> Hi Iltos....haven't seen you around much. Hope all is well


thanks gabriel....yep all is fine ('cept it's too hot  )

just a busy guy

how 'bout chuw? still in school?


----------



## Gabriel

Yes, My classes are still in the exploratory phase. I will be taking some of the hardcore classes in the fall...like biology and ecology.
To me they are hardcore anyway. 
I might take an art class, too, to help me with my nature sketchbook journaling. That is actually most of what I'm doing right now (still in my neighborhood and the surrounding area)...and the internet really helps with what I find.
I get lost when I self-learning though, and think the more structured classroom in the fall will really give me direction.
Hopefully this will take place in Northern CA....the classes will be in Santa Rosa. That is where I took horticulture classes (gosh about 25 years ago).

It is all good. if nothing else for a while I'll be building a portfolio for whatever possibilities come in the future. 

It is HOT here too...about 108 today. The ants weren't even out


----------



## ekim68

108, good grief...That's hot..


----------



## Gabriel

Yes it is...I think it's gonna get to 111 by the weeks end


----------



## ekim68

Oh good grief, I'm so spoiled nowadays...


----------



## Gabriel

I loved Oregon. I lived up on the coast in Bandon for about a year. The summers were in the eighties maybe.
The greenness of Oregon kinda reminded me of Pennsylvania...where I'm from


----------



## ekim68

Looks like summer's gonna hit next week...86 degrees predicted for Tuesday..


----------



## DiSaidSo

ekim68 said:


> Looks like summer's gonna hit next week...86 degrees predicted for Tuesday..


HAHAHA Oh that's cute.... 86 degrees.....  You poor thing.... BWAAAAAAAHAHAHA! 

That's a lovely Spring day to me.  Luckily, we've had an extended Spring this year and it's just now starting to feel like summertime.... but not today, my friends. It's currently 82 degrees with yet another chance of thunderstorms today. I hope all summer is like this... mild and rainy.  Like Oregon!


----------



## Gabriel

It is gonna hit 112 today ....
The best thing about this weather is that I use the heat to brew my teas. No need to even put the sun tea jar in the sun...the shaded front porch is all it needs to brew.
I water down the dog regularly, sometimes twice a day. He totally loves it. 
The clothes, clothesline dry in 5-15 minutes...depending on the thickness of the fabric.
I hydrate myself all day long, and stand in the shower twice during the day, and use both sunscreen and skin repair creams constantly in these temps. And lots of conditioners for my hair. So I kinda treat the days like a trip to the sauna. 
Cooking is to a minimum....I cook dinner maybe twice a week (casseroles), and we nuke a daily portion for lunch, or dinner. Most other meals are pasta salads, fruit, cereals, yogurt ....stuff like that, except for the occasional yummy omelet in the morning.
The biggest bill in the summer is electric for the AC, and last month it was $75...we used the AC for 3 weeks of last month about 4 hours a day......yesterday I had it on a total of 6 hours, so I am hoping the bill doesn't top $125 this coming bill.....winter rates were in effect last billing....summer rates kicked in this billing....so we will see.

I really should have purchased that parabolic solar cooker I was eying last winter. This would be the perfect weather to break it in.


----------



## DiSaidSo

My a/c is on a timer that I can't quite figure out...  I know it's about 78 during the day and I'm freezing my butt off by the time I go to sleep. :up: So I guess we'll see how that bill turns out.


----------



## Gabriel

DiSaidSo said:


> My a/c is on a timer that I can't quite figure out...  I know it's about 78 during the day and I'm freezing my butt off by the time I go to sleep. :up: So I guess we'll see how that bill turns out.


Yes, most peoples are like that that we know....I manually run ours. It is a big one that feeds thru the ducts to every room. But I'm here most of the time, and can tolerate some discomfort. Also, the humidifier can be run between say 11AM-1PM before I have to kick in the AC. And from say 6 or 7PM to 9PM........instead of the AC. All of it is off about 1 hour of the day in peak heat I have about 2 half hour intervals I can do that. And the re-cooling is done in less than 5 minutes....it's just a balancing act with the heat. If I worked outside the home, there is no way I could do that....and being a hyper-vigilant person...well, it's just another chore 
My water conserving is just as good


----------



## ekim68

DiSaidSo said:


> HAHAHA Oh that's cute.... 86 degrees.....  You poor thing.... BWAAAAAAAHAHAHA!
> 
> That's a lovely Spring day to me.  Luckily, we've had an extended Spring this year and it's just now starting to feel like summertime.... but not today, my friends. It's currently 82 degrees with yet another chance of thunderstorms today. I hope all summer is like this... mild and rainy.  Like Oregon!


I paid my dues earlier in life. I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert in a town called Needles. Was there for my first 17 years and that was plenty enough heat for me...


----------



## lotuseclat79

Gabriel said:


> I loved Oregon. I lived up on the coast in Bandon for about a year. The summers were in the eighties maybe.
> The greenness of Oregon kinda reminded me of Pennsylvania...where I'm from


Hi Gavriel,

I'm from PA also! I took a quiz on American accents http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp this AM, and verified it! 

-- Tom


----------



## DiSaidSo

ekim68 said:


> I paid my dues earlier in life. I was born and raised in the Mojave Desert in a town called Needles. Was there for my first 17 years and that was plenty enough heat for me...


OK, I find that to be acceptable dues paid.


----------



## ekim68

DiSaidSo said:


> OK, I find that to be acceptable dues paid.


Heh, heh...


----------



## Gabriel

Disappearing Lake

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...N20287754_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHILE-LAKE.xml&src=rss


----------



## DiSaidSo

Gabriel said:


> Disappearing Lake
> 
> http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...N20287754_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHILE-LAKE.xml&src=rss


That is so cool!  This planet never ceases to amaze me....


----------



## Gabriel

DiSaidSo said:


> That is so cool!  This planet never ceases to amaze me....


It's like I'm living on a whole new planet lately...between finding this kind of stuff, and all the new species....my brain is doing a dance


----------



## ekim68

Ever see one of these?

*Mammatus Clouds*
_sagging pouch-like structures_

Mammatus are pouch-like cloud structures and a rare example of clouds in sinking air.

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/cldtyp/oth/mm.rxml


----------



## ekim68

I check on this once in a while, and it's still good stuff...Check out the gallery..

http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/skypixms.htm


----------



## DiSaidSo

ekim68 said:


> I check on this once in a while, and it's still good stuff...Check out the gallery..
> 
> http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/skypixms.htm


Imma go ahead and hug you for that one.... VERY COOL!


----------



## ekim68

I know this isn't an 'earth anomaly, but, Hubble was made on Earth...

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire_collection/


----------



## ekim68

Gallery of clouds.

http://spaceweather3.com/nlcs/gallery2006_page1.htm


----------



## Gabriel

An answer to where the missing lake has gone

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic...N03279029_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHILE-LAKE.xml&src=rss


----------



## lotuseclat79

'Sundried tide' -- silent, natural disaster
Article here.

Australian researchers have studied and documented the effect of the "sundried tide", a force of nature that can silently wipe out coral reefs.

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Mud Volcano
http://today.reuters.com/news/artic..._RTRUKOC_0_US-TRINIDAD-MUDVOLCANO.xml&src=rss


----------



## Gabriel

Underground Snowy River

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/27/snowyriver_pla.html?category=earth


----------



## iltos

Gabriel said:


> Underground Snowy River
> 
> http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/27/snowyriver_pla.html?category=earth


very interesting vid on paleoclimatogy with that article, gabriel :up:


----------



## Gabriel

Very cool indeed. I would love to understand the way they compile and analyse data....I will be a while getting that knowledge and understanding


----------



## ekim68

Web cam at Old Faithful..

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm


----------



## aarhus2004

Thanks, Mike I like that, I really like it. Beats travelling at my age.

Ben.


----------



## ekim68

Hey Ben, here's another webcam from our neighbors to the north about 120 miles.

Mt. St. Helen

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

I, too, like traveling on the internet.


----------



## ekim68

*LSU professor looks for life in and under antarctic ice*

BATON ROUGE - Antarctica is home to the largest body of ice on Earth. Prior to approximately 10 years ago, no one thought that life could exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which can be more than two miles thick in places, because conditions were believed to be too extreme. However, Brent Christner, assistant professor of biological sciences at LSU, has spent a great deal of time in one of the world's most hostile environments conducting research that proves otherwise. Christner's discoveries of viable microbes in ancient ice cores and subglacial environments coupled with the realization that large quantities of liquid water exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheet have changed the way biologists view life in Antarctica.

"More than 150 lakes have been discovered underneath nearly two-and-a-half miles of ice in Antactica," said Christner, "and most of these bodies of water have likely been covered by ice for at least 15 million years. The environmental conditions in the deep cold biosphere are unlike anything on the Earth's surface and this represents one of the most extreme habitats for life on the planet."

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=23445


----------



## ekim68

*Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes*

The Greenland ice cap is melting so quickly that it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange


----------



## Gabriel

This months National Geographic is awesome....especially this part 
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/photogalleries/giant-crystals-cave/photo3.html

I started to read a little on cave formations a few months back, and thought I was in heaven...I would do anything to see this place


----------



## Gabriel

http://naica.laventa.it/naica-giant-selenite-crystal.en.html

Here is another site about the crystal cave


----------



## ekim68

Wow, the caves are cool...Thanks Gabriel...It's amazing we're still finding new things...


----------



## ekim68

*Giant Atmospheric Waves Over Iowa*

Those giant waves-"undular bore waves"-were photographed Oct. 3rd flowing across the skies of Des Moines, Iowa. (Credit: KCCI-TV Des Moines and Iowa Environmental Mesonet SchoolNet8 Webcam.)

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/11oct_undularbore.htm?list1043252


----------



## ekim68

*Greenland Thaws*

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/10/27/world/1028-GREENLAND_index.html


----------



## ekim68

*Changes Offer Glimpse of Yellowstone's Unsettled Nature*

Something is stirring deep below the legendary hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone, the first and most famous national park in America -- and home to a huge volcanic cauldron.

The central region of the park has been rising the last three years at a rate never before observed by scientists. They believe that magma -- molten rock -- is filling pores in the Earth's crust and causing a large swath of Yellowstone to rise like a pie in the oven.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110801336.html?hpid=artslot


----------



## Gabriel

Yellowstone volcano still rising

http://today.reuters.com/news/artic..._RTRUKOC_0_US-VOLCANO-YELLOWSTONE.xml&src=rss


----------



## ekim68

*From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm*

If you have ever observed ants marching in and out of a nest, you might have been reminded of a highway buzzing with traffic. To Iain D. Couzin, such a comparison is a cruel insult - to the ants.

Americans spend a 3.7 billion hours a year in congested traffic. But you will never see ants stuck in gridlock.

Army ants, which Dr. Couzin has spent much time observing in Panama, are particularly good at moving in swarms. If they have to travel over a depression in the ground, they erect bridges so that they can proceed as quickly as possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/s...6b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin


----------



## ekim68

*The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa*

One of the most interesting mysteries of Death Valley National Park is the sliding rocks at Racetrack Playa (a playa is a dry lake bed). These rocks can be found on the floor of the playa with long trails behind them. Somehow these rocks slide across the playa, cutting a furrow in the sediment as they move.

http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml


----------



## ekim68

*The salt flat with curious curves*

_Mapping one of the flattest parts of the planet will help satellite calibration._

A precise topographical map has been made of one of the flattest places on Earth: the salar de Uyuni, a vast plain of white cemented salt in the mountains of Bolivia. The ground survey, aided by global positioning systems (GPS), shows variations in elevation of less than a metre across an area almost half the size of Wales.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071130/full/news.2007.315.html


----------



## lotuseclat79

Unusual Cloud Structure Witnessed by Thousands
Article here.

What Happened ? - During the early afternoon of Wednesday, 11 December 2003, a strange and unusual cloud formation occurred over the Mobile, Alabama area. The name..."Hole Punch Clouds". And, they have been observed and recorded by photo previously according to the article.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Not sure if this is the right place, but:

*Ocean Fertilization 'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research*

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2007) - Scientists have revealed an important discovery that raises doubts concerning the viability of plans to fertilize the ocean to solve global warming, a projected $100 billion venture.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129132753.htm

(Long read, but worth it, IMO.)


----------



## lotuseclat79

ekim68 said:


> Not sure if this is the right place, but:
> 
> *Ocean Fertilization 'Fix' For Global Warming Discredited By New Research*
> 
> ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2007)  Scientists have revealed an important discovery that raises doubts concerning the viability of plans to fertilize the ocean to solve global warming, a projected $100 billion venture.
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129132753.htm
> 
> (Long read, but worth it, IMO.)


Hi ekim,

Yeah, it belongs in the Solved: Global Warming thread in CD.

-- Tom


----------



## johnnyburst79

Gabriel said:


> Yellowstone volcano still rising
> 
> http://today.reuters.com/news/artic..._RTRUKOC_0_US-VOLCANO-YELLOWSTONE.xml&src=rss


When Yellowstone erupts, it has the ability to cover the entire continental US in 3 inches of ash.


----------



## ekim68

Not necessarily an anomaly, but a reminder of what our wonderful trees do:

*Trees absorbing less CO2 as world warms, study finds*

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/03/climatechange.carbonemissions


----------



## ekim68

*Quakes Under Pacific Ocean Floor Reveal Unexpected Circulation System*

_Research upsets long-held view of volcanism-driven hydrothermal vents_

Scientists have discovered a new way in which ocean water circulates through deep-sea vents.

Zigzagging some 60,000 kilometers across the ocean floor, Earth's system of mid-ocean ridges plays a pivotal role in many workings of the planet: in plate-tectonic movements, heat flow from the interior, and the chemistry of rock, water and air.

Now, a team of seismologists working in 2,500 meters of water on the East Pacific Rise, some 565 miles southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, has made the first images of one of these systems--and it doesn't look the way most scientists had assumed. The research results, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

It was not until the late 1970s that scientists discovered the existence of vast plumbing systems under the oceans called hydrothermal vents. The systems pull in cold water, superheat it, then spit it back out from seafloor vents--a process that brings up not only hot water, but dissolved substances from rocks below. Unique life forms feed off the vents' stew, and valuable minerals including gold may pile up.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=24489


----------



## lotuseclat79

The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa
Article here.

Links to other articles on the sliding rocks at the bottom of the webpage.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

*Hot springs microbes hold key to dating sedimentary rocks, researchers say*

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.  Scientists studying microbial communities and the growth of sedimentary rock at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park have made a surprising discovery about the geological record of life and the environment.

Their discovery could affect how certain sequences of sedimentary rock are dated, and how scientists might search for evidence of life on other planets.

We found microbes change the rate at which calcium carbonate precipitates, and that rate controls the chemistry and shape of calcium carbonate crystals, said Bruce Fouke, a professor of geology and of molecular and cellular biology at the University of Illinois.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=24656


----------



## ekim68

*Secret Of The Carnivorous Pitcher Plant's Slurp -- Solved At Last*

_ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2008) - Splash! Ooch! Yum! And so another unsuspecting insect victim of Nepenthes alata (N. alata), commonly known as the carnivorous pitcher plant, falls victim to the digestive fluids at the bottom of the plant's famous cup-shaped leaf.[_

For almost a century, scientists have sought the full chemical recipe for the pitcher plant's fluid. Japanese scientists now report completely deciphering this complex cocktail of digestive and antibacterial enzymes.

Unlike other plants that absorb nutrients from the soil, carnivorous plants growing in nutrient-poor soils have special organs to capture insects, digest them and absorb the nitrogen and phosphorous their environment sorely lacks. The identity of all the myriad proteins involved in this evolutionary marvel -- some of which could have beneficial applications in medicine and agriculture -- has been a mystery until now.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128120453.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Lost City Pumps Life-essential Chemicals At Rates Unseen At Typical Deep Ocean Hydrothermal Vents*

ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2008) - Hydrocarbons -- molecules critical to life -- are being generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the mid-Atlantic Ocean.

Being able to produce building blocks of life makes Lost City-like vents even stronger contenders as places where life might have originated on Earth, according to Giora Proskurowski and Deborah Kelley, two authors of a paper in the Feb. 1 Science. Researchers have ruled out carbon from the biosphere as a component of the hydrocarbons in Lost City vent fluids.

Hydrocarbons, molecules with various combinations of hydrogen and carbon atoms, are key to cellular life. For instance, cell walls can be built from simple hydrocarbon chains and amino acids are short hydrocarbon chains hooked up with nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur atoms.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080131151856.htm


----------



## ekim68

Once again, not an anomaly but cool, and I mean cool, pics...

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2005_hb_if.htm


----------



## Gabriel

Fascinating article about ice and water densities, and scenarios
http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/ice.htm

You'll have to scroll down past the add


----------



## Gabriel

Black Diamonds

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0612-mystery_diamonds.htm


----------



## Gabriel

Newfoundland frozen waves........awesome video

http://www.break.com/index/newfoundland_frozen_waves.html


----------



## ekim68

Wow, thanks Gabriel...Good stuff..


----------



## Gabriel

ekim68 said:


> Wow, thanks Gabriel...Good stuff..


I wish I could be there to see that


----------



## ekim68

Thank goodness the internet is getting us closer...Eh?


----------



## Gabriel

Yes, it makes me very happy


----------



## pyritechips

Gabriel said:


> I wish I could be there to see that


Thanks for that Gabe. I used to live there but never saw anything like that. I did love to see big icebergs drifting past the harbors in the middle of summer!


----------



## ekim68

Recycled supercells.......

http://stormgasm.com/photo gallery/supercells/supercells.htm


----------



## Gabriel

Those are spectacular


----------



## ekim68

And, don't forget the tornado link.......Terrible, but beautiful....


----------



## iltos

Gabriel said:


> Newfoundland frozen waves........awesome video
> 
> http://www.break.com/index/newfoundland_frozen_waves.html


amazing, gabriel....
i wonder how cold the air was?.....at about 3:20 of the vid, there was a guy in shorts!!!


----------



## Gabriel

Too much....an elastic crust

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/07/earth-crust-mantle.html?dcitc=w01-101-ae-0001


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth's Hum Mystery
Article here.

Earth gives off a relentless hum of countless notes completely imperceptible to the human ear, like a giant, exceptionally quiet symphony, but the origin of this sound remains a mystery.

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth's Magnetic Field Causes Strange Happenings on Moon
NASA article here.

Imagine what it feels like to be a sock pulled crackling from a dryer. Astronauts on the moon during a magnetotail crossing might be able to tell you. Walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain, the astronauts themselves would gather a load of excess charge. Touching another astronaut - could produce an unwelcome discharge.









The moon spends about six days each month inside Earth's magnetic tail, or "magnetotail." Credit: NASA/Steele Hill









Earth's magnetic field responds to the solar wind much like an airport wind sock: It stretches out with its tail pointing downwind. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center- Conceptual Image Lab

Magnetospheric Substorm Animation









Fine particles of dust on the moon's surface can actually float off the ground when they become charged by electrons in Earth's magnetotail. Credit: Tim Stubbs/University of Maryland/GSFC

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Kind of like rubbing a balloon against your head, eh Tom. I wonder if the moon would stick to the ceiling if the room were big enough...


----------



## ekim68

*Extreme Ocean Storms Have Become More Frequent Over Past Three Decades, Study Of Tiny Tremors Shows*

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2008) - Data from faint earth tremors caused by wind-driven ocean waves -- often dismissed as "background noise" at seismographic stations around the world -- suggest extreme ocean storms have become more frequent over the past three decades. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other prominent researchers have predicted that stronger and more frequent storms may occur as a result of global warming trends. The tiny tremors, or microseisms, offer a new way to discover whether these predictions are already coming true, said Richard Aster, a geophysics professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417105456.htm


----------



## ekim68

Aurora gallery, April:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01apr08.htm


----------



## Gabriel

Beautiful Aurora images


----------



## Gabriel

Whoa...I've never seen this much seismic activity on the realtime quake maps in the three years I've been viewing them....the whole ring of fire is tremoring....look at Calif., Nevada and Alaskan region, alone

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/region/N_America.php


----------



## Gabriel

There have been 15 or more in the past week recorded that are 4.0 or more


----------



## ekim68

*Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study*

OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes.

And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of global warming, said the lead author of the report about the desert's history published in the journal Science.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL0833018820080508


----------



## lotuseclat79

Hot climate could shut down plate tectonics
Article here.

Study: With locked crust, Earth could become another Venus

-- Tom

P.S. No need to panic - it would take temps of 100 degree F or more for a few million years for it to happen.


----------



## Gabriel

Well that makes me relax


----------



## ekim68

Good thing is Gabriel, it's gonna take a million years and I only intend to last half that long....


----------



## ekim68

*Explorers Marvel At 'Brittlestar City' On Seamount In Powerful Current Swirling Around Antarctica*

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2008) - Census of Marine Life-affiliated scientists, plumbing the secrets of a vast underwater mountain range south of New Zealand, captured the first images of a novel "Brittlestar City" established against daunting odds on the peak of a seamount -- an underwater summit taller than the world's tallest building.

Its cramped starfish-like inhabitants, tens of millions living arm tip to arm tip, owe their success to the seamount's shape and to the swirling circumpolar current flowing over and around it at roughly four kilometers per hour. It allows Brittlestar City's underwater denizens to capture passing food simply by raising their arms, and it sweeps away fish and other hovering would-be predators.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080518122148.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Something's Shaking in Antarctica*

Scientists have discovered massive, slow-motion "ice quakes" trembling twice a day through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, an Alaska-sized swath of Antarctica. Detective work has traced the source of the shaking to the Whillans Ice Stream, a glacier 100 kilometers across and 1 kilometer thick, which flows from the ice sheet's interior.

It may seem strange that magnitude-7 quakes went unnoticed for so long--a temblor of similar size leveled entire towns and killed at least 15,000 in Turkey in 1999--but people standing on the Whillans Ice Stream never notice the shaking. "The reason that it doesn't rattle the whole continent is that it's a very slow event," says Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University in State College, who made the discovery along with Douglas Wiens, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Normal earthquakes release their energy over a few seconds, but the Whillans's shaking unfolds over 20 minutes.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/604/3


----------



## ekim68

June's aurora pics....

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01jun08.htm?PHPSESSID=i2jvndbpddl7tfj1nvqs12vt73


----------



## pillainp

*Earth emits ear-splitting sounds in a fine 'hello' to aliens*

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.
The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.

Earth's hello


----------



## ekim68

*Chile Llaima volcano simmers*

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile's National Emergency Office (Onemi) said on Thursday it extended a red alert to additional locales near the Llaima volcano, even though the intensity of the volcanic activity had decreased.

Llaima, one of the most active volcanoes in South America, spewed pyroclastic rock 1,300 feet into night skies early Thursday morning, spooking residents a week after lava shot down one of its sides.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1019953020080710


----------



## ekim68

*Millions of years ago, the American Southwest sat next to East Antarctica*

What a juxtaposition: About 800 million years ago, East Antarctica, now one of the coldest regions on Earth, abutted what is now California's Death Valley, one of the hottest.

Both locales were part of an equatorial supercontinent called Rodinia, says John Goodge, a geologist at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

http://sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/34011/title/Howdy,_neighbor!


----------



## ekim68

*Typhoons Bury Tons Of Carbon In The Oceans*

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2008) - A single typhoon in Taiwan buries as much carbon in the ocean -- in the form of sediment -- as all the other rains in that country all year long combined.

That's the finding of an Ohio State University study published in a recent issue of the journal Geology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080724084745.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Found: The hottest water on Earth*

Even Jules Verne did not foresee this one. Deep down at the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, geochemist Andrea Koschinsky has found something truly extraordinary: "It's water," she says, "but not as we know it."

At over 3 kilometres beneath the surface, sitting atop what could be a huge bubble of magma, it's the hottest water ever found on Earth. The fluid is in a "supercritical" state that has never before been seen in nature.

The fluid spews out of two black smokers called Two Boats and Sisters Peak.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14456


----------



## ekim68

*Iconic stone arch collapses in southern Utah park*

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, Utah -- One of the largest and most photographed arches in Arches National Park has collapsed.

Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said Wall Arch collapsed sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.

The arch is along Devils Garden Trail, one of the most popular in the park. For years, the arch has been a favorite stopping point for photographers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...08/10/AR2008081000492.html?hpid=moreheadlines


----------



## iltos

ekim68 said:


> *Iconic stone arch collapses in southern Utah park*


things change 
i just hope some politician doesn't come along and restrict the enjoyment of these landforms, for the "public safety"


----------



## ekim68

iltos said:


> things change
> i just hope some politician doesn't come along and restrict the enjoyment of these landforms, for the "public safety"


Things do change...I always thought some things would last forever, such as something like the arc...The point is, see them while we can and take pictures..:up:


----------



## Gabriel

USGS Site

Third volcano in Aluetian islands to erupt in three weeks 
Audiocast

http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/details.asp?ID=91


----------



## ekim68

*Ancient Bacteria Uses Arsenic to Grow*

Scientists have discovered ancient bacteria that rely on arsenic, rather than water, to grow during photosynthesis. Analysis indicates that this process probably dates back a few billion years.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26227


----------



## lotuseclat79

The world's biggest hole.

Located in Russia: 525 m deep, 1.25 km diameter - a diamond mine in Eastern Siberia near the town Mirna.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

August aurora photos:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01aug08.htm?PHPSESSID=rlildh7evrhjd5mv02bk55nv12


----------



## lotuseclat79

Mystery Ocean Glow Confirmed in Satellite Photos.

Mariners have long told of rare nighttime events in which the ocean glows intensely as far as the eye can see in all directions.

Fictionally, such a "milky sea" is encountered by the Nautilus in Jules Verne classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Scientists don't have a good handle what's going on. But satellite sensors have now provided the first pictures of a milky sea and given new hope to learning more about the elusive events.









The "milk sea" in a composite satellite image, and the region of the ocean where it was spotted. Credit: Steven Miller, NRL

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Well, kind of an anomaly.....

_New York woman grows six foot zucchini_

NEW YORK, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A New York woman said she was shocked when a zucchini plant in her backyard garden produced a specimen that grew to 6 feet long.

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/09/04/New_York_woman_grows_six_foot_zucchini/UPI-53871220579935/


----------



## lotuseclat79

Ten things you don't know about the Earth.

Now you do! :up:

Note: There is a new website for what was formerly known as the Bad Astronomy web site, now located as part of the discovermagazine.com web site.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

A quarter-moon in northern Scotland...

http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2008/09sep08/Alan-Harpin1.jpg?PHPSESSID=61alsvedts2743ikj91lev4841


----------



## ekim68

September aurora gallery:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01sep08_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=dea1lang77kq0gk0d5cdme0tq4


----------



## ekim68

Updated....

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01sep08.htm?PHPSESSID=jf0nrnh480i14ivbibqvmssn10


----------



## Gabriel

Those are beautiful Ekim


----------



## ekim68

Sunset mirage....

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/sunmir.htm


----------



## iltos

ekim68 said:


> Sunset mirage....
> 
> http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/sunmir.htm


nice site, ekim :up:
check out this one
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/gfim13.htm


----------



## ekim68

That's cool iltos. Thanks. :up:


----------



## ekim68

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/...mal2.jpg?PHPSESSID=2u9be19qjl597avm1t2i4pr8t0


----------



## lotuseclat79

Did you know that a new ocean is forming? See the photo essay as a slide show (click on link at bottom of article even though it looks the same as the web page below - i.e. there are 17 images in the slide show) at:

Birth of an Ocean: The Evolution of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.

Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one few scientists have ever witnessed. Yet this geophysical nativity is unfolding today in one of the hottest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. Visit the site in safety through this extraordinary photographic essay

Key Concepts

* Africa is splitting apart at the seams-literally. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, the continent is coming un**stitched along a zone called the East African Rift.
* Like a shirtsleeve tearing under a bulging bicep, the earth's crust rips apart as molten rock from deep down pushes up on the solid surface and stretches it thin-sometimes to its breaking point. Each new slit widens as lava fills the gap from below.
* This spectacular geologic unraveling, already under way for millions of years, will be complete when saltwater from the Red Sea floods the massive gash. Ten million years from now the entire rift may be submerged.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

_Crab videotaped riding giant jellyfish_

SANIBEL , Fla., Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A photographer caught video of a crab hitching a ride on the back of a giant pink meanie jellyfish off the Gulf Coast of Florida.

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/09/30/Crab_videotaped_riding_giant_jellyfish/UPI-11051222771958/


----------



## lotuseclat79

Prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete.

It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces.









By comparing the ratio of uranium to thorium in the thin layers on top of the cave art, researchers were able to calculate the age of the paintings

Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete.

Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art.

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Ancient Peru pyramid spotted by satellite

*New remote-sensing technology reveals huge structure beneath surface*

A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.

Cahuachi is the best-known site of the Nazca civilization, which flourished in Peru between the first century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. and slid into oblivion by the time the Inca Empire rose to dominate the Andes.

Famous for carving in the Peruvian desert hundreds of geometric lines and images of animals and birds that are best viewed from the air, the Nazca people built Cahuachi as a ceremonial center, molding pyramids, temples and plazas from the desert itself.

There, priests led ceremonies including human sacrifices, drawing people from across the region.

Between the year 300 and 350, two natural disasters - a powerful flood and a devastating earthquake - hit Cahuachi. The site lost its sacred power to the Nazca, who then abandoned the area.

But before leaving, they sealed all monuments and buried them under the desert sand.

"This is an interesting finding. As with the Grand Pyramid, it is likely that also this pyramid contains the remains of human sacrifices," Andrea Drusini, an anthropologist at Padova University, told Discovery News.

In previous excavations at Cahuachi, Drusini found some 20 severed "offering heads" at various locations inside the Grand Pyramid.









In this satellite image, the white arrows show the buried pyramid and the black arrows other structures which have yet to be investigated. National Research Council, Italy

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Very alarming ocean current trend, affecting several animal species.
Video


----------



## ekim68

We're seeing too much of this stuff, Gabriel.. Is there a point of no return?


----------



## lotuseclat79

Real Life Journey To The Center Of The Earth Finds First Ecosystem With A Single Species.

The first ecosystem ever found having only a single biological species has been discovered 2.8 kilometers (1.74 miles) beneath the surface of the earth in the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa.

There the rod-shaped bacterium Desulforudis audaxviator exists in complete isolation, total darkness, a lack of oxygen, and 60-degree-Celsius heat (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

D. audaxviator survives in a habitat where it gets its energy not from the sun but from hydrogen and sulfate produced by the radioactive decay of uranium. Living alone, D. audaxviator must build its organic molecules by itself out of water, inorganic carbon, and nitrogen from ammonia in the surrounding rocks and fluid. During its long journey to the extreme depths, evolution has equipped the versatile spelunker with genes - many of them shared with archaea, members of a separate domain of life unrelated to bacteria - that allow it to cope with a range of different conditions, including the ability to fix nitrogen directly from elemental nitrogen in the environment.









Desulforudis audaxviator is an organism that lives independently in total darkness and at high temperature by reducing sulfate and fixing carbon and nitrogen from its environment, deep within the Earth. It constitutes the first known single-species ecosystem. Illustration © 2008 Thanya Suwansawad.









The rod-shaped D. audaxviator was recovered from thousands of liters of water collected deep in the Mponeng Mine in South Africa. Photo Credit: Micrograph by Greg Wanger, J. Craig Venter Institute, and Gordon Southam, University of Western Ontario, used with permission.

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Magnetic Anomaly Map of the World.

According to the Geological Survey of Finland, which created the map out of years of survey research:

This map is the first global compilation of the wealth of magnetic anomaly information derived from more than 50 years of aeromagnetic surveys over land areas, research vessel magnetometer traverses at sea, and observations from earth-orbiting satellites, supplemented by anomaly values derived from oceanic crustal ages. The objective is to provide an interpretive dimension to surface observations of the Earth's composition and geologic structure. Metamorphism, petrology, and redox state all have important effects on the magnetism of crustal materials.

The magnetic anomalies represented on this map originate primarily in igneous and metamorphic rocks, in the Earth's crust and possibly, uppermost mantle. Magnetic anomalies represent an estimate of the short-wavelenght (< 2600 km) fields associated with these parts of the Earth, after estimates of fields from other sources have been subtracted from the measured field magnitude. In most places the magnetic anomaly field is less than 1 per cent of the total magnetic field.









This map shows areas on the globe where there are disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field. Here, red indicates a stronger magnetic tug, and blue a weaker one (white lines are the edges of tectonic plates). As you can see, disturbances are fairly regularly distributed ...

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Earth, a one of a kind planet...

http://www.flickr.com/groups/[email protected]/pool/show/


----------



## ekim68

_Female Plant 'Communicates' Rejection Or Acceptance Of Male_

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2008) - Without eyes or ears, plants must rely on the interaction of molecules to determine appropriate mating partners and avoid inbreeding. In a new study, University of Missouri researchers have identified pollen proteins that may contribute to the signaling processes that determine if a plant accepts or rejects individual pollen grains for reproduction.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023113107.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Life's Boiling Point*

Heat-loving organisms live where the water is hot but the gene pool is shallow. Genetic analysis has shown that so-called thermophiles have fewer mutations in their protein-coding genes than do their microbial cousins that live at room temperature. This seems to imply that the opportunities to evolve decrease as temperature increases.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26894


----------



## lotuseclat79

ekim68 said:


> _Female Plant 'Communicates' Rejection Or Acceptance Of Male_
> 
> ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2008)  Without eyes or ears, plants must rely on the interaction of molecules to determine appropriate mating partners and avoid inbreeding. In a new study, University of Missouri researchers have identified pollen proteins that may contribute to the signaling processes that determine if a plant accepts or rejects individual pollen grains for reproduction.
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081023113107.htm


Hi Mike,

The way I understand it is that that is true of all females of almost any species of animal including humans, and probably insects. Must be a DNA thing we all share.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Cool volcano pictures..

http://www.upi.com/topic/Volcanoes/1/


----------



## ekim68

Well, kind of like, space-to-earth anomaly...


----------



## Gabriel

Happy birthday, Ekim


----------



## ekim68

Thank you Gabriel, another step along the way...The good thing is, I'm still learning..:up:


----------



## ekim68

Aurora gallery for November...

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01nov08_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=assv32r3ncrrlv5nt98oaq5sc1


----------



## ekim68

Cool aurora video..

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/...ven2.wmv?PHPSESSID=9vrq11qj1vnqsqeusv42hlmr87


----------



## ekim68

*All Is Bright for Jupiter, Venus*

Unwrap a bounty of night-sky gifts this holiday season: visible planets, glorious conjunctions, a close-up full moon and a change of season.

Jupiter and Venus begin December in conjunction at dusk in the southwestern sky. If the sky remains clear, the Jupiter-Venus conjunction, officially occurring tomorrow night, will be spectacular. Venus is the brighter of the two planets, and it remains high in the southwest throughout December, while the gaseous Jupiter descends the western horizon all month.

Venus, ever effervescent, is visible at negative fourth magnitude (ultra bright), and it is easily mistaken for a distant jetliner approaching Dulles International Airport with its landing lights on. Jupiter at negative second magnitude is bright enough to enjoy from the urban light-polluted sky. At month's end, Venus sets after 8 p.m., and Jupiter sets before 6 p.m.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...11/29/AR2008112901775.html?hpid=moreheadlines


----------



## ekim68

Conjunction gallery..

http://www.spaceweather.com/conjunc...age6.htm?PHPSESSID=i5ga093aq8dh1h471t9u9tvec4


----------



## ekim68

"Tongue-in-cheek", Gabriel...

*Chill out, you beautiful people, the Versace beach is refrigerated*

Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world's first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.

The beach will be next to the the new Palazzo Versace hotel which is being built in Dubai where summer temperatures average 40C and can reach 50C.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5338099.ece


----------



## ekim68

*Octopuses give eight thumbs up for high-def TV*

Sharing a movie with an insensitive eight-armed animal may not be every woman's perfect date.

Renata Pronk did it for science, and made two significant discoveries.

Her unsettling news for Christmas revellers preparing to tuck into seafood platters is that octopuses can watch television and understand at least some of what they see. Discriminating viewers, however, they enjoy only high-definition programs.

In a second finding, the Macquarie University marine biology researcher resolved a long scientific debate, discovering that octopuses, despite their intelligence, lack individual personalities.

http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/commo...?path=/articles/2008/12/21/1229794225193.html


----------



## ekim68

*Aftershock hits 281 years after quake*

HAVERHILL, N.H., Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Scientists said an earthquake felt by some New Hampshire towns during the weekend was likely an aftershock from a tremor 281 years ago.

Dr. John Ebel of the Weston Observatory in Massachusetts said the quake reported by some New Hampshire residents at about 4:35 p.m. Sunday was likely an aftershock from a 1727 earthquake in the Merrimack, N.H., area, WMUR-TV, Manchester, N.H., reported Tuesday.

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2008/12/23/Aftershock_hits_281_years_after_quake/UPI-64241230086887/


----------



## ekim68

Still looking for his 2008 version...

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2007_hb_sf.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Scientists eye unusual swarm of Yellowstone quakes*

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

"They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hklq5saMBlMynv31EbfNSka-SpOwD95COBD00


----------



## ekim68

*Four Years After Tsunami, Coral Reefs Recovering*

ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2009) - A team of scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has reported a rapid recovery of coral reefs in areas of Indonesia, following the tsunami that devastated coastal regions throughout the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227225250.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Eclipse photo gallery for January*

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_26jan09_page5.htm?PHPSESSID=s1d028680nq6plpnrvuo7fpkj1


----------



## Gabriel

Alaskan Volcanoes Site

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/index.php

And look at this Russian volcano


http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/current/klch/index.html


----------



## ekim68

Wow, that third link is very impressive...:up:


----------



## ekim68

*1709: The year that Europe froze *



> People across Europe awoke on 6 January 1709 to find the temperature had plummeted. A three-week freeze was followed by a brief thaw - and then the mercury plunged again and stayed there. From Scandinavia in the north to Italy in the south, and from Czechoslovakia in the east to the west coast of France, everything turned to ice. The sea froze. Lakes and rivers froze, and the soil froze to a depth of a metre or more. Livestock died from cold in their barns, chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travellers froze to death on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years.


http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126942.100-1709-the-year-that-europe-froze.html


----------



## ekim68

*Carbon Acts Like Rustoleum Around Hydrothermal Vents*



> In a new paper published in Nature Geoscience, Brandy Toner and her colleagues report on the unexpected discovery that some of the iron spit out of hydrothermal vents remains in a form that organisms in the ocean crave. Toner was a NASA Post Doctoral Fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution when the work began but has since taken a position as Assistant Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Toner says, "Iron doesn't behave as we had expected in hydrothermal plumes. Part of the iron from the hydrothermal fluid sticks to particulate organic matter and seems to be protected from oxidation processes." In other words, the interaction between iron and carbon in vent fluid acts like Rustoleum stopping corrosion.


http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27534


----------



## ekim68

*High-speed video captures the nuts and bolts of lightning*

New high-speed video cameras are helping reveal the structure of lightning, allowing scientists to study these deadly bolts of electricity in much greater detail than ever before.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2009-02-22-lightning-cameras_N.htm

(Some cool pictures in the gallery, a 30-second ad precedes it though.)


----------



## ekim68

_Alp-sized peaks found entombed in Antarctic ice_

OSLO (Reuters) - Jagged mountains the size of the Alps have been found entombed in Antarctica's ice, giving new clues about the vast ice sheet that will raise world sea levels if even a fraction of it melts, scientists said on Tuesday.

Using radar and gravity sensors, the experts made the first detailed maps of the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, originally detected by Russian scientists 50 years ago at the heart of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE51N3B720090224


----------



## ekim68

*Offbeat Traveler: Belize's Blue Hole*

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-offbeattraveler3-pg,0,5500669.photogallery?13


----------



## ekim68

*Alaska volcano Mount Redoubt erupts 5 times*

Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano erupted five times overnight, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles into the air in the volcano's first emissions in nearly 20 years.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/22/national/a120400D65.DTL


----------



## Gamajobert

By the way - if you want to keep up on all science news - look at PhysOrg.com - it's free.


----------



## Gamajobert

Ouch - tried to edit post 298 but couldn't.


----------



## Gamajobert

Now we seem to have 2 posts 298


----------



## ekim68

There's a lot from PhysOrg.com in the Space and Science thread..:up:


----------



## ekim68

Aurora gallery for March 2009:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01mar09_page6.htm?PHPSESSID=bpj7neejle14m8e3cn0u3c1gs6


----------



## Gabriel

Volcanic lightning event, Redoubt Volcano
Quote from article: "The lightning activity was as strong or stronger than we have seen in large Midwestern thunderstorms," Krehbiel said. "The radio frequency noise was so strong and continuous that people living in the area would not have been able to watch broadcast VHF television stations."

http://www.livescience.com/environment/090408-volcano-lightning.html


----------



## Gabriel

Go be stupid somewhere else


----------



## Gabriel

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30949358/?GT1=43001

Underground Blob


----------



## ekim68

Well, kind of like an earth anomaly.... 

*Bong! Big Ben rings in its 150th anniversary*

Defiantly low-tech yet accurate to the second, Big Ben is having its 150th birthday Sunday, its Victorian chimes carrying the sound of Britain into the 21st century.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/29/international/i085106D63.DTL


----------



## lotuseclat79

ekim68 said:


> Well, kind of like an earth anomaly....
> 
> *Bong! Big Ben rings in its 150th anniversary*
> 
> Defiantly low-tech yet accurate to the second, Big Ben is having its 150th birthday Sunday, its Victorian chimes carrying the sound of Britain into the 21st century.
> 
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/29/international/i085106D63.DTL


Hi Mike,

I don't see how Big Ben can be accurate to the second since we now add leap-seconds every so many years. Let's just say accurate to the Victorian second enough to set your waist-coat watch, eh? 

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

I agree Tom,

But, it's something they'll be proud about forever..

:up:

(Still amazes me at how long castles last..)


----------



## pyritechips

ekim68 said:


> I agree Tom,
> 
> But, it's something they'll be proud about forever..
> 
> :up:
> 
> (*Still amazes me at how long castles last*..)


As far as stonework structures are concerned they don't last that long. castle builders usually made the mistake of building directly on the soil instead of digging down to bedrock. As the top soild degrades and slumps under the castle so does its foundation. The Egyptian pyramids and Angkor Wat, for example, are much better engineered.


----------



## ekim68

Agreed Jim, but some of them still last for five hundred years and look cool..:up: 

Seems like our skyscrapers top out at about 100 years...


----------



## MagnaMater

Hm, alt least alpine castles are usually built on solid rock... they DID dig down, until they met bare rock, the most amazing thing we once found in a castle, whose bottom was completely sealed from outer influence was the 
- what was it the biologists found out - 
green variety of the yellow earthworm

its family was locked in the bottom of the castle-tower for almost an milennia, and we evil archeologists made them extinct - or rather put them into a new sourrounding befouled with masses of pink earthworms, they might not survive in as visible green variety of the yellow earth worms, if they can keep up with the mating-competition anyway... 

What destroys a castle within 70 years is a leaking roof, as visible throughout europe, the foundations usually are solid, the roofs aren't.
The tower of the castle nearby lost its roof 70 years ago during a fire - it stood for 40 years without roof, but meanwhile the wood-floors broke in - and even worse, the window-sills, and the tower sides crumbled away, until only the corners were still standing - the way I knew it as a child - I visited it again: it's been a heap of rubble now...


----------



## Gabriel

Wow, I had no idea there was a method or commonality to the deterioration of castles

Here is an article about earthworms...since they have the word earth in them, and live in it, they are certainly earth anomalies.

http://www.allaboutworms.com/earthworms


----------



## lotuseclat79

Derinkuyu: lost city found.

Amazing!

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Sky 'rains tadpoles' over Japan.

*The sky has been raining tadpoles over a coastal region in Japan, according to reports.*

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Probably better than 'cats and dogs', eh, Tom?


----------



## lotuseclat79

Animal, vegetable, or not quite mineral?.

*A rock that formed in the Triassic and wound up in the far northeast of Russia has provided the first ever example of a naturally occurring quasicrystal, a material that has forbidden crystallographic symmetries.*









Real space representation of the AlCuFe alloy found in a khatyrkite sample with forbidden five-fold symmetry. Inset: electron diffraction pattern showing five-fold symmetry Science/AAAS

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Methinks this is earthworm month

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_sc/us_worm_grunting


----------



## lotuseclat79

Mother Nature's humdingers: The awesome animals that turn the laws of science upside down.

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

_Supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens_

IS A supervolcano brewing beneath Mount St Helens? Peering under the volcano has revealed what may be an extraordinarily large zone of semi-molten rock, which would be capable of feeding a giant eruption.

Magma can be detected with a technique called magnetotellurics, which builds up a picture of what lies underground by measuring fluctuations in electric and magnetic fields at the surface. The fields fluctuate in response to electric currents travelling below the surface, induced by lightning storms and other phenomena. The currents are stronger when magma is present, since it is a better conductor than solid rock.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...o-may-be-brewing-beneath-mount-st-helens.html


----------



## ekim68

View from space:

_Sarychev Peak Eruption, Kuril Islands_

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=38985


----------



## ekim68

*NASA, Japan (nearly) finish topographic map of Earth*

NASA and the Japanese government have released what they claim is the most complete topographic map of the planet yet. The data uses detailed measurements from NASA's Terra spacecraft covering 99% of the Earth's landmass, with only the boring polar bits left out.

The new elevation model of Earth was created from nearly 1.3 million individual stereo-pair images snapped by the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emissions and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) aboard Terra. Each elevation measurement point is 30 meters (98 feet) apart, NASA said. The data was then given simulated natural color and draped over terrain models to strike a pretty picture:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/30/nasa_japan_release_99_complete_topographic_map/


----------



## ekim68

*Amazon River Is 11 Million Years Old, Drilling Study Finds*

ScienceDaily (July 8, 2009) - The Amazon River originated as a transcontinental river around 11 million years ago and took its present shape approximately 2.4 million years ago. These are the most significant results of a study on two boreholes drilled in proximity of the mouth of the Amazon River by Petrobras, the national oil company of Brazil.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090707155827.htm


----------



## ekim68

*Huge blob of Arctic goo floats past Slope communities*

_IT'S NOT OIL: No one in the area can recall seeing anything like it before._

Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow.

Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department.

http://www.adn.com/2835/story/864687.html


----------



## Gabriel

More on the Blob

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090718/us_time/08599191151700


----------



## ekim68

Wow, thanks Gabriel...Lots of changes going on nowadays...


----------



## Gabriel

Oh my, check it out

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/nightclouds?npu=1&mbid=yhp


----------



## ekim68

*China dust cloud circled globe in 13 days*

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dust clouds generated by a huge dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite has found.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE56J3YH20090720


----------



## lotuseclat79

Gabriel said:


> Oh my, check it out
> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/nightclouds?npu=1&mbid=yhp


Hi Gabriel,

Ooooooo, weeeee. ooooooo - there're here!

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

*New Zealand Tree Stuck in a Time Warp*

A eucalyptus-like tree that grows in New Zealand is still defending itself from a giant bird that died out about 500 years ago. The lancewood tree changes its appearance twice in its lifetime--an adaptation, a new study suggests, that prevented it from being eaten by flightless moas.

As a seedling, the lancewood tree (Pseudopanax crassifolius) sprouts small, brown, blotchy leaves. Then, as a sapling, its leaves grow into footlong spears with tiny barbs along the edge. Finally, the adult lancewood, which can reach a height of 20 meters, sports rounded, nondescript green leaves. Many scientists think that the tree evolved these metamorphoses to avoid moas, the main herbivores on the islands and a relative of emus and ostriches that humans hunted to extinction.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/724/1


----------



## ekim68

Wow, it's been erupting since Dec. 2006 and I never heard of it...

*Volcanic ash rises to 23,000 feet*

PETROPAVLOVSK, Russia, July 26 (UPI) -- Volcanic ash reached 23,000 feet above Petropavlovsk in Russia's Far East as the country's northernmost active volcano continued erupting, a geophysicist said.

The Shiveluch volcano began erupting in December 2006 and hasn't stopped since. The 10,771-foot volcano is on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/07/26/Volcanic-ash-rises-to-23000-feet/UPI-90521248657682/


----------



## ekim68

July Aurora gallery:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01jul09_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=vvnn1iip2pk2ipuimssamhoog7


----------



## ekim68

*Rat-eating plant discovered in Philippines*

POOLE, England, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- British scientists said they have discovered a plant in the Philippines that feeds by luring and consuming rats.

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/08...discovered-in-Philippines/UPI-77981250540627/

(I know, not really the usual Earth Anomalies kind of thing, but.. )


----------



## ekim68

*The Greenhouse Gas That Saved The World*

_Chemistry researchers uncover why the archean world was not frozen solid_

When Planet Earth was just cooling down from its fiery creation, the sun was faint and young. So faint that it should not have been able to keep the oceans of earth from freezing. But fortunately for the creation of life, water was kept liquid on our young planet. For years scientists have debated what could have kept earth warm enough to prevent the oceans from freezing solid. Now a team of researchers from Tokyo Institute of Technology and University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry have coaxed an explanation out of ancient rocks, as reported in this week's issue of PNAS
A perfect greenhouse gas

- "The young sun was approximately 30 percent weaker than it is now, and the only way to prevent earth from turning into a massive snowball was a healthy helping of greenhouse gas," Associate Professor Matthew S. Johnson of the Department of Chemistry explains. And he has found the most likely candidate for an archean atmospheric blanket. Carbonyl Sulphide: A product of the sulphur disgorged during millennia of volcanic activity.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29010


----------



## lotuseclat79

Freak waves spotted from space.

*Esa tasked two of its Earth-scanning satellites to monitor the oceans with their radar
The shady phenomenon of freak waves as tall as 10 story buildings has finally been proved, the European Space Agency (Esa) said on Wednesday.*

-- Tom


----------



## iltos

ekim68 said:


> *Rat-eating plant discovered in Philippines*
> 
> POOLE, England, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- British scientists said they have discovered a plant in the Philippines that feeds by luring and consuming rats.
> 
> http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/08...discovered-in-Philippines/UPI-77981250540627/
> 
> (I know, not really the usual Earth Anomalies kind of thing, but.. )


maybe not, ekim, but that is just too cool :up:


----------



## lotuseclat79

650 Million Years in 1 Min 20 Sec (Video).

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Lightning's mirror image... only much bigger.

*With a very lucky shot, scientists have captured a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm.*









Trees form a horizon from which a gigantic jet emerges; the thunderstorm is 200 miles away. Credit: Steven Cummer









A gigantic jet, coming from a thunderstorm in N.C. on May 9, 2009, as it expands. Credit: Steve Cummer

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Northern Lights slideshow:

http://www.slideshare.net/Thilini/amazing-northern-lights-presentation


----------



## lotuseclat79

Video of "upside-down" lightning (2 short clips).

*Scientists capture one-second image of huge lightning flowing 40 miles upward from storm*

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Aurora, August 2009:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01aug09.htm?PHPSESSID=qt707sg6gk9bjf8v893er6rl30


----------



## lotuseclat79

Scientists discover surprise in Earth's upper atmosphere.

*UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere.*



> The rate at which the solar wind transfers energy to the magnetosphere can vary widely, but what determines the rate of energy transfer is unclear.


-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

*NASA Astrobiology Institute Research Reveals Major Insight into Evolution of Life on Earth*

Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found.

By comparing proteins present in more than 3000 different prokaryotes - a type of single-celled organism without a nucleus - molecular biologist James A. Lake from the University of California at Los Angeles' Center for Astrobiology showed that two major classes of relatively simple microbes fused together more than 2.5 billion years ago.

http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29126


----------



## ekim68

Tornado pics:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...ured-storm-chasing-photographer-Jim-Reed.html


----------



## ekim68

Venus and the Moon this morning...

http://spaceweather.com/submissions...name=Yuichi-Takasaka-C103-8349_1253105300.jpg


----------



## lotuseclat79

6 Russian Volcanoes Erupt Simultaneously (Scientific American - Video).

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Aurora gallery, October:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01oct09_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=44nvbvj593eb78o4ag7gm7b6f5


----------



## lotuseclat79

Like a hungry teen, life on Earth had big growth spurts.

*Twice in the Earth's history, living creatures underwent astonishing growth spurts, and each time, new organisms emerged that were a million times larger than anything that had existed before.*

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

*Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert*

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.

Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE59S3LT20091029


----------



## ekim68

Earth pics from a satellite.......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/nov/04/satellite-eye-october?picture=355110690


----------



## ekim68

*12-mile-long monster iceberg drifting toward Australia*

A 12-mile-long monster iceberg that broke off from Antarctica 10 years ago is drifting toward Australia in what scientists are calling a once-in-a-century event.

Neal Young, a glaciologist with the Australia Antarctic Division, says satellite imagery shows the 54 square-mile ice slab known as B17B to be about 1,000 miles south of the continent.

He says such sightings have not occurred since the 19th century.

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...g-monster-iceberg-drifting-toward-australia/1


----------



## ekim68

*Philippine volcano gets louder, could blow up soon*

The Philippines' Mayon volcano turned up the heat with lava fountains and loud rumbling sounds Monday, and officials said it was getting closer to a major eruption that could come at any time.

Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated from the foothills as a precaution, but authorities are having trouble keeping them away from their homes and farms, said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province, about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/20/international/i032605S73.DTL&tsp=1


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## ekim68

*Scientists still expect volcano eruption*

MANILA, Philippines, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Scientists monitoring the Mayon volcano in the Philippines say a recent lull in activity could be the calm before the storm of a major eruption.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Interna...l-expect-volcano-eruption/UPI-20341261877185/


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## ekim68

Solar eclipse in the East today:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_15jan10_page2.htm?PHPSESSID=9uqbo02i3gcavs3qedi8h15t54


----------



## ekim68

*Giant iceberg breaks off from Antarctic glacier*

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61P15H20100226


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## Gabriel

Whoa, that sky view of the ice is incredible Ekim


----------



## ekim68

*Chilean earthquake moved entire city 10 feet, researchers say*

The massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile last month moved the entire city of Concepcion -- the closest urban area to the quake's epicenter -- at least 10 feet west, American researchers said Monday.

Chile's capital, Santiago, moved about 11 inches to the west-southwest, while Buenos Aires, all the way across the continent from the quake site, moved about an inch to the west, the researchers said. The cities of Valparaiso and Mendoza, Argentina, both northeast of Concepcion, also moved significantly.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-sci-chile-quake9-2010mar09,0,4688845.story


----------



## ekim68

March Aurora gallery:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01mar10_page4.htm?PHPSESSID=1r44r7vkiiue9l625ld2oqbn12


----------



## ekim68

*Sunk by global warming? Wave goodbye to this disputed island*

India and Bangladesh have been trying to snatch from each other a tiny landmass that first surfaced in the 1970s in the Bay of Bengal. It has resubmerged, an apparent casualty of climate change.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-disappearing-island25-2010mar25,0,3895432.story


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## lotuseclat79

Not so fast! Andes rise was gradual, not abrupt.

*Trailing like a serpent's spine along the western coast of South America, the Andes are the world's longest continental mountain range and the highest range outside Asia, with an average elevation of 13,000 feet.*









Aerial photo of a portion of the Andes between Argentina and Chile. Image: Wikipedia

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Was a giant comet responsible for a North American catastrophe in 11000 BC?.

*13,000 years ago the Earth was struck by thousands of Tunguska-sized cometary fragments over the course of an hour, leading to a dramatic cooling of the planet, according to astronomer Professor Bill Napier of the Cardiff University Astrobiology Centre. He presents his new model in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.*









HST image of fragment B of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. Credit: NASA / ESA / H. Weaver (JHU/APL) / M. Mutchler / Z. Levay (STScI)

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

*Britain Closes Airspace as Volcanic Ash Spreads*

LONDON - British civil aviation authorities ordered the closing of the country's airspace as of noon on Thursday to shield aircraft from a high-altitude cloud of ash drifting south and east from an erupting volcano in Iceland. The plume shut down airports and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights in a wide arc from Ireland to Scandinavia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/europe/16ash.html?hp


----------



## ekim68

*Iceland volcano eruption could last months*

The last time Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano blew, the eruption lasted more than a year, from December 1821 until January 1823, reports Sally Sennert, a geologist at the Smithsonian Institution.

"This seems similar to what's happening now," she says.

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...d-volcano-eruption-could-last-months/1?csp=hf


----------



## Gabriel

Ash plume from Iceland volcano

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43670


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## ekim68

Wow, that's amazing Gabriel....In a weird kind of way, it's like Mother Earth burping, and it's not a pleasant burp..


----------



## Gabriel

Airplanes don't like the burps either


----------



## Gabriel

More Iceland volcano pics

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/more_from_eyjafjallajokull.html


----------



## Knotbored

Remind me how my gas lawnmower exhaust has a bigger influence on global weather then natural occurances like volcanos and forest fires.


----------



## ekim68

Do you have a muffler on that lawnmower? Ear pollution, eh?


----------



## ekim68

*Toxic 100 Air Polluters Press Release*



> The top five air polluters among large corporations are the Bayer Group, ExxonMobil, Sunoco, DuPont, and Arcelor Mittal. The Toxic 100 Air Polluters rankings have been expanded to include large privately held firms, such as number 10 Koch Industries, as well as the world's largest publicly traded corporations.


Here


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## ekim68

Wow Gabriel, I just looked at those pictures and they're fantastic...:up:


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## ekim68

*In the long run, all that ash can be a good thing*

Volcano ash can wreck jet engines, poison freshwater lakes and damage lungs. But it helps fertilize oceans, volcano researchers and marine chemists say.

"The ocean is gonna be happier" because of the Iceland eruption, said Ken Johnson, senior scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. "Plants will grow more" - although how much more, he said, is unclear.

About 30% of the oceans are what scientists call iron-limited - rich in many nutrients but missing iron, a crucial trace element for plants. Once the microscopic marine plants known as phytoplankton run out of iron, they can't grow any further.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...mostviewed+(L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories)


----------



## lotuseclat79

Scientists find ancient asphalt domes off California coast.

*They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California's jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist.*









High-resolution bathymetry shows extinct asphalt volcanoes on the sea-floor off California. Credit: Dana Yoerger, WHOI

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

May Aurora gallery:

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01may10.htm?PHPSESSID=faiqe9cv38t25m19pbjfiuuh50


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## ekim68

It was 30 years ago today that Mt. St. Helens blew up. We live about 150 miles to the south of it and for almost a week afterwards we were cleaning ash off the cars and sidewalks...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens


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## ekim68

Some pictures from that Mt. St. Helen blast:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/mount_st_helens_30_years_ago.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7


----------



## lotuseclat79

Australian scientists find Timor Sea meteorite crater.

*Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth's climate, the lead researcher said Thursday.*









A Leonid meteor storm in 1999. Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth's climate, the lead researcher said Thursday. (AFP/File/Jamal Nasrallah)

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

ekim68 said:


> It was 30 years ago today that Mt. St. Helens blew up. We live about 150 miles to the south of it and for almost a week afterwards we were cleaning ash off the cars and sidewalks...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens


That's incredible, must have been an eerie feeling


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## ekim68

Gabriel said:


> That's incredible, must have been an eerie feeling


I was weird for a while, we never saw a clear sun during that time...


----------



## ekim68

Well, still an anomaly....

*Farmers brace for grasshopper invasion *



> A major infestation of grasshoppers could descend this summer on Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and the Dakotas, damaging rangeland and crops, ranchers, farmers and scientists say.
> 
> In some places, this summer could be the worst for grasshoppers since the mid-1980s, said Charles Brown, a grasshopper suppression specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2010-05-25-grasshoppers_N.htm


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## Gabriel

When I stayed in Arizona one spring we had an eerie invasion ...they were in a swarm. I was beatin' them off my garden plants like the woman in the movie "The Good Earth". I mixed up a batch of pepper spray, and sprayed my garden. They would land, and take a bite and squirm, and fall to the ground, and get up, and fly away from my garden...ate the tree leaves up all around, but my garden stayed pretty intact...nasty little buggers


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## ekim68

> On May 1, 2010, 4:17 Pm Volcano Photographers Steve & Donna O'Meara were stunned when they photographed a perfectly shaped Volcanic Smoke Ring blown out by Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Southern Iceland.


http://www.spaceweather.com/submiss...E-RING-Eyjafjallajokull-OMEARA_1274491323.jpg


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## Blackmirror

ekim68 said:


> http://www.spaceweather.com/submiss...E-RING-Eyjafjallajokull-OMEARA_1274491323.jpg


wow thats a lovely image

Volcano blowing smoke rings


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## ekim68

*Thousands flee volcanoes, 2 dead*

GUATEMALA CITY, May 29 (UPI) -- Eruptions of volcanoes in Guatemala and Ecuador have forced thousands of people to flee their homes and left at least two dead, officials said Saturday.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Interna...nds-flee-volcanoes-2-dead/UPI-17671275140124/


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## Gabriel

Old new fault found in Eastern US

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37407341/ns/technology_and_science-science/


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## ekim68

Wow, 500 million years old...Mathematics is mind-boggling at times, eh?


----------



## Gabriel

ekim68 said:


> Wow, 500 million years old...Mathematics is mind-boggling at times, eh?


I can't even fathom one million years


----------



## lotuseclat79

YouTube - Guatemala Sinkhole - Gates of Hell or UFO Invasion (1:46).









Two teens died and a dozen homes were swallowed up Friday by this sinkhole in Guatemala City. AP photo

Reference: Third body pulled from giant sinkhole.

*Guatemala military might use explosion to open clogged sewer main*

-- Tom


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## ekim68

More on that:

*Don't Call The Guatemala Sinkhole a Sinkhole*

The giant sinkhole that opened beneath downtown Guatemala City over the weekend is all the rage right now. There's just one problem: it isn't a sinkhole.

"Sure, it looks a lot like a sinkhole," geologist Sam Bonis told Discovery News from his home in Guatemala. "And a whale looks a lot like a fish, but calling it one would be very misleading."

Instead, Bonis prefers the term "piping feature" -- a decidedly less sexy label for the 100-foot deep, 66-foot wide circular chasm. But it's an important distinction, he maintains, because "sinkholes" refer to areas where bedrock is solid but has been eaten away by groundwater, forming a geological Swiss cheese whose contours are nearly impossible to predict.

The situation beneath the country's capital is far different, and more dangerous.

The lion's share of the city is built on pumice fill -- ash flows made up of loose, gravel-like particles deposited during ancient volcanic eruptions. In places, the debris is piled over 600 feet thick, filling up what would otherwise be a v-shaped valley of faulted bedrock. For those peering into the deep dark depths wondering what might be at the bottom, it's either more pumice fill or bedrock. Mixed with a healthy dose of wreckage from the swallowed-up clothing factory.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/dont-call-the-guatemala-sinkhole-a-sinkhole.html


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## lotuseclat79

Pictures: Guatemala Sinkhole Adds to World's Famous Pits (10).

National Geographic clarifies the use of sinkhole (to define the new Guatemala sinkhole) as fitting into a broader use of the term.

-- Tom


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## ekim68

Could be a Mars anomaly, too...

*Methane Eaters at Lost Hammer*

Researchers at McGill's department of natural resources, the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto and the SETI Institute have discovered that methane-eating bacteria survive in a highly unique spring located on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's extreme North.

Lyle Whyte, McGill University microbiologist explains that the Lost Hammer spring supports microbial life, that the spring is similar to possible past or present springs on Mars, and that therefore they too could support life.

The subzero water is so salty that it doesn't freeze despite the cold, and it has no consumable oxygen in it. There are, however, big bubbles of methane that come to the surface, which had provoked the researchers' curiosity as to whether the gas was being produced geologically or biologically and whether anything could survive in this extreme hypersaline subzero environment.

http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/3519/methane-eaters-at-lost-hammer


----------



## ekim68

*Airplanes Punch Holes in Clouds, Make it Rain*

If you've ever been lucky enough to see a hole-punch cloud form in the afternoon sky (above), you'd be forgiven for thinking a UFO landed somewhere near by. But according to a new study, the clouds form when much more pedestrian flying objects -- turboprop and jet airplanes -- fly through and change water droplets into ice crystals.

Droplets in many clouds exist in a strange supercooled state; they can be as cold as -34 degrees C (-35 degrees F), well below freezing, and yet remain in liquid form. When airplanes come cruising through, they can cause a quick drop in temperature that freezes the droplets. Suddenly the cloud is populated by ice crystals. Droplets begin condensing around them in a chain reaction and then -- poof! -- a hole of blue sky appears where fluffy white cloud had been.

Where does the water and ice go? It falls to Earth, either as snow or rain -- sometimes a fair amount of it.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/airplanes-punch-holes-in-clouds-make-it-rain.html


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## ekim68

Noctilucent clouds and a stork in Poland.........

http://www.spaceweather.com/submiss...ge_name=Marek-Nikodem-DSC_5792_1277770184.jpg


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## ekim68

*Agave Plant Blooms at the Zoo*

Standing an impressive 12 feet tall with vibrant yellow flowers at its tip, the agave plant is in bloom at the National Zoo. The plant, whose Latin name is Agave parryi, has been at the Zoo for many years, but the exact age of the plant is unknown. An agave plant blooms once in its lifetime, usually between ten and 25 years of age. The species is pollinated by hummingbirds and can blossom for a significant period of time, depending on the weather and pollinators. Once the flowering period has ended, the plant dies; however, it will set off pups in order for the species to survive.

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/BackyardBiology/ZooLivingBackyard/Gardens/agave.cfm


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## ekim68

Posted in another thread so I borrowed it and put it here...

http://www.extremeinstability.com/


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## lotuseclat79

ekim68 said:


> *Agave Plant Blooms at the Zoo*
> 
> Standing an impressive 12 feet tall with vibrant yellow flowers at its tip, the agave plant is in bloom at the National Zoo. The plant, whose Latin name is Agave parryi, has been at the Zoo for many years, but the exact age of the plant is unknown. An agave plant blooms once in its lifetime, usually between ten and 25 years of age. The species is pollinated by hummingbirds and can blossom for a significant period of time, depending on the weather and pollinators. Once the flowering period has ended, the plant dies; however, it will set off pups in order for the species to survive.
> 
> http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/BackyardBiology/ZooLivingBackyard/Gardens/agave.cfm


Hi Mike,

When it blooms, they have the perfect opportunity to import some Mexican labor to harvest the Agave plant and send it back to the producer's of fine Tequila in Mexico to produce a version with the Zoo's label on it, eh?

-- Tom


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## ekim68

Well the Klingons said nothing should be wasted, eh?


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## ekim68

High Above the Earth, Satellites Track Melting Ice



> The surest sign of a warming Earth is the steady melting of its ice zones, from disappearing sea ice in the Arctic to shrinking glaciers worldwide. Now, scientists are using increasingly sophisticated satellite technology to measure the extent, thickness, and height of ice, assembling an essential picture of a planet in transition.
> 
> After carbon dioxide, the substance most crucial in determining how climate change will play out over the next century and beyond isn't a greenhouse gas - it's the solid state of the molecule H20. Summer melt in the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean exposes heat-absorbing seawater to the sun, accelerating global warming in a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. Summer melting in the land-based ice that covers Greenland is increasingly responsible for the sea-level rise that has already begun to endanger many thousands of miles of coastline. Glaciers moving more rapidly to the sea, in both Greenland and Antarctica, threaten to raise sea level even higher, *while disappearing mountain glaciers around the world could choke off water supplies to many hundreds of millions of people.*


----------



## ekim68

Mangrove forests could combat tsunamis



> WASHINGTON, July 12 (UPI) -- Coastal mangrove forests could substantially reduce the damage from tsunamis like the 2004 disaster that struck Indonesia, researchers say.
> 
> A study of an Indonesian coastline ravaged by the December 2004 tsunami has estimated the buffering capacity of intact mangrove forests, which could protect homes and buildings, ScienceNews.org reported Friday.


----------



## Gabriel

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc&vid=20833085

Do you know the driest desert on earth?


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## ekim68

Big chunk of Greenland glacier breaks off



> Seven-square miles of a Greenland glacier broke up on July 6 and 7, moving the edge of the glacier a mile inland in one day, the furthest inland it has ever been observed.


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## ekim68

Comparative photos of Mount Everest 'confirm ice loss'



> Photos taken by a mountaineer on Everest from the same spot where similar pictures were taken in 1921 have revealed an "alarming" ice loss.


----------



## ekim68

Some pics of the solar eclipse last week:

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_11jul10_page5.htm?PHPSESSID=re20cso55ngn9qsa2gdcvq5dv5


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## ekim68

First-of-its-Kind Map Depicts Global Forest Heights


----------



## Gabriel

Bahamas Bue Holes

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2010-07-21-bahamas21_ST_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

Icelandic rifts and other great volcanic clips

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/earth-building-wounds/26x49vpp?from=en-us_msnhp&GT1=42007


----------



## ekim68

Rainforest trees better for environment



> CANBERRA, Australia, July 30 (UPI) -- Australian researchers say reforestation of damaged rainforests is better for the environment than planting single-species plantations in their place.
> 
> Mixed-species rainforests are much more efficient at capturing carbon than softwood monoculture plantations, an article published in the journal Ecological Management & Restoration says.


----------



## ekim68

Northern Lights may make rare appearance across America



> Solar storms could give Americans from Montana to Maine a rare chance to view the Northern Lights tonight and Wednesday night.
> 
> The Aurora Borealis, commonly seen over northern Canada and Alaska, could be viewable farther south than usual the next couple of nights, scientists say. That means they might be visible from parts of Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine.


----------



## ekim68

Man made Earth anomaly....

New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean



> Scientists previously mapped huge floating trash patches in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but now a husband-wife team researching plastic garbage in the Indian Ocean suggest a new and dire view. "The world's oceans are covered with a thin plastic soup," says Anna Cummins, cofounder of 5 Gyres Institute.


(Thank you consumerism... )


----------



## ekim68

Giant ice island breaks off Greenland



> A giant ice island has broken off the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland.
> 
> A University of Delaware researcher says the floating ice sheet covers 100 square miles - more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved.

*Oceanographic surveyors of the sea floor in the area of the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea region between continental Europe and Great Britain have discovered significant quantities of methane hydrates and older eruption sites.*

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Chunk of Original Earth Found.

*A piece of pristine, hot rock from the earliest years of Earth's formation is found in northern Canada.*



> THE GIST
> 
> * Lava rocks have been found that are made from a hidden pocket of Earth's earliest mantle.
> * The lava rocks are 60 million years old, but the mantle they come from is 4.5 billion years old.
> * No one knows how common such undisturbed, virgin mantle there is.











A view of Baffin Island's flood basalt lava cliffs in northern Canada. The cliffs are made from the oldest material on Earth. Credit: Don Francis

-- Tom


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## ekim68

Well kind of like earth and sky, eh? 

Meteor shower to light up skies tonight

Tonight and tomorrow night...


----------



## ekim68

Volcano quiet for 400 years erupts in Indonesia



> JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A volcano in western Indonesia spewed hot lava and sand high into the sky early Sunday in its first eruption in 400 years.
> 
> Government volcanologist Surono, who uses only one name, said Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province started rumbling a few days ago and the minor morning eruption has mostly stopped.


----------



## ekim68

Home of "Ice Giants" thaws, shows pre-Viking hunts



> (Reuters) - Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains.


----------



## ekim68

September Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Chernobyl plant life endures radioactivity



> Scientists have uncovered mechanisms that allow plants to thrive in highly radioactive environments like Chernobyl.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Egyptian Desert Expedition Confirms Spectacular Meteorite Impact.



> *A 2008 Google Earth search led to the discovery of Kamil crater, one of the best-preserved meteorite impact sites ever found. Earlier this year, a gritty, sand-blown expedition reached the site deep in the Egyptian desert to collect iron debris and determine the crater's age and origins.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Using ground-penetrating radar to study the impact crater. (Credit: L. Folco/The Kamillers)


-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Rare melt key to 'Ring of Fire'.

*Oxford University scientists have discovered the explanation for why the world?s explosive volcanoes are confined to bands only a few tens of kilometres wide, such as those along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire'.*









Scientists investigated why the world's explosive volcanoes are confined to bands only a few tens of kilometres wide

-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

It's bad enough with one volcano in the neighborhood, but two....

Twin Russian volcanoes erupting



> Twin volcanoes on Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula are pumping massive ash clouds into the air, covering nearby towns in ash and causing planes to be diverted. However so far there have been no injuries.


----------



## ekim68

Massive crater opens up in German town



> A crater some 65 feet (20 meters) deep has opened up in a residential area of an eastern German town - swallowing a car and a garage door but causing no injuries.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth's climate change 20,000 years ago reversed the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean.



> *An international team of investigators under the leadership of two researchers from the UAB demonstrates the response of the Atlantic Ocean circulation to climate change in the past. Global warming today could have similar effects on ocean currents and could accelerate climate change.*


-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth's dust tail points to alien planets.



> *Did you know that the Earth has a dust tail? The Spitzer Space Telescope sailed right through it a few months ago, giving researchers a clear idea of what it looks like. That could be a big help to planet hunters trying to track down alien worlds.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An artist's concept of Spitzer passing through Earth's dusty tail
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A computer simulation of Earth's dust tail/ring seen from a vantage point outside our solar system. Colors indicate density; purple is lowest, red is highest. Credit: Christopher Stark, GSFC


-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Did you know that Planet Earth has a metabolism?

Novel ocean-crust mechanism could affect world's carbon budget.



> *The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet's metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bathymetry of a rift segment of the North Guaymas spreading center in the central Gulf of California shows a series of subsurface features. They are interpreted to be shallow sills intruded into the sediment-filled basin up to 50 km from the rift axis (lower left). High-resolution imaging by sidescan sonar revealed nearly 100 potential hydrothermal vent sites (yellow points) believed to result from widespread emplacement of magma over an area 10 times wider than expected at mid-ocean ridges. Deep-sea photographic surveys at some of the sites (red points) found elevated temperatures and methane concentrations in near-bottom waters and vibrant chemosynthetic animal communities (upper right, photo, about 5m across) containing tubeworms, clams, crabs, bacterial mats, and microbially precipitated carbonate deposits. The intrusion of magma into the sediments has the potential to release significant amounts of carbon from the sediments, previously thought to act as a long term carbon repository. (Graphic by S. Adam Soule, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)


-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

November Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Solar Storms Could Bring Northern Lights South



> Increased solar activity could give residents of the continental U.S., southern Europe and Japan the chance to see the northern lights for the first time in several years.
> 
> The National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Center says the sun is entering a period of high activity, marked by more sunspots and a greater chance of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, hitting the Earth. That would result in auroras being visible much further from the poles than they usually are.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Oxygen's challenge to early life.



> *The conventional view of the history of the Earth is that the oceans became oxygen-rich to approximately the degree they are today in the Late Ediacaran Period (about 600 million years ago) after staying relatively oxygen-poor for the preceding four billion years. But biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside have found evidence that shows that the ocean went back to being "anoxic" or oxygen-poor around 499 million years ago, soon after the first appearance of animals on the planet, and remained anoxic for 2-4 million years. What's more, the researchers suggest that such anoxic conditions may have been commonplace over a much broader interval of time, with their data capturing a particularly good example.*


-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth is getting dustier, model suggests.



> *If the house seems dustier than it used to be, it may not be a reflection on your housekeeping skills. The amount of dust in the Earth's atmosphere has doubled over the last century, according to a new study; and the dramatic increase is influencing climate and ecology around the world.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Desert dust and climate influence each other directly and indirectly through a host of intertwined systems.


Related article: China may need 300 years to beat desertification.



> *Huge population pressures, scarce rainfall and climate change have made China the world's biggest victim of desertification, a problem that could take 300 years to reverse, state media said Wednesday.*


-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

A few pics from the solar eclipse on January 4th.....

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_04jan11_page3.htm?PHPSESSID=81o8vp5j34ik3qb87ii8hfg7o4


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## ekim68

Alaskan language to be preserved 



> BARROW, Alaska, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- American Indians in Alaska and language-software company Rosetta Stone have partnered in a project to teach the Inupiaq language.
> 
> Edna MacLean, who was born in Barrow and taught Inupiaq at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, spent two years working on Inupiaq software, the Anchorage Daily News reported. This included translating words such as "computer" into Inupiaq.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland Ice Sheets Melt At Record Rate In 2010



> Ice sheets in Greenland are melting faster than ever before, according to new research.
> 
> The study, led by Marco Tedesco, director of the Cryospheric Processes laboratory at the City College of New York, showed that the melting index had broken the previous record, set in 2007.
> 
> "Melting in 2010 started exceptionally early at the end of April and ended quite late in mid- September," Tedesco said in a statement. "This past melt season was exceptional, with melting in some areas stretching up to 50 days longer than average."
> 
> A melting Greenland ice sheet contributes to sea level rise, which has occurred at a mean rate of about 1.8 millimeters per year over the past century. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely it would raise sea levels by 7 meters. But that is unlikely to happen for several centuries at least.


----------



## ekim68

March Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

April Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Yellowstone Supervolcano Bigger Than Thought



> The gigantic underground plume of partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano might be bigger than previously thought, a new image suggests.
> 
> The study says nothing about the chances of a cataclysmic eruption at Yellowstone, but it provides scientists with a valuable new perspective on the vast and deep reservoir of fiery material that feeds such eruptions, the last of which occurred more than 600,000 years ago. [Related: Infographic - The Geology of Yellowstone.]


----------



## lotuseclat79

New Cross-Section Reveals What's Beneath North America.



> *To see the big picture of North America, look no further than a new detailed cross-section of the continent that ventures down to its deepest roots and has uncovered a mystery at its very foundation.
> 
> Scientists constructed the cut-away map, which is curved just as Earth's surface is, from geological, geochemical and geophysical data collected for more than 20 years as part of the Canadian Lithoprobe project.
> 
> The map starts where the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate dives beneath the North American tectonic plate at the Cascadia subduction zone on the West Coast. It then reaches more than 3,700 miles (6,000 km) east to the Atlantic margin and delves to the very base of the continent at depths as great as 170 miles (270 km). *


Related links:

Slabs of North American Continent Are Layered Like Cake.









This graphic shows the thickness (in kilometers) of the North American lithosphere. The blue area is about 250 km thick and composed of a 3-billion-year old craton underlain by younger lithosphere deposited as ocean floor subducted under the continent within the past billion years. The green, yellow and red areas are younger and thinner continental lithosphere added around the margins of the original craton, also by subducting sea floor. The thick broken line indicates the borders of the stable part of the continent. Credit: Barbara Romanowicz and Huaiyu Yuan, UC Berkeley

New Study Describes How Earth's Surface Moves.









The sinking of the Farallon plate beneath the North American continent over 30 million years created the geologic feature known as the Basin and Range Province, an area of the western United States that encompasses much of Nevada, seen here in a topographic model. Credit: Mike Sandiford/University of Melbourne.

-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Earth's gravity field anomalies

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GRACE/page3.php


----------



## ekim68

Day to night...

June 4, 2011 Noctilucent Clouds and Aurora, Trout Lake, Bovey, MN


----------



## ekim68

Volcanic Ash Sunset


----------



## ekim68

Rare Snowfall Falls in Dry Desert 



> One of the driest places on the planet got a wintry blast this week.
> 
> The Atacama Desert region in Chile was coated with its heaviest snow cover in nearly two decades, the BBC reported. An estimated 31.5 inches (80 centimeters) piled up in the normally arid region.
> 
> A cold front moved through the region this week, bringing colder than usual weather, even though it's the Southern Hemisphere winter, to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The temperature in Santiago, Chile, plunged to 17.6 degrees Fahrenheit(minus 8.5 degrees Celsius) on July 6.


----------



## Gabriel

Alaskan Volcano Advisory

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4385591.../alaskan-volcano-showing-signs-it-will-erupt/


----------



## Gabriel

Here is the most current volcano activity tracker on that region of the world I could find. As can be seen, a few vocanoes in Russia are on watch alert.

http://avo.alaska.edu/activity/


----------



## lotuseclat79

Earth is getting fatter.



> *Like many of its inhabitants, the Earth is getting thicker around the middle -- that's what a new study out this week says. The increased bulge is due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the thinning of ice sheets to the flow of water through aquifers and the slow currents of magma inside Earth, measurements of the amount of mass involved provided by GRACE help scientists better understand these important natural processes. Credit: NASA


-- Tom


----------



## Gabriel

Could someone explain how huge solar storms coud cause telegraph papers to catch fire.

http://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-prepare-solar-storms-set-hit-earth-144759933.html


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## ekim68

Well the first thing, IMO, would be communications which could affect programs designed to keep power grids going, and the next could be the international power grids that structurally withstand magnetic and electromagnetic stresses on their systems.....

Just a guess....


----------



## lotuseclat79

A billion-year-old piece of North America traced back to Antarctica.



> *An international team of researchers has found the strongest evidence yet that parts of North America and Antarctica were connected 1.1 billion years ago, long before the supercontinent Pangaea formed.*


-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Gabriel said:


> Could someone explain how huge solar storms coud cause telegraph papers to catch fire.
> 
> http://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-prepare-solar-storms-set-hit-earth-144759933.html


Hi Gabriel,

My guess is that when the telegraph equipment sustained electrical shock, a spark was generated which caused the telegraph papers to catch on fire.

Just a guess!

-- Tom


----------



## lotuseclat79

Antiproton Radiation Belt Discovered Around Earth.



> *Physicists have long suspected that antiprotons must become trapped in a belt around Earth. Now they've found it.*


-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Long-studied Greenland glacier melting



> SHEFFIELD, England, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- The longest-observed glacier in Greenland is melting faster than expected from the effects of climate change, researchers say.
> 
> Researchers from Europe and the United States said the Mittivakkat Glacier experienced two consecutive record losses of ice mass in 2010 and 2011.


----------



## ekim68

Hurricane Irene, as seen from space (video, and snapshot by astronaut)


----------



## ekim68

Canadian glacial river runs dry



> ATLIN, British Columbia, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A glacial river feeding a large Canadian lake has gone dry, leaving a muddy riverbed strewn with icebergs and dropping the lake's level 50 feet, hikers say.
> 
> "We were able to walk right into the river bed and stand among the 60-foot icebergs that are grounded now," hiker Diana Thayer of Atlin, British Columbia told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. of the scene she and her companions found near the Llewellyn Glacier along the Sloko Inlet trail in late August.
> 
> "It just seemed the plug had been pulled on a bathtub."
> 
> Thayer said as a result Atlin Lake -- British Columbia's largest natural lake -- has "dropped about 50 feet and perhaps is still draining."


----------



## ekim68

Strange Life Forms at Hydrothermal Vents



> Explorers on NOAA expedition discover chemosynthetic shrimp, tubeworms together for first time at hydrothermal vent, also first live vent tubeworms seen in Atlantic waters.


----------



## ekim68

September Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

First ever image of fourth-order rainbow



> Now a German sky photographer has gone not just one, but two, better: this photo reveals the first fourth-order rainbow ever reported - and only the second third-order rainbow to be photographed. It comes hot on the heels of the first ever photograph of a third-order rainbow - taken by another German sky photographer.
> 
> It's not obvious just by looking at the image, taken by Michael Theusner, that these two bows are tertiary and quaternary. That's because the image does not capture the primary and secondary (first and second order) rainbows, which are on the other side of the sky and so don't fit in the shot. But there is a clue that this is indeed what they are.


----------



## Gabriel

Etna erupting
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/mount-etnas-eruption-inte_n_942268.html


----------



## ekim68

During the current geomagnetic storm on our Sun, the northern lights have shifted as far south as Arkansas..

Some Pics


----------



## ekim68

Canary Islands Eruption: Undersea Volcano Now Just 70 Meters from Surface



> In the Atlantic Ocean, off the Canary Island of El Hierro, 20-meter high jets of water are being spat into the air as the sea boils amid the stench of sulfur. The undersea volcano, which is set to create new land, is growing ever-nearer to the surface -- but is the existing island at risk from the explosive eruptions?
> 
> "The monster rises out of the water", screamed the Spanish newspaper La Provincia. Scientists, meanwhile, are being a bit more level-headed about the undersea volcano south of El Hierro in the Canary Islands; they now believe it is in the third phase of its eruption -- fountains of water have been shooting out of the Atlantic up to 20 meters in the air over the last few days. On Tuesday, some local residents even saw stones being catapulted out of the sea.


----------



## Noyb

I wonder which one of the "Bumps" in the water is the active Volcano ??


----------



## Noyb

It's the one 2 miles from shore


----------



## ekim68

How animals predict earthquakes



> Animals may sense chemical changes in groundwater that occur when an earthquake is about to strike.
> 
> This, scientists say, could be the cause of bizarre earthquake-associated animal behaviour.
> 
> Researchers began to investigate these chemical effects after seeing a colony of toads abandon its pond in L'Aquila, Italy, in 2009 - days before a quake.
> 
> They suggest that animal behaviour could be incorporated into earthquake forecasting.


----------



## ekim68

Life on Earth: Is our planet special?



> "Well, there are several unusual aspects of our planet," she said. "First is our strong magnetic field. No one is exactly sure how it works, but it's something to do with the turbulent motion that occurs in the Earth's liquid outer core. Without it, we would be bombarded by harmful radiation from the Sun."
> 
> "The next thing is our big Moon," continued Prof Grady. "As the Earth rotates, it wobbles on its axis like a child's spinning top. What the Moon does is dampen down that wobble and that helps to prevent extreme climate fluctuations" - which would be detrimental to life.
> 
> "Finally, there's plate tectonics," she added. "We live on a planet that is constantly recycling its crust. That's another way that the Earth stabilises its climate." This works because plate tectonics limits the amount of carbon dioxide escaping into the atmosphere - a natural way of controlling the greenhouse effect.


----------



## ekim68

Study: Greenland rose as ice melted



> SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- A 2010 spike in the melting of ice cover in Greenland caused a large part of the island's bedrock to lift almost an inch, a U.S. researcher says.
> 
> A network of 50 GPS stations measured the uplift as the ice loss was accelerated in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons, Ohio State University researcher Michael Bevis said.
> 
> A rise of 0.79 inches was recorded over just a five-month period, a university release said.


----------



## lotuseclat79

Ironing out the details of the Earth's core.



> *Identifying the composition of the earth's core is key to understanding how our planet formed and the current behavior of its interior. While it has been known for many years that iron is the main element in the core, many questions have remained about just how iron behaves under the conditions found deep in the earth. Now, a team led by mineral-physics researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has honed in on those behaviors by conducting extremely high-pressure experiments on the element.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The vibrational spectrum of iron, the most abundant element in Earth's core, at 171 gigapascals. By squeezing iron between two diamond anvils (inset), Caltech researchers reproduced the pressures found in Earth's core. [Credit: Caitlin A. Murphy/Caltech]


-- Tom


----------



## ekim68

Kelv-Helmz Cloud Formations 



> Kelv-Helmz is short for the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (after Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz). These tremendous cloud formations are the result of shearing winds up at the cloud level. A particular type of turbulence can develop in a layer of cirrus cloud, which forms below an inversion between air currents of differing speeds and/or directions.


----------



## ekim68

Quadrantid Meteor Shower, First of 2012, May Dazzle Early Wednesday



> The first meteor shower of 2012  the lesser known Quadrantid meteor shower  will kick off a new year of skywatching when it peaks on Wednesday (Jan. 4).


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic lake drilling mission edges closer



> An ambitious plan to explore a vast lake trapped beneath the Antarctic ice is a step closer to becoming reality.
> 
> An advance party has braved freezing temperatures to set up vital equipment and supplies at Lake Ellsworth.
> 
> The project by UK engineers to drill through the *two-mile-thick ice-sheet* is scheduled for the end of the year.


----------



## ekim68

Hawaii Volcano Observatory


----------



## ekim68

Northern Lights


----------



## ekim68

Giant Crack in Antarctica About to Spawn New York-Size Iceberg



> The crevasse stretches 19 miles (30 kilometers) long and up to 260 feet (80 meters) wide, as shown in a picture taken by NASA's Terra satellite in October and featured this week as a NASA Image of the Day.
> 
> Snaking across the floating tongue of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, the crack is expected to create an iceberg 350 square miles (907 square kilometers)-versus 303 square miles (785 square kilometers) for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx combined, according to NASA.


----------



## ekim68

Concerns grow over volcanic eruptions



> Now, new research is changing scientists' understanding of the timing of those eruptions, and prompting them to call for greater monitoring of sites to help save lives when the next big volcano explodes.
> 
> Two recent papers highlight the shift. One looked at a Death Valley volcano thought to be 10,000 years old and found it last erupted just 800 years ago, and is still an eruption danger. The other found that large caldera volcanoes, such as the one under Crater Lake in Oregon, can recharge in a matter of decades, rather than the thousands of years previously thought.


----------



## ekim68

A city in ruins: Stunning photo taken from kite that captures devastation from 1906 earthquake in San Francisco



> This rarely seen image of the city of San Fransisco lying in ruins after the devastating earthquake of 1906 was captured by an ingenious photographer using a camera attached kites.


----------



## ekim68

Microbial Oasis Discovered Beneath the Atacama Desert



> Two metres below the surface of the Atacama Desert there is an 'oasis' of microorganisms. Researchers from the Center of Astrobiology (Spain) and the Catholic University of the North in Chile have found it in hypersaline substrates thanks to SOLID, a detector for signs of life which could be used in environments similar to subsoil on Mars.
> 
> Life is bustling under the driest desert on Earth. A Spanish-Chilean team of scientists have found bacteria and archaea (primitive microorganisms) living two metres below the hypersaline substrates in the Atacama Desert in Chile, according to the journal Astrobiology.
> 
> "We have named it a 'microbial oasis' because we found microorganisms developing in a habitat that was rich in halite (rock salt) and other highly hygroscopic compounds (anhydrite and perchlorate) that absorb water" explained Victor Parro, researcher from the Center of Astrobiology (INTA-CSIC, Spain) and coordinator of the study.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's Clouds Are Getting Lower, NASA Satellite Finds



> Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.


----------



## ekim68

Deadly Harrisburg, Ill., tornado had winds in excess of 166 mph



> The tornado that ripped through Harrisburg, Ill. overnight Wednesday has been labeled an EF4, among the strongest of five categories with winds in *excess of 166 mph.*


----------



## ekim68

> Northern Lights Paint Sky Over Arctic Volcano


More


----------



## ekim68

I heard something about split algae in the Great Salt Lake on some show, so I decided to look it up....Interesting stuff...:up:

Algae in Great Salt Lake


----------



## ekim68

Venice Hasn't Stopped Sinking After All



> ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2012) - The water flowing through Venice's famous canals laps at buildings a little higher every year -- and not only because of a rising sea level. Although previous studies had found that Venice has stabilized, new measurements indicate that the historic city continues to slowly sink, and even to tilt slightly to the east.


----------



## ekim68

BREAKING: James Cameron Begins Descent to Ocean's Deepest Point



> After years of preparation and days of uncooperative weather, James Cameron, at approximately 3:15 p.m. ET (5:15 a.m., local time), began descending solo to Earth's deepest, and perhaps most alien, realm, according to members of the National Geographic expedition.
> 
> If all goes to plan, within two hours of his submersible's launch, the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker should become the first human to reach the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep alone-and the only one to explore it in depth, in person.
> 
> Cameron's "vertical torpedo" of a sub, as he calls it, has already made the nearly 7-mile (11-kilometer) trip to Challenger Deep and back, unmanned and unscathed, Cameron told National Geographic News on Friday.


----------



## ekim68

February Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Rising Ocean Temperatures Prime Amazon Rainforest for Fire



> Scientists used to think the Amazon was too wet to burn but a warming Atlantic Ocean is drawing moisture away from the rainforest


----------



## ekim68

Ten Worlds Largest Sinkholes



> Sinkhole??? It is just what it sounds like, a natural depression or hole in the surface topography caused by the removal of soil or bedrock, often both, by water. The size and depth of some sinkholes is astounding, from several hundred meters deep to over 100 km across. The giant sinkholes of Earth belong to the most impressive natural landmarks. They can form slowly or instantly, making them all the more intimidating. Here are 10 of the most amazing sinkholes across the world.


----------



## ekim68

NOAA releases new views of Earth's ocean floor



> NOAA has made sea floor maps and other data on the world's coasts, continental shelves and deep ocean available for easy viewing online. Anyone with Internet access can now explore undersea features and obtain detailed depictions of the sea floor and coasts, including deep canyons, ripples, landslides and likely fish habitat.
> 
> The new online data viewer compiles sea floor data from the near shore to the deep blue, including the latest high-resolution bathymetric (sea bottom) data collected by NOAA's Office of Coast Survey primarily to support nautical charting.


----------



## Izme

Amazing stuff That i've paid considerable attention to..Thanks for sharing that with us!


----------



## Izme

A site I visit Often

Mysterious Objects at the Edge of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/16mar_theedge/


----------



## ekim68

'Huge' water resource exists under Africa



> Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.
> 
> They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.
> 
> The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.


----------



## ekim68

Earth is passing through the wake of a CME

Cool pictures of some Auroras after the latest Geomagnetic Storm produced by the Sun.....


----------



## ekim68

When Continental Drift Was Considered Pseudoscience



> It was a century ago this spring that a little-known German meteorologist named Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents had once been massed together in a single supercontinent and then gradually drifted apart. He was, of course, right. Continental drift and the more recent science of plate tectonics are now the bedrock of modern geology, helping to answer vital questions like where to find precious oil and mineral deposits, and how to keep San Francisco upright. But in Wegener's day, geological thinking stood firmly on a solid earth where continents and oceans were permanent features.


----------



## ekim68

Huge phytoplankton bloom found under Arctic ice



> Researchers have been shocked to find a record-breaking phytoplankton bloom hidden under Arctic ice. "It's much bigger [in concentration] than any natural open water bloom in the most productive ecosystems in the world," says Kevin Arrigo, of Stanford University in California. "The growth rates were astonishingly high - these cells were doubling more than once every day."
> 
> "I would have told you a year ago that this couldn't happen in the Arctic," says Arrigo. Now, he notes that some 25% of the Arctic Ocean has conditions conducive to such blooms. The finding implies that the Arctic is much more productive than previously thought, and might help to explain why Arctic waters have proven such a good carbon dioxide sink, the researchers say.


----------



## ekim68

Mysterious Sprite Photographed by ISS Astronaut



> First documented in a photo in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning discharges in storms -- although the exact mechanisms that create them aren't yet known.


----------



## ekim68

Just how big is our atmosphere?

Earth, Night Glow, Aurora and Atmosphere.


----------



## ekim68

Latest Auroras


----------



## ekim68

Pressure in Mount Fuji is now higher than last eruption, warn experts



> The pressure in Mount Fuji's magma chamber is now higher than it was in 1707, the last time the nearly 4,000-metre-high Japanese volcano erupted, causing volcanologists to speculate that a disaster is imminent.
> 
> The new readings, taken by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, reveal that the pressure is at 1.6 megapascals, nearly 16 times the 0.1 megapascals it takes to trigger an eruption.


----------



## ekim68

Where's the world's hottest rain? In Needles!



> NEEDLES - As reported by Jeff Masters of Weather Underground, Needles has the dubious honor of setting the new world record for hottest rainfall; besting Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and Marrakech, Morocco.


----------



## ekim68

The Oldest Trees on the Planet



> Trees are some of the longest-lived organisms on the planet. At least 50 trees have been around for more than a millenium, but there may be countless other ancient trees that haven't been discovered yet.
> 
> Trees can live such a long time for several reasons. One secret to their longevity is their compartmentalized vascular system, which allows parts of the tree to die while other portions thrive. Many create defensive compounds to fight off deadly bacteria or parasites.


----------



## ekim68

Northumberlandia, the Lady of the North: A supine land goddess makes her debut



> Cramlington, England - The rural parking lot looks like any other in Britain receiving families for their "country walk" fix, but the passage through the adjacent dark woodland feels just a little too directed to be entirely natural.
> 
> At the end of the path, the sylvan curtain is thrown back to reveal something strange and wondrous, a hill rising nine stories and with the profile of a face, carved from stone and earth and skinned in grass.


----------



## ekim68

Lava flows from Hawaii into the ocean at night 



> Streams of lava pouring into the ocean from the Big Island have been captured in a rare video that's drawing attention from around the globe.
> 
> The Kilauea Volcano has been erupting continuously from its Pu'u'O'o vent since 1983, according to Reuters, but the lava flow usually doesn't make the seven-mile journey into the ocean.
> 
> Lava first started flowing into the ocean on November 25. You can track the lava's flow on the National Parks Service website.


----------



## ekim68

Nasa satellite captures Earth's electric night


----------



## ekim68

Stunning Views of Glaciers Seen From Space


----------



## ekim68

Mount Everest


----------



## ekim68

Quantum measurements on one island determine behavior on another



> A key feature of quantum physics is the wave-particle duality: the tendency of physical systems to exhibit both wavelike and particle-like behaviors. One particularly striking example of the wave-particle duality is the quantum eraser. In a typical experiment, two photons are entangled in a particular way and sent along different paths. As is usual in entanglement, a measurement performed on one photon reveals the outcome of related measurements on the second. In the specific case of the quantum eraser, however, the measurement dictates whether the second photon will exhibit wave- or particle-like characteristics.
> 
> Because quantum eraser experiments rely on entanglement, the impact of the measurement influences the second photon instantaneously. But to date, all the examples have been performed under circumstances that would technically allow communication between the devices that perform the measurements. New results by Xiao-Song Ma and colleagues definitively rule that possibility out: they placed the experimental apparatus on two of the Canary Islands, separated by 144 kilometers.


----------



## pyritechips

*How can parts of Canada be 'missing' gravity?*


----------



## ekim68

Monthly cloud pictures.....

From Spaceweather


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Monthly cloud pictures.....
> 
> From Spaceweather


Neat, I picked a couple for desktops.


----------



## ekim68

Earth as Art: Stunning New Images From Space


----------



## ekim68

Exploring the Grand Canyon on Google Maps


----------



## valis

here ya go. 

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/astronaut-s-incredible-photos-from-space-slideshow/


----------



## ekim68

Good stuff, Tim....:up:


----------



## valis

Thanks, Mike. The page below (apod) is in my daily sites to check. Enjoy; they have photos going back to 95 or so.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130126.html


----------



## ekim68

Four at Once: Volcano Quartet Erupts on Kamchatka



> A unique show is taking place on Kamchatka these days: Four separate but nearby volcanoes are erupting simultaneously on the Russian peninsula. A Moscow film crew has produced an awe-inspiring 360-degree video of the natural fireworks.


----------



## eggplant43

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2...ed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Top+Stories)&pid=6286


----------



## ekim68

Realtime Aurora Gallery


----------



## eggplant43

> Researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered that bees and plants are able to communicate via electric signals. Communication between bees and flowers is crucial, as bees play an important role in maintaining natural plant communities and ensuring productions of seeds in most flowering plants.


http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/bees-can-sense-flowers-electric-fields-say-researchers/


----------



## ekim68

"Tardigrades", my new favorite word....:up: And they're going to Space......

Tardigrades In Space



> Tardigrades In Space or "TARDIS" is the first research project to evaluate the ability of tardigrades to survive under open space conditions. TARDIS is one of the projects within the Biopan-6 research platform provided by European Space Agency (ESA), and will be sent into space with the russian FOTON-M3 mission.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> "Tardigrades", my new favorite word....:up: And they're going to Space......
> 
> Tardigrades In Space


indeed......http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130306.html


----------



## ekim68

Looks like ET has been here all along...


----------



## valis

pretty odd little critter, ain't it? 

A few years back they took a bunch up on the shuttle, let them hang out in space for a couple weeks.

about 60% regenerated. Panspermia, anyone?


----------



## eggplant43

> The largest fraction of carbon held in the soils of northern forests may derive from the living and the decomposing roots of trees and shrubs and the fungi that live on them.


http://www.nature.com/news/fungi-an...gly-large-share-of-the-world-s-carbon-1.12698


----------



## ekim68

How a Storm Became Big Enough to Span the Atlantic



> There is currently a massive storm churning over the Atlantic that spans the entire ocean basin, stretching all the way from Canada to Europe, and from Greenland to the Caribbean.
> 
> It's the same weather system that brought a massive spring blizzard to much of the United States and Canada earlier this week (on Tuesday (March 26), 44 of 50 states had some snow on the ground), and which has now ballooned in size, according to Jason Samenow, chief meteorologist with the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang.


----------



## ekim68

This Month's Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Friday Photos for April 26, 2013: Updates on Eruptions From Around the World


----------



## ekim68

Solar Eclipse Turns Sun Into 'Ring of Fire' Today


----------



## ekim68

Officials: Texas tornado likely had 200 mph winds



> GRANBURY, Texas (AP) - Ten tornadoes touched down in several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless. Emergency responders were still searching for missing people Thursday afternoon.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Officials: Texas tornado likely had 200 mph winds


----------



## valis

heard they upped the total to 12, as well.....Mother Nature was ticked about something.....


----------



## ekim68

Was that anywhere near you Tim?


----------



## valis

not myself, but pretty close to Brad...he's fine, but apparently it was quite the show....


----------



## valis

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130522.html


----------



## ekim68

Plants re-grow after five centuries under the ice



> While monitoring the retreat of the Teardrop Glacier in the Canadian Arctic, scientists have found that recently unfrozen plants, some of which had been under ice since the reign of Henry VIII, were capable of new growth.
> 
> While in the field, the researchers from the University of Alberta discovered that the receding ice--which has doubled from 2 meters per year in the 1990s to 4.1 meters per year in 2009--had uncovered lots of mosses and other non-vascular plants, including more than 60 plant species. Upon careful examination, the scientists were impressed by how well preserved the delicate bodies were; the stems and leaf structures were perfectly intact, although some of them were only one-cell layer think. Using radiocarbon dating, they determined that those plants have been frozen for 500 years since the Little Ice Age when the glacier was at its maximum.
> 
> The most surprising thing, however, was that many of the plants were showing signs of life:


----------



## ekim68

Gorgeous Nanocrystal Flowers Sprout Under Electron Microscope



> Crystals seem nothing like flowers. But its a matter of perspective, and some technical ingenuity. Just ask Wim Noorduin, who invented a way to build microcrystals that, when seen through an electron microscope, resemble blooming irises, violets, and carnations.


----------



## ekim68

Crater Lake Aurora


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic flood produces 'ice crater'



> Scientists have seen evidence for a colossal flood under Antarctica that drained six billion tonnes of water, quite possibly straight to the ocean.
> 
> The cause is thought to be a deeply buried lake that suddenly over-topped.
> 
> Satellites were used to map the crater that developed as the 2.7km-thick overlying ice sheet slumped to fill the void left by the escaping water.
> 
> The peak discharge would have been more than double the normal flow rate of London's River Thames, researchers say.


----------



## ekim68

Surveys reveal ancient impact crater beneath Iowa town



> DECORAH, Iowa, July 10 (UPI) -- Scientists say air and ground surveys have allowed them to confirm the existence of an ancient impact crater buried beneath a town in Iowa.
> 
> Researchers writing in Earth Magazine, published by the American Geosciences Institute, report an airborne geophysical survey and hydrology surveys identified a crater at 3.4 miles wide, almost five times the size of the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona.


----------



## valis

wow........neat find, Mike......:up:


----------



## valis

> Archaeologists say they have discovered some of the world's oldest known primitive writing, dating back 5,000 years, in eastern China, and some of the markings etched on broken axes resemble a modern Chinese character.


http://news.yahoo.com/china-discovers-primitive-5-000-old-writing-143034872.html


----------



## valis

china is just getting weirder....and a LOT dirtier.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/slideshow/photos-pollution-china-19628137


----------



## ekim68

More on retreating ice fueling growth....

Retreating Antarctic Ice Fuels Surprising Glass Sponge Invasion



> In the frigid, inky ocean depths beneath permanent ice shelves, life tends to move pretty slowly. But a recent expedition to the seafloor under a newly thawed Antarctic ice sheet has revealed an unexpected invertebrate invasion. Some of Earth's strangest species, a group of ghostly pale sponges made of glass, have set up shop there in a hurry, upending much of what scientists know about these exotic creatures.
> 
> Thanks to changes in this ecosystem brought on by a warming climate, these gardens of glass sponges have sprouted up in only a few years, a veritable population explosion for species once thought to take decades or centuries to spread. It suggests that glass sponges could find themselves squarely on the winner's podium when it comes to climate change.


----------



## ekim68

When space weather attacks!



> On a cool September night in 1859, campers out in Colorado were roused from sleep by a "light so bright that one could easily read common print," as one newspaper described it. Some of them, confused, got up and began making breakfast.
> 
> Farther east, thousands of New Yorkers ran out onto their sidewalks to watch the sky glow, ribboned in yellow, white and crimson. Few people had ever seen an aurora that far south - and this one lit up the whole city.
> 
> At the time, it was a dazzling display of nature. Yet if the same thing happened today, it would be an utter catastrophe.
> 
> The auroras of 1859, known as the "Carrington Event," came after the sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection, a burst of charged plasma aimed directly at the Earth. When the particles hit our magnetosphere, they triggered an especially fierce geomagnetic storm that lit up the sky and frazzled communication wires around the world. Telegraphs in Philadelphia were spitting out "fantastical and unreadable messages," one paper reported, with some systems unusable for hours.


----------



## ekim68

Noctilucent Clouds Get an Early Start



> Every summer, something strange and wonderful happens high above the north pole. Ice crystals begin to cling to the smoky remains of meteors, forming electric-blue clouds with tendrils that ripple hypnotically against the sunset sky. Noctilucent clouds-a.k.a. "NLCs"--are a delight for high-latitude sky watchers, and around the Arctic Circle their season of visibility is always eagerly anticipated.
> 
> News flash: This year, NLCs are getting an early start. NASA's AIM spacecraft, which is orbiting Earth on a mission to study noctilucent clouds, started seeing them on May 13th.


----------



## valis

as ol' Gordon would say, Synchronicity........one of my daily sites is apod.com, and couple weeks back this was their daily shot.....


----------



## ekim68

Synchronicity.....My New Favorite Word..... Thanks....:up: (I'll look up Gordon later... )


----------



## valis

I'll save you the time.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity_(The_Police_album)


> The album's title was inspired by Arthur Koestler's The Roots of Coincidence, which mentions Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity. Sting was an avid reader of Koestler, and also named Ghost in the Machine after one of his works.


do indeed love that band......


----------



## valis

oh yeah, Sting was born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, hence the Gordon; he just got the nick after wearing the same yellow and black sweater when he was filming Quadrophenia.....or when he was in primary, nobody knows for sure......


----------



## ekim68

Wow, thanks Tim....I didn't follow him much but, Wow....:up:


----------



## valis

I tested out of English in the fifth grade, didn't have to take any more until I reached collegiate.....so obviously I liked it. Hit HS, spent 4 years learning creative writing (ironically, that's my major, yet I work in a math field) from a teach I still keep in touch with, and every year his final project had something to do with that band. Whether it be the CIA ties, whether or not Copeland was the best drummer ever, etc....made for a good year of studying both music and writing.


----------



## ekim68

Colliding stars could be source of gold on Earth



> A team led by Harvard astronomer Edo Berger now reports that gold is likely created as an aftereffect of the collision of two "neutron" stars. Neutron stars are themselves the collapsed remains of imploded stars, incredibly dense stellar objects that weigh at least 1.4 times as much as the sun but which are thought to be less than 10 miles wide.
> 
> While ordinary stars explode about once every century in our galaxy, Berger says, explosive collisions of two neutron stars happen only about once every 10,000 years. And it appears they spew out gold and other heavy elements in the week after their merger.


----------



## ekim68

7 Graphics of Earth's Coolest Phenomena, From Rainbows to Earth Wobble



> What's the oldest tree on Earth? What's a rainbow? Is the Earth wobbling? It's fun to ask these questions but trickier to answer them-in simple terms, at least. Luckily, Viennese designer Michæl Paukner has done us all a huge favor by creating these lovely visual explanations.
> 
> Paukner is a graphic designer by trade, but a personal interest in Earth science gives his wonderful Flickr a celestial bent-it's well worth checking out if you've got a few minutes to chew on a theory or two.


----------



## ekim68

Star Wars home of Anakin Skywalker threatened by dune



> Sand dunes migrating over the Tunisian desert are poised to bury a famous Star Wars film set.
> 
> The buildings of the fictional city Mos Espa featured in The Phantom Menace, "Episode I" of the Jedi saga.
> 
> Sited on the planet Tatooine, this was the home of the young Anakin Skywalker, later to become Darth Vader.
> 
> Scientists have used the dwellings as a fixed geographic reference to measure the migration of giant wind-blown crescent-shaped dunes, or barchans.
> 
> Homes are rarely built in dune fields, and this study illustrates why. It shows dune movements on Earth are 10 times faster than barchans on Mars.


----------



## valis

feeling a bit grandiose? Full of yourself? this'll fix ya.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-229#1


----------



## eggplant43

> In 12th grade, Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao visited a waste transfer station and saw a shocking pile of plastic waste. Then the pair learned that much of the plastic in trash may not degrade for 5,000 years. So they took it upon themselves to search for a bacteria that could break down plastics in the environment. After a series of accidents, they found an answer surprisingly close to home.


http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/resea...cientists-identify-phthalate-eating-bacteria#


----------



## valis

whoa........

http://cloudappsoc.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/vicki-harrison.jpg


----------



## ekim68

Wow, it looks upside down.... Or, maybe sidewards....


----------



## valis

all I know is that, were I to see that.....well, 'terrifying' would spring to mind......I had no clue those things existed.....


----------



## Noyb

I had to go searching to see What it Was


----------



## valis

yeah, that was sorta my error, wasn't it?


----------



## ekim68

Thanks for the clarification Noyb...:up: Now for more planetary news:

Planetary 'runaway greenhouse' more easily triggered, research shows



> It might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable "runaway greenhouse" stage, according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington and the University of Victoria published July 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
> 
> In the runaway greenhouse stage, a planet absorbs more solar energy than it can give off to retain equilibrium. As a result, the world overheats, boiling its oceans and filling its atmosphere with steam, which leaves the planet glowing-hot and forever uninhabitable, as Venus is now.


(We don't have to pack our bags too quickly.. )



> The findings apply to planet Earth as well. As the sun increases in brightness over time, Earth, too, will move into the runaway greenhouse stage - but not for a billion and a half years or so. Still, it inspired the astronomers to write, "As the solar constant increases with time, Earth's future is analogous to Venus's past."


----------



## ekim68

Alpine glaciers 'protect mountain peaks from erosion'



> Instead of wearing mountains down, evidence from Europe's high Alps shows that glaciers shield summits from erosion, acting as a protective lid.
> 
> French scientists studied erosion on Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak, below and around its glaciers.
> 
> Cold ice at the highest points froze to the mountain rock and played little part in erosion, the team said.
> 
> In contrast, water and rain eroded glacier-free areas 10 times faster than areas protected by the glacier.


----------



## ekim68

FYI: Just How Old is Dirt?



> "It depends on what you mean by dirt," says Milan Pavich, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
> 
> "The oldest sedimentary rocks are about 3.9 billion years old-they're in Greenland-and at one time, they were dirt. That's pretty close to the time the Earth formed."
> 
> But those rocks are just proof that dirt existed on the planet way back then. The stuff in your backyard is much fresher. "Most of the dirt you see today is from the past two million years," Pavich says. About two million years ago, the planet underwent two major changes that drove the formation of new dirt. Global cooling and drying enlarged the deserts, and dust storms redistributed that dirt around the globe. Meanwhile, glaciers began extending from near the poles, grinding rocks, soil, plants and anything else into dirt as they moved over the land.


----------



## valis

always said, dirt should be an element........


----------



## ekim68

Remember, Only the Rocks Live Forever, Centennial?


----------



## ekim68

Well it's safe for this Century at least...

Himalayan water supply gets an improved outlook



> Glacial melt unlikely to cause water availability concerns this century.


----------



## ekim68

Chain reaction shattered huge Antarctica ice shelf



> It took decades for global warming to slowly melt the surface of the Larsen B Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, forming nearly 3,000 lakes. But at the end of the Antarctic summer of 2002, all the lakes drained away in the space of a week. And then the 2,700-square-kilometre ice shelf, which was some 220 metres thick and might have existed for some 12,000 years, rapidly disintegrated into small icebergs, leaving glaciologists scratching their heads.





> The researchers showed that if there are many lakes on an ice shelf, the disappearance of one lake could result in fractures under others - an effect that can spread rapidly throughout the ice shelf. "This chain reaction could explain why the lakes drained all together," MacAyeal said.


----------



## ekim68

Global sea level rise temporarily dampened by 2010-11 Australia floods



> Three atmospheric patterns came together above the Indian and Pacific Oceans in 2010 and 2011. When they did, they drove so much precipitation over Australia that the world's ocean levels dropped measurably.
> 
> Unlike other continents, the soils and topography of Australia prevent almost all its precipitation from flowing into the ocean.


----------



## ekim68

Sea Ice Decline Spurs the Greening of the Arctic



> Aug. 23, 2013 - Sea ice decline and warming trends are changing the vegetation in nearby arctic coastal areas, according to two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists.
> 
> Uma Bhatt, an associate professor with UAF's Geophysical Institute, and Skip Walker, a professor at UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology, contributed to a recent review of research on the response of plants, marine life and animals to declining sea ice in the Arctic.
> 
> "Our thought was to see if sea ice decline contributed to greening of the tundra along the coastal areas," Bhatt said. "It's a relatively new idea."


----------



## valis

and the flip side.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/06/starved-polar-bear-record-sea-ice-melt


----------



## ekim68

Huge canyon discovered under Greenland ice



> One of the biggest canyons in the world has been found beneath the ice sheet that smothers most of Greenland.
> 
> The canyon - which is 800km long and up to 800m deep - was carved out by a great river more than four million years ago, before the ice arrived.
> 
> It was discovered by accident as scientists researching climate change mapped Greenland's bedrock by radar.
> 
> The British Antarctic Survey said it was remarkable to find so huge a geographical feature previously unseen.
> 
> The hidden valley is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It snakes its way from the centre of Greenland up to the northern coastline and before the ice sheet was formed it would have contained a river gushing into the Arctic Ocean. Now it is packed with ice.


----------



## ekim68

Awe-Inspiring Photos of Swirling Superstorms Belie Their Destructive Power


----------



## ekim68

The Yosemite Inferno in the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change]



> Assessing the drivers of wildfire trends in the American West these days can be akin to Hercule Poirot's task on the Orient Express, on which there was one murder with 12 final suspects - all of whom were guilty.


(A long but Good Read...)


----------



## ekim68

Crop-munching pests are traveling north as the climate changes 



> Pests are packing their metaphorical bags and heading for fresh starts nearer the North Pole as the climate warms around them.
> 
> Beetles, moths, fungi, and other pests that afflict forests and crops in the Northern Hemisphere are expanding their ranges northward by an average of 24 feet every day.


----------



## valis

nice way to start a friday..........

http://io9.com/a-nacreous-cloud-glistens-over-antarctica-1260481441


----------



## ekim68

Volcano the size of Arizona discovered



> Scientists have made a surprising discovery in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles east of Japan: Earth's largest volcano.
> 
> Tamu Massif is a monster at 280 miles by 400 miles, or roughly the size of Arizona, and ranks among the largest such structures in our solar system, Nature reports by way of a Nature Geoscience study.
> 
> The existence of Tamu Massif has been long known, but geologists believed it to be composed of several volcanoes that merged.
> 
> Research conducted in 2010 and 2012 changed things.


----------



## ekim68

Beneath Earth's Surface, Scientists Find Long 'Fingers' of Heat



> Sep. 5, 2013 - Scientists seeking to understand the forces at work beneath the surface of Earth have used seismic waves to detect previously unknown "fingers" of heat, some of them thousands of miles long, in Earth's upper mantle. Their discovery, published Sept. 5 in Science Express, helps explain the "hotspot volcanoes" that give birth to island chains such as Hawai'i and Tahiti.


(This could be a Fictional Account, eh?   )


----------



## ekim68

Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis



> Read scientific analysis on Arctic sea ice conditions. We provide an update during the first week of each month, or more frequently as conditions warrant.


----------



## ekim68

Here's How Gravity Varies Across Australia And Why You Weigh More In Tasmania Than Queensland



> Keen weight-watchers might notice that standing on a set of scales in Tasmania produces a slightly higher reading than in Queensland.
> 
> That's because the Earth isn't perfectly spherical, so gravity varies ever so slightly around the world.
> 
> An Australian-German research team recently combined gravity measurements with satellite data and small-scale topographical models to find that gravity varies by about 0.7%: about 40% larger than previously expected.
> 
> That means a 100kg person weighs 700g more near the North Pole, where gravity is 9.83ms-2, than at Peru's Nevado Huascaran summit, where gravity is 9.76ms-2.
> 
> The same person would weigh 200g more in Tasmania than Queensland, where gravity is 9.78ms-2 and 9.805ms-2 respectively.


----------



## valis

at my old job we used to do that.....found a place just north of Montana where you weigh a bit less, and a spot in NM where you weigh a bit more.....pretty cool stuff....:up:


----------



## ekim68

What Direction Does Earth's Center Spin? New Insights Solve 300-Year-Old Problem



> Sep. 16, 2013 - Scientists at the University of Leeds have solved a 300-year-old riddle about which direction the centre of Earth spins.
> 
> Earth's inner core, made up of solid iron, 'superrotates' in an eastward direction -- meaning it spins faster than the rest of the planet -- while the outer core, comprising mainly molten iron, spins westwards at a slower pace.


(Wow, that sounds pretty gyroscopic to me... )


----------



## eggplant43

> We often ignore what we cannot see, and yet organisms below the soil's surface play a vital role in plant functions and ecosystem well-being. These microbes can influence a plant's genetic structure, its health, and its interactions with other plants. A new series of articles in a Special Section in the American Journal of Botany on Rhizosphere Interactions: The Root Microbiome explores how root microbiomes influence plants across multiple scalesfrom cellular, bacterial, and whole plant levels to community and ecosystem levels.


http://phys.org/news/2013-09-secret-life-underground-microbes-root.html


----------



## ekim68

Computer simulations suggest war drove the rise of civilizations



> According to British historian Arnold Toynbee, "History is just one damned thing after another." But Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut in Storrs questions this premise then tries to answer it in a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He and his colleagues show history may be deterministic to a certain extent. And their computer simulations show that warfare may have been the main driver behind the formation of empires, bureaucracies, and religions.


----------



## valis

doesn't have to be ON earth, does it?

http://io9.com/nasa-weve-discovered-a-previously-unknown-surprise-c-5986821


----------



## valis

now THAT is an anomaly.

quake strikes Pakistan, creates new island.


----------



## valis

wall o' dinos

http://www.kuriositas.com/2013/09/the-incredible-dinosaur-wall-of-bolivia.html


----------



## ekim68

Thirsting for turtle tears



> The Amazon region is notoriously deficient in sodium because of its large distance from the ocean and because the Andes mountains block the delivery of windblown minerals from the West. Some minerals travel from the east, but much of the air is cleaned by rain before the minerals can make it to the western region of the Amazon Basin.
> 
> So if you were a butterfly, where would you find a readily available source of salt in the Amazon? The answer is not very obvious, unless you look at the photo of a yellow-spotted river turtle (top). According to scientist Phil Torres, a graduate of Cornell University who conducts research at the Tambopata Research Center in Peru, the butterflies are attracted to the sodium in the turtle's tears.


----------



## valis

whoa.......this is pretty cool.....

http://gizmodo.com/any-animal-that-touches-this-lethal-lake-turns-to-stone-1436606506/1436815204


----------



## poochee

valis said:


> whoa.......this is pretty cool.....
> 
> http://gizmodo.com/any-animal-that-touches-this-lethal-lake-turns-to-stone-1436606506/1436815204


WOW!


----------



## poochee

Lots of interesting things here.


----------



## ekim68

Vast streams found beneath Antarctic ice sheet



> Giant channels of water almost the height of the Eiffel Tower have been discovered flowing beneath the Antarctic ice shelf.


----------



## ekim68

Alaska sinks as climate change thaws permafrost



> The thawing of permafrost - frozen ground covering most of Alaska - doesn't just damage roads, buildings and airport runways. It also releases vast amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.


----------



## valis

those are the methane clathrates I have been writing about, Mike.....here ya go.

http://timothypierce.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/on-global-warming-co2-and-methane/


----------



## ekim68

Thanks Tim. And I refound your blog....


----------



## ekim68

Venice has a grand plan to protect itself from rising seas



> A multibillion-dollar effort to protect Venice from flooding has passed its first public test.
> 
> The Moses project involves flood barriers that will stretch a mile across the mouth of Venice's lagoon, rising from the water when high tides threaten to deliver acqua alta - periodic floods that inundate the Italian city. The effort is designed to prevent flooding that has become more common and severe during the last two centuries as sea levels rise and as the soggy city sinks.
> 
> Construction has been underway for a decade and is expected to continue until 2016, when 78 barriers will be in place. Last week, Venice tested out the first four floodgates, each weighing more than 300 tons. The barriers rose from the lagoon as intended, drawing applause from VIP spectators.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> Venice has a grand plan to protect itself from rising seas


wow, thanks Mike....I work with a lady from Venice, and this is a regular point of discussion with us. She's going to get a kick out of this article.


----------



## valis

so you wanna visit an alien world, but can't leave earth?

http://io9.com/uncanny-places-on-earth-that-look-like-alien-planets-1444739857


----------



## valis

don't have a place for these anymore (climatology threads got merged into 'news from the web'), but this is a bit alarming.

http://www.inquisitr.com/992856/moose-die-off-worries-scientists-climate-change-a-factor/?vm=r


----------



## poochee

valis said:


> don't have a place for these anymore (climatology threads got merged into 'news from the web'), but this is a bit alarming.
> 
> http://www.inquisitr.com/992856/moose-die-off-worries-scientists-climate-change-a-factor/?vm=r


----------



## ekim68

Aurora Lights


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Aurora Lights


Gorgeous!


----------



## ekim68

Labyrinthine M. C. Escher stairs line vast Indian well



> ESCHER might have gawped. But this labyrinthine nest of stairs is no impossible construction. Between AD 600 and 1850, more than 3000 step wells were dug, by hand, in the Indian provinces of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Many of them had intricate staircase designs, peppered with shrines and balconies on which to linger in the afternoon heat.
> 
> They reach deep underground and provided insurance against the region's fluctuating water supply. The stairs guided local people - women, mostly - down to the water that seeps in from nearby aquifers. During the rainy season, the wells fill up, but in the dry season, you would have to lug containers up and down the entire well. This particular well, Panna Meena ka Kund near Amber Fort in Rajasthan, has eight storeys. According to local tradition, you must use different sets of stairs to climb down and climb out.


----------



## ekim68

Interactive Coral Reef Panoramas

Earth, one of a kind...


----------



## valis

whoa........thanks, Mike.


----------



## valis

interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/lost-world-discovered-remote-australia-024127998.html


----------



## ekim68

How Earth's Biosignature Will Change as the Planet Dies



> As the Sun expands into a red giant, life on Earth will die away. So how will that look to distant observers watching the biosignature in our atmosphere?


(Relax folks, it's about a billion years away... )


----------



## valis

well, from here, it's going to look _hot._


----------



## valis

interesting........not that I'd miss florida that much......

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/how-earths-coastlines-would-look-if-all-ice-melted-by-1458049972/@barrett


----------



## Noyb

valis said:


> ....not that I'd miss florida that much......


Same here .. Our condo complex was only about a foot above sea level on the St. Johns.


----------



## valis

I've got TONS of friends in Florida, but still:


----------



## DaveBurnett

All these predictions of the water level rising if sea ice melts are forgetting Archimedes' principle. 

Bang goes another global warming scare !!


----------



## valis

not necessarily, Dave.....Archimedes was talking about a body of water that is a bit more contained than the oceans.....there's dozens of cases where rising ocean water is causing people to boogey on out of there. Half of the population of Bangladesh, no small city, live within 20 feet of sea level....that rises, they go bye bye.....

then you have the people who used to harvest rice, but as sea waters rose, now they harvest shrimp.


----------



## DaveBurnett

But to say that is caused by sea ice melting is wrong. How much it is contained does not alter the fact that floating ice displaces the same volume of water as it does when it is water. The weight doesn't change.


----------



## valis

True. However, it's not the sea ice that is melting; it's the freshwater glaciers that are causing the damage.

BTW, the whole 'freshwater' thing isn't helping either; the amount of freshwater dumping off of Greenland HAS caused a drop in salinity in that area...

complex thing. Fun to read about, one of my hobbies. 

climate change, that is; not Archimedes, but I still manage to win bets about him and washing machines.


----------



## ekim68

Well kind of like an Earth Anomaly....

The 'toxic monster' is coming! Texas-sized floating island containing one million tonnes of junk from Japan tsunami drifting towards US



> An enormous floating island of debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami is drifting towards the coast of America, bringing with it over one million tonnes of junk that would cover an area the size of Texas.
> 
> The most concentrated stretch - dubbed the "toxic monster" by Fox News - is currently around 1,700 miles off the coast, sitting between Hawaii and California, but several million tonnes of additional debris remains scattered across the Pacific.
> 
> If the rubbish were to continue to fuse, the combined area of the floating junkyard would be greater than that of the United States, and could theoretically weigh up to five million tonnes.


----------



## ekim68

Jellyfish taking over oceans, experts warn



> (CNN) -- It's a beautiful afternoon on the beach.
> 
> The sun is shining, you're rolling in the waves, showing off the toned torso you worked on at the gym all winter.
> 
> Suddenly a sharp, burning sensation hits your skin.
> 
> You've just been stung by a jellyfish.
> 
> If experts' warnings are true, swimmers around the world can expect to experience these unwanted love taps in greater numbers than ever before.


----------



## getthecansout

Heres one that's man made...or alien? what do you think?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0HOvb2rll...s1600/Teotihucan-Orions+Belt-Giza+Plateau.JPG


----------



## valis

that show has done more to discredit scientific theory than anything since, well, rugrats, I guess. I haven't the foggiest idea how that one 'aliens' meme dude got that position, but his logical fallacies serve as templates worldwide for what NOT to do to make a point. Any point.

Guess I should really say what I think about that show, eh? 

I will say this, though, it is a VERY interesting topic once you remove that detestable show. I've pondered on this for some time, as obviously the stars do NOT line up with the pyramids given their relative positioning back then, but regardless, it was pretty dang close. Do I think it was intentional? No.....but I think that there is a ton more to this than most realize.


----------



## ekim68

Underground Carbon Dioxide Injections Triggered Earthquakes in Texas in 2009-2011



> Using seismic data collected between March 2009 and December 2010 by the EarthScope USArray Program, a National Science Foundation-funded network of broadband seismometers deployed from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, study co-authors identified 93 earthquakes in the Cogdell area from March 2009 to December 2010, three of which were greater than magnitude 3. An even larger earthquake, with magnitude 4.4, occurred in Cogdell in September 2011.
> 
> Using data on injections and extractions of fluids and gases, they concluded that the earthquakes were correlated with the increase in Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery in Cogdell.


----------



## valis

not too sure of nature's reasoning on this, but at least butterflys won't get bored.

http://www.butterflyalphabet.com/main/index.php


----------



## valis

pics from the volcano area.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/incredibl...ects-of-the-sumatra-volca-1467618985/@maxread


----------



## ekim68

Typhoon Haiyan: When Do You Say "It's Time To Start Talking About Climate Change?"



> Super Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, sweeping the island nation with near-record winds and a towering storm surge. There are many scientific uncertainties around the factors contributing to storms such as Super Typhoon Haiyan, but scientists know that rising sea levels driven by manmade climate change worsen the damage caused by these storms. Yet an analysis of Typhoon Haiyan coverage in television and print media finds that less than five percent of stories mentioned climate change.


----------



## valis

btw, Mike, it's beginning to appear that shortly the coldest years we have will still be hotter than the hottest ones from the past.......get your inflatable, time to go swimming.


----------



## valis

wonder how I never heard of this:

http://io9.com/5715516/another-humanoid-species-co+existed-with-early-humans-and-neanderthals



> A single finger bone found in this Siberian cave led to an amazing discovery. Early humans and Neanderthals co-existed with another humanoid species called Denisovans. And many present-day humans carry genes that prove our ancestors had children with Denisovans, too.


----------



## valis

what the heck......we found one other hominid species, let's make it two.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-discover-mystery-human-species-1467701248/@jesusdiaz


----------



## ekim68

Well I suppose it's a start.....

Super Euros: Top 10 climate-change-fighting countries are all in Europe



> There isn't a country in the world that's on track to reduce emissions to the extent needed to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 Fahrenheit). But for a glimpse of something resembling climate leadership, peer across the pond.


----------



## ekim68

From an Urban Designer point of view and a good long read...:up:

Saving the city from climate change, one house at a time



> Alex Washburn was one of those New Yorkers who stayed put, defying Mayor Mike Bloomberg's orders to evacuate when Superstorm Sandy came stomping into town. But unlike those who dug in their heels out of stubbornness or helplessness, Washburn stuck around out of pure curiosity. He's Bloomberg's chief urban designer - the guy responsible for shaping the city's parks, streets, and other public spaces - and he wanted to meet Sandy in person.


----------



## ekim68

What the 5th IPCC Assessment Doesn't Include



> A heavyweight boxer in the climate change match is missing from the 5th climate assessment report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Friday.
> 
> Permafrost, which is frozen ground that doesn't melt during the summer, covers 24% of the land in the northern hemisphere. Permafrost acts like a massive cryogenic chamber, stabilizing tens of thousands of years of organic matter, and stores approximately 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, which is twice the amount of carbon that's currently in our atmosphere. When the organic matter thaws, that carbon will be exposed to the elements, made available to escape into the air in the form of heat-trapping gases, with the potential to knock out our efforts to slow down global warming with a one-two punch.


----------



## DaveBurnett

That is totally misleading and just shows what scare tactics the CARBON lobby are prepared to use. 
There is no more trapped CO2 in permafrost than there is in water, probably less. 
Of course there is organic matter in there, but it would need to be burned. Most of it would be peat.


----------



## ekim68

But, but, wouldn't decaying organic matter produce CO2?  And if it truly covers 24% of the Northern Hemisphere wouldn't that cause a significant effect?  Methinks that you're a climate change skeptic Dave..


----------



## DaveBurnett

Like coal and peat. How is it going to melt (cart before the horse?)? Who says it is going to rot?

I object to people using emotive unscientific arguments without thinking them through, whatever the subject. 
I DO happen to think that we should reduce carbon emissions where we can, but to say that we are the cause of global warming is utter tosh. The earth has cycles of warm and cold that have been going on longer than man has been here. It is currently emerging from the latest ice age. 
Man accounts for about 0.7% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Ants contribute more greenhouse gasses than man does.


----------



## ekim68

O.7 percent, eh? I hadn't read that, I'm gonna have to do a little research...


----------



## ekim68

Coolest photos from the International Space Station



> The ISS was launched jointly by five nations 15 years ago today. Take a look at some of the coolest photography from the ISS.


----------



## ekim68

Earthquakes shake Texas town on Thanksgiving, and fracking might be to blame



> North Texas has been feeling a string of earthquakes - more than a dozen - over the past few weeks. Most have been centered around Azle, with the most recent [previous] one being on Tuesday morning. All of those quakes have registered between 2.0 and 3.6 in magnitude. Those who live in the small town have grown concerned.
> 
> Azle leaders have called on state officials to have geologists investigate the cause of these quakes. "The citizens are concerned," said Azle Assistant City Manager Lawrence Bryant at a city council meeting. "They should be."
> 
> "If it's a man-made cause, it would be nice to know," Bryant added.


----------



## ekim68

Off Siberia's Arctic coast, the seafloor belches methane



> If you can't find the hole in a leaky bike tire, one thing you can do is stick it under water. The line of rising bubbles will lead you right to the damaged patch of rubber. You can use a similar trick if you're trying to work out how methane is being released from thawing permafrost-you just have to look in the shallow Arctic waters off the Siberian coast.
> 
> The continental shelf here is broad, and much of it was exposed during the last ice age when sea levels were about 130 meters (nearly 430 feet) lower. As a result, the area was permafrost before it was inundated over 5,000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean is cold, to be sure, but it's not frozen solid. That means it's warmer than the frigid air temperatures on land, and the inundated permafrost has slowly been thawing-*very slowly*.


----------



## valis

DaveBurnett said:


> That is totally misleading and just shows what scare tactics the CARBON lobby are prepared to use.
> There is no more trapped CO2 in permafrost than there is in water, probably less.
> Of course there is organic matter in there, but it would need to be burned. Most of it would be peat.


and it's not co2, necessarily, Dave; it's about the methane clathrate that is WAY worse than co2, and is stuck (buried) under the permafrost.


----------



## ekim68

Vast undersea freshwater reserves mapped



> Vast freshwater reserves are trapped beneath the ocean floor which could sustain future generations as current sources dwindle, say an international team of scientists.
> 
> In this week's issue of Nature they estimate 500,000 cubic kilometres of low-salinity water is buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the world, including off Australia, China, North America and South Africa.


----------



## ekim68

Comfortable in the Cold: Life Below Freezing in an Antarctic Lake



> Despite these unbearably cold conditions, Organic Lake is home to all manner of microbial life, from algae to bacteria to viruses. It even has viruses that infect other viruses. Though life in Organic Lake is in many ways the same as elsewhere on Earth, it is also profoundly different in some ways. If Cavicchioli-a warm-blooded mammal-were to fall into the lake, he might die of hypothermia in a matter of minutes. But for the species in Organic Lake, frigid temperatures are comfortable. Warm them up to room temperature, and many would die in the scorching heat.


----------



## ekim68

Press Release: Landsat 8 helps unveil the coldest place on Earth 



> Scientists recently recorded the lowest temperatures on Earth at a desolate and remote ice plateau in East Antarctica, trumping a record set in 1983 and uncovering a new puzzle about the ice-covered continent.
> 
> Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and his team found temperatures from −92 to −94 degrees Celsius (−134 to −137 degrees Fahrenheit) in a 1,000-kilometer long swath on the highest section of the East Antarctic ice divide.


----------



## ekim68

Study says U.S. can't keep up with loss of ecologically-sensitive wetlands



> Over a four-year span, the United States lost more than 360,000 acres of freshwater and saltwater wetlands to fierce storms, sea-level rise and booming development along the coasts, according to a newly released federal study.
> 
> The disappearance of so much grass and forest marsh on the edge of waterways is a disturbing sign that government projects to restore wetlands are failing to keep pace, environmentalists said, as storms intensify, the sea level creeps up and development paves the way for rising coastal populations.


----------



## valis

fun stuff seattle way:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo...tinues-What-is-blocking-tunneling-5054842.php


> The Transportation Department and contractors building a highway tunnel under downtown Seattle are trying to identify the mystery object that has blocked their tunnel boring machine.
> 
> The machine called Bertha ran into something Friday and was shut down Saturday about 1,000 feet from the start. The $80 million machine is designed to break up boulders, so there's speculation about what it hit.


----------



## valis

whoa.....

http://gizmodo.com/be-totally-entranced-by-these-technicolor-winds-swirlin-1482795950


----------



## ekim68

Latest Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Here you go Tim....

This prizewinning shot of a carnivorous plant's jaws looks like something out of an alien world 



> Have you heard of the humped bladderwort? (Snort!) Ahem. It's sort of an aquatic version of the venus flytrap, sucking in unlucky prey after they brush past it. It's also REALLY cool looking:


----------



## valis

I'll nope myself right on out of there, thank you very much.....first time I saw it, I immediately thought of:










this.


----------



## ekim68

Feed Me!


----------



## valis

yup.....


----------



## valis

by the by, Mike, check out 'the reluctant orchid' short story here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_white_hart

easily my favorite book by ACC, it's a great read, very thought provoking, and you should be able to find it at Powell's.....


----------



## ekim68

Thanks Tim. I've bookmarked it. :up:


----------



## ekim68

'Massive' reservoir of melt water found under Greenland ice



> Researchers say they have discovered a large reservoir of melt water that sits under the Greenland ice sheet all year round.
> 
> The scientists say the water is stored in the air space between particles of ice, similar to the way that fruit juice stays liquid in a slush drink.
> 
> The aquifer, which covers an area the size of Ireland, could yield important clues to sea level rise.


----------



## valis

ah, jeeze........that is NOT good.......that will easily accelerate the melt-off of the glaciers, as well as speeding up the slide to the sea.........


----------



## ekim68

In-Flight Movie! Aurora Flight Nov 2013


----------



## ekim68

From domestic to international: Tornadoes around the world



> The United States experiences approximately 75 percent of the world's known tornadoes and thus is notorious for its tornado climatology in terms of frequency, intensity, and destructive outbreak events. While it is appropriate to focus on tornadoes across the United States, it is important to recognize that tornadoes also happen in other countries of the world.


----------



## DaveBurnett

Tornadoes are just as common in the UK and other countries. It is just that they are a lot smaller and don't last anywhere near as long.


----------



## valis

how's that old joke go? An Arkansas divorce or an American tornado, someone is fixing to lose a trailer home.


----------



## ekim68

NASA: 2012 Was 9th Warmest Year on Record. The 9 Warmest Years Have All Occurred Since 1998. 



> After the news a couple of weeks ago that the USA had its hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA released the global temperature data today. NOAA pegs it as the 10th warmest and NASA has it as 9th. They both do separate and slightly differing analyses. The bigger story here is that all 9 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1998.


----------



## ekim68

Climate change works wonders in Leh



> The much-demonised climate change is working wonders for farmers in the higher altitudes of the Himalayas at Leh in the Indian-administered Kashmir. Where there was only ice in winter and a veritable desert during the rest of the year, there now blossoms greenery bringing along with it a mind-boggling variety of vegetables and fruits.


----------



## ekim68

Nuclear weapon test debris 'persists' in atmosphere



> Radioactive particles from nuclear tests that took place decades ago persist in the upper atmosphere, a study suggests.
> 
> Previously, scientists believed that nuclear debris found high above the Earth would now be negligible.
> 
> However this research shows that plutonium and caesium isotopes are still present at surprisingly high concentrations.


----------



## ekim68

L.A. storms to grow more destructive as sea level rises, study says 



> Major storms will be more destructive to coastal areas of Los Angeles as sea level rise accelerates over the century, according to a new study the city of Los Angeles commissioned to help it adjust to climate change.
> 
> The study by USC took inventory of the city's coastal neighborhoods, roads, its port, energy and water infrastructure to evaluate the damage they would face from a storm under sea level rise scenarios anticipated for mid-century and 2100.


----------



## ekim68

North America's big freeze seen from space


----------



## ekim68

January Auroras


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> January Auroras


Beautiful.


----------



## ekim68

Pine Island Glacier's retreat 'irreversible'



> Antarctica's mighty Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is now very probably in a headlong, self-sustaining retreat.
> 
> This is the conclusion of three teams that have modelled its behaviour.
> 
> Even if the region were to experience much colder conditions, the retreat would continue, the teams tell the journal Nature Climate Change.
> 
> This means PIG is set to become an even more significant contributor to global sea level rise - on the order of perhaps 3.5-10mm in the next 20 years.


----------



## DaveBurnett

So it is exempt from an ice age??.....


----------



## ekim68

I've read that because of the ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland is so huge that it's changing the salinity in the oceans, especially in the near vicinity of those land masses. It occurs to me that maybe desalinization plants might not be so bad after all...


----------



## valis

mike, desalinization is horrible. It ups the freezing point, which in turn could help increase the chances for a little ice age. Reason behind it is that frozen water ups the albedo and then more sunlight is reflected as opposed to absorbed.

FYI, there's a nice article on the methane clathrate issue currently in Siberia; we, as humans, are in deep yogurt over the next couple centuries. I'll see if I can track it down. 

peace, mike.


----------



## ekim68

Seems to me that we can't rely on consistent periodic cyclic changes because of Population increases across the World...So what do we save? Sure we can mess up the environment, but then again we're good at that, or/and we can provide water to the places like the Desert that is the San Joaquin valley which supplies 80 percent of the World's Almonds...


----------



## ekim68

NASA | Six Decades of a Warming Earth 

Video.....


----------



## ekim68

Well, thank goodness....:up: 

Earth Won't Die as Soon as Thought



> Take a deep breath-Earth is not going to die as soon as scientists believed. Two new modeling studies find that the gradually brightening sun won't vaporize our planet's water for at least another 1 billion to 1.5 billion years-hundreds of millions of years later than a slightly older model had forecast. The findings won't change your retirement plans but could imply that habitable, Earth-like alien worlds are more common than scientists thought.


----------



## ekim68

Asian Air Pollution Affecting World's Weather



> Extreme air pollution in Asia is affecting the world's weather and climate patterns, according to a study by Texas A&M University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers.
> 
> Yuan Wang, a former doctoral student at Texas A&M, along with Texas A&M atmospheric sciences professors Renyi Zhang and R. Saravanan, have had their findings published in the current issue of Nature Communications.
> 
> Using climate models and data collected about aerosols and meteorology over the past 30 years, the researchers found that air pollution over Asia - much of it coming from China - is impacting global air circulations.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> Seems to me that we can't rely on consistent periodic cyclic changes because of Population increases across the World...So what do we save? Sure we can mess up the environment, but then again we're good at that, or/and we can provide water to the places like the Desert that is the San Joaquin valley which supplies 80 percent of the World's Almonds...


IMO, the fact that we cannot leave well enough alone is part of the big problem.

That, and obviously the anthropogenic trashing of the ecosystem with nary a regard for 'tomorrow'......


----------



## ekim68

The Grand Canyon as Frankenstein



> It's a debate that has vexed scientists for decades: Is the Grand Canyon young or old, geologically speaking? Both, a new study declares. A group of scientists reports that the famed formation is a hybrid of five different gorges of various ages that the Colorado River only tied into a single continuous canyon and deepened since 5 million or 6 million years ago.


----------



## valis

huh.....never thought of it that way, and I've been there quite a few times.....

and every single stinkin' time I go, I still get googly eyed.


----------



## ekim68

Venezuela wins Guinness record for lightning



> A Guinness record for the place with the most lightning has been given to an area in Venezuela that recorded 3,600 flashes per hour.
> 
> The certification was handed out on Tuesday by Guinness Book of World Records representative Johanna Hessling.
> 
> The natural phenomenon in the northwestern state of Zulia is called the Catatumbo Lightning, which generates myriad electrical storms from April to November at the mouth of the River Catatumbo, at the southern end of Lake Maracaibo.


----------



## valis

man.......sure as heck hope this falls under 'anomaly'......wouldn't want it under 'normal stuff'......

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/giant-boulder-destroys-building-in-italy-misses-anothe-1511504057


----------



## DaveBurnett

It IS normal. The lightning that is.
So much so that they organise international holidays to go and see it and got sued when there was a whole fortnight without any.


----------



## valis

you talking about the boulder or the time-lapse? that time lapse may be the most perfectly looped gif I've ever seen by the way.....


----------



## DaveBurnett

The Venezuela Lightning.


----------



## ekim68

Remarkable footage of a volcanic eruption, as seen from space


----------



## valis

my question is thus......what makes up those microbes? They've never seen air, sunlight, nor humans....

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/antarcticas-blood-red-waterfall-180949507/


----------



## ekim68

I've read about this some time back and it's interesting that they get oxygen from the breakup of sulphates, but the conditions are much more extreme and cyclic than what I thought...You know, our science is pretty good about these discoveries. Could you imagine what it could do with a sample of life that didn't live on oxygen...Say like in a methane environment similar to moons around Saturn and other planets...


----------



## valis

that would be wicked cool....and it's only a matter of time....

again, though, what are the effects on local flora/fauna? Slapdashery exploration always sets me on edge.....


----------



## ekim68

Thanks Tim...'Slapdashery' is my new Favorite Word.....


----------



## valis

no clue where that one came from.....absolutely buried today at work, and a large portion of my mind is elsewhere.....


----------



## ekim68

Greenland's fastest glacier found to be accelerating



> Greenland's fastest-moving glacier is accelerating, moving ice from the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean at the fastest speed ever recorded, scientists say.
> 
> In the summer of 2012, the Jakobshavn Glacier reached a record speed of more than 10 miles per year, or more than 150 feet per day, the European Geophysical Union in Munich, Germany, reported Monday.
> 
> The annually averaged speedup over the past couple of years is nearly three times what it was in the 1990s, researchers said.
> 
> "We are now seeing summer speeds more than four times what they were in the 1990s on a glacier, which at that time was believed to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, glacier in Greenland," study lead author Ian Joughin of the University of Washington said.


----------



## DaveBurnett

Serendipity goes hand in hand with slapdashery unfortunately.


----------



## valis

as does misfortune, often enough.....


----------



## ekim68

Why is it unfortunate?  They could be twins, eh?


----------



## ekim68

Sharing this again....

Auroras Just Now


----------



## valis

lovely.....

I've only seen aururae twice; once in Montana, and once in So Dak....both times what struck me was that I really thought I should be hearing sound as well. Very interesting....pretty trippy too. Love to live in Northern climes where those are far more normal....


----------



## ekim68

Climate change may make it harder to find Winter Olympic host cities



> The 2014 Winter Olympics begin in Sochi this Friday, but a new report by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada warns the games' days may be numbered.
> 
> By 2050, nearly half the 19 sites of previous Winter Olympics will be too warm to host one of the biggest global sporting events.


----------



## valis

huh....hadn't even considered that......


----------



## Noyb

FWIW ... Due to Money and Politics, The fastest sled will not be running .. 
But the running USA sleds (those with the money) were Cloned from it.
Good looking isnt it


----------



## valis

what was the fastest sled? And what politics kept it out?

Yup, that's a looker....the amount of research that goes into those is astounding.


----------



## Noyb

valis said:


> what was the fastest sled? And what politics kept it out?
> Yup, that's a looker....the amount of research that goes into those is astounding.


Fastest in the trials .. Then the money stepped in and Cloned it
All at the builder/designers expense, all they got was the satisfaction of the design and supporting the USA.


----------



## DaveBurnett

and, sadly, that is a case where you tend to wish patents were automatic.


----------



## valis

don't really know where to post this......crows solving a pretty dang impressive puzzle test......the link starts at the 8th stage.


----------



## DaveBurnett

There's a similar one with squirrels:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/942225/


----------



## valis

can't hit that site from work unfortunately...is it a spoof or is it real?


----------



## DaveBurnett

Real, but perhaps in your case not reel??


----------



## ekim68

Wow that was cool Tim...:up:


----------



## valis

spooky cool.......


----------



## ekim68

Scientists Solve Mystery of World-Traveling Plant



> By land or by sea? That's the question scientists have been pondering for decades when it comes to the bottle gourd, a plant with a hard-skinned fruit that's used by cultures all over the world to make lightweight containers and other tools. Archaeologists know that people were using domesticated bottle gourds in the Americas as early as 10,000 years ago. But how did the plant make the jump from its original home in Africa to the New World with an ocean in the way? A new study overturns previous evidence pointing to a human-assisted land migration and concludes that the bottle gourd floated across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas on its own.


----------



## ekim68

Retreating Alpine glacier gives up another body after 34 years



> As one of the world's best-known mountain rescue helicopter pilots, Gerold Biner is used to spotting things on glaciers that shouldn't be there. Flying under the north face of the Matterhorn last summer, he saw at the edge of the ice that flows beneath the mountain some equipment, clearly abandoned. Inside the clothing were bones, and a name tag with one word: Conville.
> 
> When the remains arrived at the laboratory of forensic pathologist Bettina Schrag, she put the name into Google and discovered the website of a charity set up in memory of a young British climber who disappeared after falling from high on the Matterhorn in 1979. "As soon as I saw the email was from a Swiss pathology laboratory," says his sister, Melissa, "I knew they'd found Jonathan."
> 
> Now is a boom time for glacier archaeology, a small silver lining among the gathering storm of climate change. As glaciers retreat, chance discoveries are revealing that, along with the remains of recent tragedies, there are signs that our ancient ancestors spent much more time in the mountains than we thought.


----------



## valis

holy cow, that is sorta neat.....macabre, granted, but still pretty neat......


----------



## ekim68

NOAA satellite captures images, video of approaching winter storm


----------



## ekim68

Genetic origins of high-altitude adaptations in Tibetans



> High elevations are challenging for humans because of low oxygen levels but Tibetans are well adapted to life above 13,000 feet. Due to physiological traits such as relatively low hemoglobin concentrations at altitude, Tibetans have lower risk of complications, such as thrombosis, compared to short-term visitors from low altitude. Unique to Tibetans are variants of the EGLN1 and EPAS1 genes, key genes in the oxygen homeostasis system at all altitudes. These variants were hypothesized to have evolved around 3,000 years ago, a date which conflicts with much older archaeological evidence of human settlement in Tibet.


----------



## ekim68

Icicles dazzle in Lake Superior caves



> APOSTLE ISLANDS, Wisconsin (AP) - Just as people dress differently when temperatures plunge below zero, so does nature.
> 
> The arctic siege gripping the Upper Midwest has turned most of the Great Lakes into vast frozen plains blanketed in white. At Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin, caves formed over centuries along the Lake Superior shoreline by crashing waves, freezing and thawing have been transformed into showplaces for dazzling natural ice sculptures.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic thaw significantly worsens global warming risk



> Melting ice is cooking the planet. Shrinking Arctic sea ice means the ocean is absorbing more energy from the sun, and it's now clear the effect is twice as big as thought - adding significantly to heating from greenhouse gases.
> 
> Arctic temperatures have risen 2 °C since the 1970s, leading to a 40 per cent dip in the minimum summer ice coverage in the Arctic Ocean. Open water soaks up more sunlight than ice, so as the ice retreats the ocean absorbs more energy, warming it and causing even more melting.


----------



## ekim68

Big Antarctic glacier to keep raising seas, even without warming



> (Reuters) - A thawing Antarctic glacier that is the biggest contributor to rising sea levels is likely to continue shrinking for decades, even without an extra spur from global warming, a study showed on Thursday.
> 
> Scientists said the Pine Island Glacier, which carries more water to the sea than the Rhine River, also thinned 8,000 years ago at rates comparable to the present, in a melt that lasted for decades, perhaps for centuries.
> 
> "Our findings reveal that Pine Island Glacier has experienced rapid thinning at least once in the past, and that, once set in motion, rapid ice sheet changes in this region can persist for centuries," they wrote in the U.S. journal Science.


----------



## ekim68

Global Forest Watch


----------



## ekim68

Source of Stonehenge Bluestone Rocks Identified



> Scientists have found the exact source of Stonehenge's smaller bluestones, new research suggests.
> 
> The stones' rock composition revealed they come from a nearby outcropping, located about 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) away from the site originally proposed as the source of such rocks nearly a century ago. The discovery of the rock's origin, in turn, could help archaeologists one day unlock the mystery of how the stones got to Stonehenge.


----------



## ekim68

In Images: Massive Landslide Falls in Alaska


----------



## valis

Isn't that the one that has blocked Valdez and created some weird lake issue?


----------



## ekim68

I'm not sure if it's part of the Valdez incident and it seems to be pretty remote...


----------



## ekim68

10 million scallops are dead; Qualicum company lays off staff



> High acid levels in the waters around Parksville Qualicum Beach have killed 10 million scallops and forced a local shellfish producer to scale operations back considerably.
> 
> Island Scallops CEO Rob Saunders said the company has lost three years worth of scallops and $10 million.
> 
> "I'm not sure we are going to stay alive and I'm not sure the oyster industry is going to stay alive," Saunders told The NEWS. "It's that dramatic."
> 
> Saunders said the carbon dioxide levels have increased dramatically in the waters of the Georgia Strait, forcing the PH levels to 7.3 from their norm of 8.1 or 8.2.


----------



## ekim68

Smell of forest pine can limit climate change - researchers



> New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change.
> 
> Scientists say they've found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests.
> 
> These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form.
> 
> The research, published in the journal Nature, fills in a major gap in our understanding, researchers say.


----------



## ekim68

Eruption Update for February 28, 2014: Poás, Marapi and Climate



> Earlier this week, Poás in Costa Rica had a small eruption likely related to water flashing to steam in the heating crater lake area. This eruption ended up being the largest so far in 2014, but these types of explosion are fairly common at the Costa Rican volcano. That being said, María Martínez Cruz (OVSICORI) said that the size of this eruption, with a plume that reached 300-meters, is not too common at Poás. This could suggest that more heat is being fed into the upper reaches of the volcano. The webcam at Poás captured the eruption as it occurred, spreading ash mainly within the crater area.


----------



## ekim68

Oil From the Exxon Valdez Spill Lingers on Alaska Beaches



> The Exxon Valdez oil spill is not just an awful memory. Oil from one of the most devastating environmental disasters in U.S. history still clings to boulder-strewn beaches in the Gulf of Alaska-and could stick around for decades. Researchers presented evidence of a lingering, foamy, mousse-like emulsion this week at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.


----------



## ekim68

Well it's sort of an Earth Anomaly....

19 Mind-Boggling Views of Factories and Nuclear Plants, Carved From Google Maps


----------



## ekim68

It only takes otters 25 years to recover from an oil spill



> Kinda hard to believe, but the Exxon Valdez oil spill was 25 years ago. "Yeah, sheesh," says the sea otter population that has spent this entire time struggling to recover from the spill's effects.
> 
> Back in 1989, the 10.8 million gallons of crude oil that leaked into Prince William Sound killed otters and 20 other species. Roughly 1,000 otters died from the spill right away, and lingering oil in clams (otter food) and in otters' fur slowly killed 1,000 to 2,000 more otters later.
> 
> Thankfully, a new study indicates the number of sea otters off Alaska's southern coast is finally back to normal - although it sure took long enough.


----------



## ekim68

Global Warming Slows Antarctica's Coldest Currents



> A shift from briny to fresh in Antarctica's ocean waters in recent decades could explain the shutdown of the Southern Ocean's coldest, deepest currents, a new study finds.
> 
> The cold currents, called the Antarctic Bottom Water, are chilly, salty rivers that flow from the underwater edge of the Antarctic continent north toward the equator, keeping to the bottom of the seafloor. The currents carry oxygen, carbon and nutrients down to the deepest parts of the ocean.


----------



## ekim68

NASA Data Sheds New Light on Changing Greenland Ice



> Research using NASA data is giving new insight into one of the processes causing Greenland's ice sheet to lose mass. A team of scientists used satellite observations and ice thickness measurements gathered by NASA's Operation IceBridge to calculate the rate at which ice flows through Greenland's glaciers into the ocean. The findings of this research give a clearer picture of how glacier flow affects the Greenland Ice Sheet and shows that this dynamic process is dominated by a small number of glaciers.
> 
> Over the past few years, Operation IceBridge measured the thickness of many of Greenland's glaciers, which allowed researchers to make a more accurate calculation of ice discharge rates. In a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers calculated ice discharge rates for 178 Greenland glaciers more than one kilometer (0.62 miles) wide.


----------



## ekim68

Rare Diamond Confirms That Earth's Mantle Holds an Ocean's Worth of Water



> A battered diamond that survived a trip from "hell" confirms a long-held theory: Earth's mantle holds an ocean's worth of water.
> 
> "It's actually the confirmation that there is a very, very large amount of water that's trapped in a really distinct layer in the deep Earth," said Graham Pearson, lead study author and a geochemist at the University of Alberta in Canada. The findings were published today (March 12) in the journal Nature.


----------



## ekim68

Forests Around Chernobyl Aren't Decaying Properly



> It wasn't just people, animals and trees that were affected by radiation exposure at Chernobyl, but also the decomposers: insects, microbes, and fungi.


----------



## DaveBurnett

And what is new or shocking about that.?
We have been irradiating *food* for years to prolong the shelf life.


----------



## ekim68

Auroras around the globe


----------



## ekim68

The Steelhead landslide in Oso, Washington State 



> The death toll from the Steelhead landslide near to Oso in Washington State is continuing to rise. Latest reports suggest that there are now 14 known fatalities, but 176 people are reported to be missing. It is quite normal in this sort of event for the number of reported missing people to exceed substantially the actual number of victims, so this maximum toll may reduce in the next few days. However, it is still likely to be the costliest landslide in terms of lives lost for many years in the USA.
> 
> Details are slowly emerging of the landslide history of this site. It is clear that major landslides have occurred here on many previous occasions; indeed so much so that the landslide is known as either the Hazel landslide or the Steelhead landslide; at this stage I am opting for the matter given that the inundated area is known as Steelhead Drive.


----------



## ekim68

Methane emissions expected to soar as Earth warms



> Carbon dioxide is the gas most discussed in relation to manmade climate change. But there are other gases responsible for the greenhouse effect that climate scientists blame for global warming.
> 
> Scientists say the presence of one of those gases, methane, can be expected to rise rapidly, should the planet continue to warm. That's bad news, since methane -- already the third most abundant greenhouse gas -- has roughly 30 times the heat-trapping potency of CO2.


----------



## ekim68

Baseball Bats Made from Ash May Fall Victim of Climate Change 



> The crack of bats this time of year means two things: Baseball is back and winter is over.
> 
> But Major League Baseball's spring soundtrack relies heavily on wood from white ash trees treasured for strength and flexibility. And it may soon sound different as a tiny beetle threatens the northern Pennsylvania stands that for more than a century have supplied wood for bats.


----------



## ekim68

How a 'Seismic Cloak' Could Slow Down an Earthquake



> The United States is currently gripped in a bout of earthquake mania, following a series of significant tremors in the West. And any time Yellowstone, LA, or San Francisco shakes, people start to wonder if it's a sign of The Big One™ to come. Yet even after decades of research, earthquake prediction remains notoriously hard, and not every building in quake-prone areas has an earthquake-resistant design. What if, instead of quaking in our boots, we could stop quakes in their tracks?
> 
> Theoretically, it's not a crazy idea. Earthquakes propagate in waves, and if noise-canceling headphones have taught us anything, it's that waves can be absorbed, reflected, or canceled out. Today, a paper published in Physical Review Letters suggests how that might be done. It's the result of French research into the use of metamaterials-broadly, materials with properties not found in nature-to modify seismic waves, like a seismic cloaking device.


----------



## ekim68

Carbon Dioxide Levels Climb Into Uncharted Territory for Humans



> The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has exceeded 402 parts per million (ppm) during the past two days of observations, which is higher than at any time in at least the past 800,000 years, according to readings from monitoring equipment on a mountaintop in Hawaii. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the most important long-lived greenhouse gas responsible for manmade global warming, and it is building up in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.
> 
> Once emitted, a single molecule of carbon dioxide can remain aloft for hundreds of years, which means that the effects of today's industrial activities will be felt for the next several centuries, if not thousands of years. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, such as methane, warm the planet by absorbing and redirecting outgoing solar radiation that would otherwise escape back into space.


----------



## ekim68

10 places to visit before they're gone: A bucket list for a warming world



> Summer is just around the corner and, after a winter like this one, it's high time to start making those vacation plans. Of course, our buoyant spirits were somewhat dampened by the latest U.N. climate report. Spoiler alert, it wasn't real good, well, unless you're into horrific droughts, monster storms, heat waves, mass extinctions, failing crops, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, in which case, jackpot!


----------



## DaveBurnett

> The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has exceeded 402 parts per million (ppm) during the past two days of observations, which is higher than at any time in at least the past 800,000 years, according to readings from monitoring equipment on a mountaintop in Hawaii. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the most important long-lived greenhouse gas responsible for manmade global warming, and it is building up in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. Once emitted, a single molecule of carbon dioxide can remain aloft for hundreds of years, which means that the effects of today's industrial activities will be felt for the next several centuries, if not thousands of years. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, such as methane, warm the planet by absorbing and redirecting outgoing solar radiation that would otherwise escape back into space.


 Yeah they took the readings right next to an active vent in one of the most active parts of the globe. So much for THEIR THEORIES if that is how they are going to present them.


----------



## ekim68

Animation shows how Washington landslide hit 100 km/h



> It must have been terrifying to be in Oso, Washington, on 22 March, when heavy rains turned a previously stable mix of rock, sand and clay into an 8-million-cubic-metre wall of moving liquid. On its 1-kilometre journey it briefly dammed a river, obliterated a neighbourhood, buried a stretch of highway and killed at least 35 people.
> 
> Geologists were perplexed. It should not have gone so far, given the height from which it travelled. However, landslides above a certain size often behave strangely.


----------



## ekim68

Mysterious Ancient Moroccan Rock Pile Explained



> The origin of the giant pile of boulders a Moroccan village rests precariously on has long mystified scientists. But the mystery has now been solved: the boulders are the result of a catastrophic rockfall that occurred 4,500 years ago in the High Atlas Mountains, scientists find.


----------



## ekim68

Unexpected Teleconnections in Noctilucent Clouds 



> April 16, 2014: Earth's poles are separated by four oceans, six continents and more than 12,000 nautical miles.
> 
> Turns out, that's not so far apart.
> 
> New data from NASA's AIM spacecraft have revealed "teleconnections" in Earth's atmosphere that stretch all the way from the North Pole to the South Pole and back again, linking weather and climate more closely than simple geography would suggest.
> 
> For example, says Cora Randall, AIM science team member and Chair of the Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, "we have found that the winter air temperature in Indianapolis, Indiana, is well correlated with the frequency of noctilucent clouds over Antarctica."


----------



## ekim68

There's something ancient in the icebox: Three-million-year-old landscape beneath Greenland Ice Sheet



> Scientists were greatly surprised to discover an ancient tundra landscape preserved under the Greenland Ice Sheet, below two miles of ice. This finding provides strong evidence that the ice sheet has persisted much longer than previously known, enduring through many past periods of global warming.


----------



## ekim68

This is Iceland



> Time-lapse of northern lights capture in Iceland for the past months...


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> This is Iceland


Beautiful! Also loved the music.


----------



## ekim68

Slow-motion landslide threatens homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming



> A slow-motion disaster continued to unfold in the Wyoming resort town of Jackson on Saturday, as a creeping landslide that split a hillside home threatened to swallow up more houses and businesses.
> 
> The ground beneath the 100ft hillside had been slowly giving way for almost two weeks before the downward movement accelerated in recent days. With rocks and dirt tumbling down, officials suspended efforts to shore up the slope and said they were uncertain what else could be done.


----------



## ekim68

Iceberg 6 times the size of Manhattan breaks off of Antarctica



> WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists are watching an iceberg bigger than the island of Guam as it slowly moves away from an Antarctic glacier.
> 
> NASA scientist Kelly Brunt said it is more a wonder than a worry and is not a threat to shipping or sea level rise.


----------



## ekim68

Unique Mineral Discovered In Australia



> A previously unknown mineral has been discovered in a remote location in Western Australia. The mineral, named putnisite, appears purple and translucent, and contains strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, a very unusual combination.


----------



## ekim68

Longest conveyor belts



> The world's longest conveyor belt is located in the Western Sahara. It is 98 km long and transports phosphate rocks from the mines of Bou Craa to the port city of El-Aaiun. From there, cargo vessels transport the phosphates to various countries, where they are utilized in fertilizer production.


----------



## ekim68

80 Governments Agree 'Unorthodox Steps' to Restore Oceans



> THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, April 25, 2014 (ENS) - The Global Oceans Action Summit for Blue Growth and Food Security concluded today in The Hague with commitments from 80 government ministers, the fishing industry and civil society to tackle key threats to the world's oceans: climate change, overfishing, habitat loss and pollution.
> 
> A joint initiative of the Government of the Netherlands, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank, organizers called the level of cooperation at the four-day meeting one of "unprecedented convergence."


----------



## ekim68

Just checking...

A Girl in a Tree


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Just checking...
> 
> A Girl in a Tree


----------



## ekim68

Increasing CO2 may threaten human nutrition



> According to the UN, wheat, rice, and maize-a mere three out of the Earth's 50,000+ edible plants-provide 60 percent of the world's plant-derived food energy. In the developing world, they provide up to 70-80 percent of the energy in a person's daily diet. These crops are key providers of micronutrients like zinc and iron, which they draw up from the soil.
> 
> As we continue to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, however, we may be less able to rely on these crops. A meta-analysis indicates that grains and legumes grown at elevated CO2 levels have lower concentrations of zinc and iron, and some crops also have reduced protein levels.


----------



## ekim68

Record Number of Oklahoma Tremors Raises Possibility of Damaging Earthquakes



> The rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50 percent since October 2013, significantly increasing the chance for a damaging quake in central Oklahoma.
> 
> In a new joint statement by the U.S. Geological Survey and Oklahoma Geological Survey, the agencies reported that 183 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater occurred in Oklahoma from October 2013 through April 14, 2014. This compares with a long-term average from 1978 to 2008 of only two magnitude 3.0 or larger earthquakes per year. As a result of the increased number of small and moderate shocks, the likelihood of future, damaging earthquakes has increased for central and north-central Oklahoma.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic glaciers melting 'past point of no return'



> The vast glaciers of western Antarctica are rapidly melting and losing ice to the sea and almost certainly have "passed the point of no return," according to new work by two separate teams of scientists.
> 
> The likely result: a rise in global sea levels of 4 feet or more in the coming centuries, says research made public Monday by scientists at the University of Washington, the University of California-Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


----------



## ekim68

10 Lakes That Are Disappearing or Already Gone



> One hundred billion gallons of water don't just go missing overnight. In the past, it took decades for man-made water diversion projects and changes in climate to dramatically reduce the size of some of the world's largest bodies of water. Today, water around the globe is disappearing faster than ever. Here are ten bodies of water that are already dry, or disappearing at an unprecedented rate.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> 10 Lakes That Are Disappearing or Already Gone


----------



## ekim68

Humans causing California's mountains to grow



> Humankind has proven time and again that it can reshape mountains, or even tear them down. Now, it appears, we can make them rise as well. Geologists studying growth rates of the Sierra Nevada and of central California's Coast Ranges have identified an anthropogenic contribution to the mountains' uplift that they suggest is tied to the decades-long depletion of groundwater in the state's Central Valley. What's more, the researchers report in a study published today in Nature, the long-term water loss may be affecting how stress builds up on faults like the San Andreas.


----------



## ekim68

World's most beautiful beach glows like millions of stars at night



> Flickr user hala065 brings us these otherworldly images of a beach in the Maldives that glows with millions of pinpoints of glowing blue. The light from these bioluminescent phytoplankton looks like a fantastic starry sky somewhere deep in the universe. It's mesmerizing.


----------



## ekim68

Colorado river reaches sea for first time in decades



> The fresh waters of the Colorado river reached the Gulf of California at high tide on Thursday, the first time in decades that the river has flowed all the way to the sea.
> 
> The reunion of the Colorado with its natural outlet is the result of years of negotiation between Mexican and US water authorities that allowed for a huge pulse of water to be released from a dam on the US-Mexico border starting on 23 March.


----------



## ekim68

Drought, Hurricane Bigger Threat to World's Top Companies 



> Drought, hurricanes and rising seas are becoming more significant threats to the world's biggest companies and the risk is accelerating, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project.
> 
> Companies planning for various threats related to climate change say they're grappling now with about 45 percent of the potential risks, or will be within five years, according to a report issued today by the London-based non-profit group. That's up from 2011, when members of the Standard and Poor's 500 Index expected 26 percent of the potential risks to affect them within five years.
> 
> The results show that climate change is having a measurable impact on business operations, and that many companies expect it to increase costs or hinder sales.


(It was bound to hit the profit making machines...)


----------



## ekim68

Wild Wyoming cloud wows weatherwatchers



> A phenomenal shot of a massive cloud Sunday near Clareton, Wyo., has been making the rounds on social media today.
> 
> The photo was taken by the Basehunters storm chasers group, who are "committed to capturing the most unique and close-up tornado footage on the market," according to their Facebook page. It shows the rotating updraft of a supercell thunderstorm over eastern Wyoming, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Jon Erdman.


----------



## ekim68

Just realized that yesterday was the 34th anniversary of Mount St. Helens blowing the lid off

We were living 179 miles south of it at the time and every day for a week and a half, our cars were covered with ash up to an eighth of an inch thick...


----------



## ekim68

Spanish Conquest May Have Altered Peru's Shoreline



> In 1532, Francisco Pizarro led an expedition of battle-hardened Spanish soldiers on a fateful journey, from the desert coast of northern Peru to the highland Inca city of Cajamarca. A civil war had just ended in the Inca Empire, and Pizarro and a party of fewer than 200 men marched eastward to capitalize on the turmoil.
> 
> The ensuing Spanish conquest of the Inca had a profound effect on the region's indigenous people, but a new paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that it also had an unexpected impact on the land itself. Before the Spaniards arrived, inhabitants of the arid northern Peruvian coast clad massive sand dune-like ridges with an accidental form of "armor": millions of discarded mollusk shells, which protected the ridges from erosion for nearly 4700 years and produced a vast corrugated landscape that "is visible from space," says archaeologist Dan Sandweiss of the University of Maine, Orono, one of the paper's authors.
> 
> This incidental landscape protection came to a swift end, however, after diseases brought by Spanish colonists decimated the local population and after colonial officials resettled the survivors inland. "There were very few [indigenous] people living along the coast then," says lead author and geologist Daniel Belknap of the University of Maine, and without humans to create the protective covering, newly formed beach ridges simply eroded and vanished.


----------



## ekim68

Light-colored butterflies and dragonflies thriving as European climate warms



> Butterflies and dragonflies with lighter colors are out-competing darker-colored insects in the face of climate change. Scientists have shown that as the climate warms across Europe, communities of butterflies and dragonflies consist of more lighter coloured species. Darker coloured species are retreating northwards to cooler areas, but lighter coloured species are also moving their geographical range north as Europe gets warmer.


----------



## ekim68

Oyster farmers and Ocean acidification



> "The ocean is so acidic that it is dissolving the shells of our baby oysters," says Diani Taylor of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Washington. She and her cousin Brittany are fifth-generation oyster farmers, and are grappling with ocean waters that are more acidic and corrosive than their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers knew.


----------



## ekim68

Shrinking Waves May Save Antarctic Sea Ice



> It's a nagging thorn in the side of climatologists: Even though the world is warming, the average area of the sea ice around Antarctica is increasing. Climate models haven't explained this seeming contradiction to anyone's satisfaction-and climate change deniers tout that failure early and often. But a new paper suggests a possible explanation: Variability in the heights of ocean waves pounding into the sea ice may help control its advance and retreat.





> To measure how far into the ice the waves still pack a punch, the researchers used wave height, energy, and frequency data gathered from five autonomous wave sensors positioned on Antarctic sea ice along a 250-kilometer line. They noticed an interesting thing. As predicted, small waves-less than 3 meters tall-lost energy rapidly as they propagated through the sea ice, as they would through a thick fluid. But larger waves didn't lose their energy nearly as quickly. As a result, "when the waves are bigger, the ice is going to get munched up a lot quicker," Kohout says. Storms kicking up large waves, therefore, would have a disproportionately powerful effect on sea ice breakup, they report online today in Nature. And conversely, if wave heights are decreasing in a particular region, that could "allow" the sea ice to expand, she says.
> 
> Next, the team compared satellite sea ice observations from 1997 to 2009 with modeled wave heights during that time. The correlation was strong: When waves got shorter in a given area-such as the Ross Sea-sea ice grew. When waves got taller, the ice retreated. "It was really quite exciting," Kohout says. "This … really shows that it's quite possible [wave heights] are playing an important role."


----------



## ekim68

When Sea Levels Attack


----------



## ekim68

Grasshopper Swarms So Dense They Show Up on Radar



> The worst grasshopper infestation in 20 years has become so thick around Albuquerque, N.M., that the airborne bugs are showing up on weather radar, officials said today.
> 
> "Albuquerque has not seen these levels of grasshoppers since the early-mid 1990′s," said John R. Garlisch, extension agent at Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension Service.
> 
> The National Weather Service said the air is so dense with the bugs that they appear on its radar like rain.


----------



## ekim68

Rocks Made of Plastic Found on Hawaiian Beach



> Plastic may be with us a lot longer than we thought. In addition to clogging up landfills and becoming trapped in Arctic ice, some of it is turning into stone. Scientists say a new type of rock cobbled together from plastic, volcanic rock, beach sand, seashells, and corals has begun forming on the shores of Hawaii.


----------



## valis

that's just lovely........

I've long wondered if you put a bowling ball and a ski boot atop Mt Rushmore, which of the three would last the longest.....


----------



## ekim68

Climate change helps seas disturb Japanese war dead



> Rising sea levels have disturbed the skeletons of soldiers killed on the Marshall Islands during World War Two.
> 
> Speaking at UN climate talks in Bonn, the Island's foreign minister said that high tides had exposed one grave with 26 dead.
> 
> The minister said the bones were most likely those of Japanese troops.
> 
> Driven by global warming, waters in this part of the Pacific have risen faster than the global average.
> 
> With a high point just two metres above the waters, the Marshall Islands are one of the most vulnerable locations to changes in sea level.


----------



## ekim68

New evidence for oceans of water deep in the Earth



> Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico report evidence for potentially oceans worth of water deep beneath the United States. Though not in the familiar liquid form-the ingredients for water are bound up in rock deep in the Earth's mantle-the discovery may represent the planet's largest water reservoir.
> 
> The presence of liquid water on the surface is what makes our "blue planet" habitable, and scientists have long been trying to figure out just how much water may be cycling between Earth's surface and interior reservoirs through plate tectonics.


----------



## valis

read that yesterday; the catch, however, is that it's not really water in liquid form. It's sorta been crystalized and mixed with the rocks at that pressure. Going to be difficult to get out, to say the least.


----------



## ekim68

I agree and that just adds to the complexity of the mantle...


----------



## ekim68

Absurd Creature of the Week: The 120-Foot-Long Jellyfish That's Loving Global Warming



> As humans, it's clear we need to tackle the direness that is global warming, but the lion's mane and its jelly comrades would really prefer that we didn't. Not only do jellies grow faster in warmer waters, temperature is a pivotal factor in their reproduction. In some species, polyps will only develop as days grow longer in summer, but others instead wait until the water climbs to a certain temperature. Thus ever-hotter oceans in these times of global warming could make for more blooms.
> 
> In addition, global warming is monkeying with oxygen concentration in our seas, which is also great news for jellies. "Colder water holds more dissolved oxygen than warmer water," said Gershwin. "So even a really slight warming-a degree, a half a degree, a quarter of a degree-we may not feel it, but it changes the amount of oxygen that the water can hold."
> 
> *And jellyfish are really good at living in oxygen-deprived water.*


----------



## valis

ick........


----------



## ekim68

I guess you could say, 'New Anomalies', eh? 

19 Breathtaking Patterns Found on Earth's Surface, Using Google



> In the early days of photography, getting an aerial shot of a landscape meant attaching a camera, with a timer, to a balloon. That's no longer necessary. These days, a bird's eye view of the entire world is available, free of charge, through Google Earth's satellite images. It's a seemingly bottomless well of content that's practically spawned a new art movement: Google Earth images have already exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and inspired a designer to launch a line of bespoke, topographical carpets.
> 
> One such body of work is Lauren Manning's Tumblr, Earth Patterns, where she documents some of the most breathtaking swatches of the earth's surface.


----------



## ekim68

lightning location network


----------



## ekim68

Satellite Images Show the Heat Wave That's Broiling India and Tibet



> Earlier this month, air temperatures in New Delhi reached an astounding 118° F (43° C). Then, for a period of seven days, temperatures remained above 110° F (43° C). Satellite data now shows the extent of this unprecedented event.


----------



## ekim68

Half Of The U.S. Is Now In A Drought



> It's now just as likely for an area of the U.S. to be in drought as not.
> 
> This drought map showing which half of the country is currently in drought and by how much was put together by the U.S. National Drought Monitor, who points out that not only is the scale unusual, it's also the severity.


----------



## valis

la nina is, in theory, really going to help Texas out with that drought problem.....and it's been a very rainy june so far.


----------



## ekim68

Foul fumes derail dinner for hungry moths



> Car and truck exhaust fumes that foul the air for humans also cause problems for pollinators.
> 
> In new research on how pollinators find flowers when background odors are strong, University of Washington and University of Arizona researchers have found that both natural plant odors and human sources of pollution can conceal the scent of sought-after flowers.
> 
> When the calories from one feeding of a flower gets you only 15 minutes of flight, as is the case with the tobacco hornworn moth studied, being misled costs a pollinator energy and time.


----------



## ekim68

What Lightning Looks Like From Space



> Astronaut Reid Wiseman recently shared this stunning footage of a lightning storm over Houston, as seen from the International Space Station.


----------



## ekim68

Watch Triple Lightning Strike 3 of Chicago's Tallest Buildings At Once



> Photographer Craig Shimala was filming a time-lapse of a derecho over Chicago on the night of June 30th when a triple lightning strike touched down on three of the city's tallest buildings: Willis Tower, Trump Tower, and the John Hancock Building.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Watch Triple Lightning Strike 3 of Chicago's Tallest Buildings At Once


I don't miss the lightening. I used to live Chicago. It would take my breath away.


----------



## ekim68

The Big Picture: An astronaut's view of Hurricane Arthur



> In view is the solar panel from the ISS as it travels above North America. From this perspective Hurricane Arthur can be seen as it moves up the east coast. Arthur, a category 2 storm, is the first of the season.


----------



## ekim68

Another view from Space....

Japan's Super Typhoon Neoguri Looks Terrifying From Space


----------



## ekim68

Climate change signals the end of Australian shiraz as we know it



> A study by the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that up to 73 percent of Australian land currently used for viticulture could become unsuitable by 2050.
> 
> As the country's traditional wine growing regions including the Barossa, the Hunter Valley and Margaret River grow ever hotter and drier, winemakers are rushing to the tiny island state of Tasmania. Average summer temperatures there are currently about 38 percent cooler than in the Barossa.
> 
> Temperatures in Australia's main wine regions are projected to increase by between 0.3 and 1.7 degrees celsius by 2030, according to the CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.


----------



## ekim68

Earth Just Finished Its Warmest Quarter-Year Ever



> New data released Monday shows humanity has just unlocked another achievement in the race to cook the planet: The last three months were collectively the warmest ever experienced since record-keeping began in the late 1800s.


----------



## ekim68

Large crater appears at the 'end of the world'



> The striking puncture in the earth is believed to be up to 80 metres wide but its depth is not estimated yet. A scientific team has been sent to investigate the hole and is due to arrive at the scene on Wednesday.
> 
> The cause of its sudden appearance in Yamal - its name means the 'end of the world' in the far north of Siberia - is not yet known, though one scientific claim is that global warming may be to blame.


----------



## ekim68

Japan earthquake has raised pressure below Mount Fuji, says new study



> Mount Fuji, or Fujisan as it is known in Japanese, is the highest point on the archipelago (rising to 3,776 metres) and the national emblem, immortalised in countless etchings. In June last year Unesco added it to the World Heritage list as a "sacred place and source of artistic inspiration". But it is still an active volcano, standing at the junction between the Pacific, Eurasian and Philippine tectonic plates. Though it has rarely stirred in recorded history, it is still potentially explosive.


----------



## ekim68

ekim68 said:


> Large crater appears at the 'end of the world'


More on this: 

First pictures from inside the 'crater at the end of the world'


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic ice looks so tempting as summer temperatures soar



> Photographer Martin Bailey captured these gorgeous images of Antarctic ice during a seven week working trip to the continent. As summer temperatures soar it is hard not to see these sublime and moving landscapes in terms of giant slices of ice cream.


----------



## ekim68

Lucky strike: Lightning bolt captured in photo from airplane


----------



## ekim68

The Severity of California's Terrible Drought, in One Image



> California just suffered its driest year in 119 years, and the horrid drought that's plaguing the state (and much of the American West) still shows no sign of relaxing its withering grip. But how bad is it, really?
> 
> Well, it's so dry that "grass-fed beef" is becoming "grain-fed beef," as ranchers can't find any grass to feed their cattle. Things are so parched that the state's municipal water system has announced it can't get water to many farmers. That's a first in its 54-year history, and not a good omen for the state that produces half of America's vegetables and fruits. There's so little snowpack in the mountains right now - snow that supplies about one-third of the water to California's farms and cities - that people aren't skiing up there right now, they're skateboarding.


----------



## ekim68

More on that...

10 cities running out of water



> After multiple unusually dry years across the western, southern and central United States, more than 80% of California is now in a state of extreme or exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. An average of nearly 90% of Bakersfield, Calif., has been in a state of exceptional drought over the first seven months of 2014, more than any other large urban area.
> 
> Based on data provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a collaboration between academic and government organizations, 24/7 Wall St. identified large U.S. urban areas that have been under persistent, serious drought over the first seven months of this year. The Drought Monitor measures drought by five levels of intensity: from D0, described as abnormally dry, to D4, described as exceptional drought. For the first time in the Drought Monitor's history, 100% of California is under at least severe drought conditions, or D2. It was also the first time exceptional drought of any kind - the highest level - has been recorded in the state.


----------



## ekim68

A Map of How Much Pollution Trees Have Scrubbed From Our Air



> In 2010, trees removed more than 17 million metric tons of pollution from the air. In doing so, they saved more than $6.8 billion dollars in health care costs associated with pollution-related diseases, like bronchitis and asthma.


----------



## ekim68

Strong La Niñas recently? Blame the Atlantic-and a volcano



> Chaos theory is sometimes described with an exaggerated story about the flapping of a butterfly's wings affecting the formation of a hurricane thousands of miles away. Some "butterflies" flap harder than others, of course-a volcanic eruption can be one hell of a butterfly. According to a new study, the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which made a dent in the average global temperature for a couple of years, may also have a lot to do with the slower surface warming more than a decade after its eruption.
> 
> Research has made it clear that a string of La Niñas-where cold water rises to the surface in the eastern tropical Pacific-has pulled down average global temperatures in recent years. The oscillation between La Niña and El Niño conditions is a major factor in the year-to-year variability of average global surface temperatures.


----------



## ekim68

What Is the Difference Between a Cyclone, Typhoon, and Hurricane?



> One of the biggest sticking points when it comes to weather forecasts is the public's confusion over the terms "hurricane," "typhoon," and "cyclone." Since they're three different names, people think they're three different kinds of storm. Here's a quick explainer on what's in a name.


----------



## ekim68

How much of the ocean have we explored?



> The ocean is the lifeblood of Earth, covering more than 70 percent of the planet's surface, driving weather, regulating temperature, and ultimately supporting all living organisms. Throughout history, the ocean has been a vital source of sustenance, transport, commerce, growth, and inspiration.
> 
> Yet for all of our reliance on the ocean, 95 percent of this realm remains unexplored, unseen by human eyes.


----------



## ekim68

Chile earthquake triggered icequakes in Antarctica



> In 2010, a powerful magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck off the coast of central Chile, rocking much of the country and producing tremor as far away as Argentina and Peru. But a new study suggests its effects were felt even farther away-in Antarctica. In the wake of the Maule temblor, the scientists found, several seismic stations on the frozen continent registered "icequakes," probably due to fracturing of the ice as the planet's crust shook.


----------



## ekim68

Massive 'Florida red tide' is now 90 miles long and 60 miles wide 



> There's a massive red tide blooming off the coast of southwestern Florida and it appears to be growing.
> 
> The red tide is patchy, but researchers say it stretches an amazing 60 miles wide and 90 miles long in the Gulf of Mexico.
> 
> Just a few weeks ago it was reported to be 50 miles wide and 80 miles long.


----------



## ekim68

Science Graphic of the Week: Map Shows Western U.S. May Suffer Huge Reductions in Snow



> The western United States is undergoing a major shift in precipitation patterns. Large swaths of the West that have historically been dominated by snow in the winter months are starting to see a lot more rain instead. A new study that maps out the predominant form of precipitation shows that this trend could result in an average reduction in snow-dominated area of around 30 percent by the middle of this century.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic hides extreme ecosystem



> While the underbelly of Antarctica may not exactly be teeming with life, it certainly supports viable ecosystems.
> 
> Scientists have pulled up thousands of different types of micro-organisms from Lake Whillans, a large body of water buried 800m under the ice sheet.
> 
> It proves the dark, cold bottom of Antarctica is not a sterile domain.
> 
> In doing so, it raises the tantalising prospect that similar benign - albeit challenging - conditions could exist elsewhere in the Solar System.


----------



## ekim68

One of my favorite places....

Aurora Gallery


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> One of my favorite places....
> 
> Aurora Gallery


Nice Mike....:up:


----------



## ekim68

'Widespread methane leakage' from ocean floor off US coast



> Researchers say they have found more than 500 bubbling methane vents on the seafloor off the US east coast.
> 
> The unexpected discovery indicates there are large volumes of the gas contained in a type of sludgy ice called methane hydrate.
> 
> There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming.


----------



## valis

read that yesterday.......no bueno......


----------



## ekim68

Mystery of how rocks move across Death Valley lake bed solved



> The cracking sounds were ferocious. An ankle-deep, frozen lake in Death Valley National Park was breaking apart under sunny skies.
> 
> As cousins Richard Norris and James Norris watched, a light wind began moving huge floes of ice across the surface of the water and into rocks weighing up to 200 pounds. Propelled by the ice masses, the rocks began to slide across the slick, muddy bottom of the normally dry lake bed, known as the Racetrack playa.
> 
> "My god, Jim, it's happening," Richard yelled.
> 
> James Norris grabbed a camera.
> 
> Their photos last Dec. 21 provided the final evidence in solving a mystery of the Racetrack Playa that has long puzzled visitors and scientists: What mechanism moves rocks across flat dirt in the heart of the hottest, driest place on earth?


----------



## valis

I thought this was solved a LONG time ago, talking von Danichen times here......


----------



## ekim68

Tornado of hot gas caught emerging from fiery volcano



> This is pretty hot stuff. A swirling 1-kilometre-high tornado of gas has been caught emerging from the lava pouring out of a fissure on Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano. The image was captured on 3 September by an infrared camera designed for aircraft, to let pilots see volcanic ash clouds.


----------



## ekim68

UN study shows atmospheric CO2 increases reach 30 year high



> Aside from paying someone to scream "this is a problem" into everyone's faces, there's not much more that the UN can do to tell us that we're heading towards an environmental catastrophe. The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization has found more proof of our forthcoming doom, showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose faster between 2012-2013 than any other year since 1984. If the rate doesn't slow down, then the levels will reach 400 parts per million in the next two years - a figure well in excess of the 350ppm that most climate scientists believe is "safe."


----------



## ekim68

August was hottest on record worldwide, says Nasa



> August 2014 was marginally the warmest August worldwide since records began 130 years ago, according to new data from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
> 
> Temperatures measured by government meteorological offices using land, sea and satellite data suggest this year's global high was very close to those of 2011, 2008, 2006 and 2003. Overall, temperatures were 0.70C above the 1951-1990 baseline temperature average.


----------



## ekim68

Philippine volcano spews lava; thousands evacuated



> MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippines' most active volcano has belched out huge lava fragments that rolled about a kilometer (half a mile) down its slope, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of villagers, officials said Tuesday.
> 
> The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level to "critical" for Mount Mayon in eastern Albay province late Monday, meaning an explosive eruption is possible within weeks. The level was raised after an escalation of restiveness was recorded overnight, including the ejection of glowing rocks from the summit and dozens of low-frequency volcanic earthquakes.


----------



## ekim68

Mount Ontake erupts in central Japan



> Mount Ontake erupted late Saturday morning, sending a plume of smoke and ash into the sky, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported.
> 
> At least three people have been injured, said a task force in Otaki village, just south of the volcano. They have observed 17-20 inches (40-50 centimeters) of volcanic ash covering the ground.


----------



## ekim68

Satellites detect 'thousands' of new ocean-bottom mountains



> It is not every day you can announce the discovery of thousands of new mountains on Earth, but that is what a US-European research team has done.
> 
> What is more, these peaks are all at least 1.5km high.
> 
> The reason they have gone unrecognised until now is because they are at the bottom of the ocean.
> 
> Dave Sandwell and colleagues used radar satellites to discern the mountains' presence under water and report their findings in Science Magazine.


----------



## ekim68

Explaining Microbursts, One of Nature's Most Dangerous Wind Storms



> A major wind event known as a "microburst" leveled thousands of trees in Easthampton, Massachusetts this morning. Microbursts can create more damage than a weak tornado, and they're responsible for many lethal airplane crashes. What is a microburst and how do they form?


----------



## ekim68

There's a Methane 'Hot Spot' the Size of Delaware in the American Southwest



> Four Corners can add another notch onto its belt-in addition to being high kitsch for road-tripping tourists, it will now also be known as the single biggest fountain of planet-cooking methane in the United States.
> 
> According to new satellite research from scientists at NASA and the University of Michigan, this "hot spot" is "responsible for producing the largest concentration of the greenhouse gas methane seen over the United States-more than triple the standard ground-based estimate." It is 2,500 square miles, about the size of Delaware.


----------



## ekim68

The Planet Just Had Its Hottest September On Record



> Last month was the warmest September globally since records began being kept in 1880, NASA reported Sunday. January through September data have 2014 already at the third warmest on record. Projections by NOAA make clear 2014 is taking aim at hottest year on record.


----------



## valis

long read, Mike, but very, very worth it.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/the-scablands-a-scarred-landscape-as-strange-as-fiction/


----------



## ekim68

100 Great Geosites: The Final List



> The UK and Ireland feature some of the most diverse and beautiful geology in the world, spanning most of geological time, from the oldest Pre-Cambrian rocks to the youngest Quarternary sediments. As part of Earth Science Week 2014, The Geological Society and partner organisations are celebrating this unique geo-heritage by launching a list of 100 Great Geosites across the UK and Ireland.


----------



## ekim68

This Massive Spiral Structure in the Sahara Is Visible from Space



> This geological formation is probably not what you think it is.
> 
> It's the result of gradual erosion, not some ancient asteroid impact.


----------



## ekim68

Burning Questions: What's Going on With the Hawaiian Lava Menace?



> When a mountain of molten rock clocking in at 2,000 degrees is headed your way, there's only one thing you can do - leave. And with the latest lava flow from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano now less than the length of a football field away from homes, that's just what the residents of the small community of Pahoa are doing.


----------



## valis

that's been going on for a while now......something like 10 yards a day? Still, hard to stop lava.


----------



## ekim68

Well this is more like a man-made anomaly.....

There's an Island Made of Toxic Trash Rising Out of the Sea in the Maldives 



> Each year, approximately one million tourists visit the island nation Maldives for its sunny warm weather and stunning natural beauty.
> 
> But there's an ugly consequence of all those visitors, along with the Maldives' own 395,000 residents: the combined trash accumulated is a headache for the small country.
> 
> To deal with the problem, the government decided in December 1991 to use a separate island as the final destination for the huge amount of waste produced by the tourism industry.


----------



## valis

yeesh.....what are we going to do next.....


----------



## ekim68

valis said:


> yeesh.....what are we going to do next.....


And that my friend is the main question that's facing our World just now....


----------



## ekim68

Earth's Magnetic Field now flips more often



> The planet's magnetic field is becoming less stable. In the distant past it reversed direction every 5 million years, but now it does so every 200,000 years.


----------



## ekim68

'Dark magma' could explain mystery volcanoes



> The magma fueling the volcanoes of Hawaii and Yellowstone National Park pipes up from deep inside the planet. Scientists have struggled to understand why there are hot spots there, so far from the grinding tectonic plate boundaries at which volcanoes normally appear. New research chalks the mystery up to "dark magma": deep underground pockets of red-hot molten rock that siphon energy from Earth's core.


----------



## ekim68

Sahara desert, Algeria



> This satellite image was captured over southeastern Algeria in the heart of the Sahara desert.
> 
> The heat and lack of water render vast desert areas highly unwelcoming, making satellites the best way to observe and monitor these environments on a large scale.


----------



## ekim68

Exploring the World's Protected Areas from Space 



> A new book released this week highlights how the view from space with Earth-orbiting sensors is being used to protect some of the worlds most interesting, changing, and threatened places. From space, Egmont National Park in New Zealand shows the benefits and limitations of protected areas. In this Landsat 8 image acquired on July 3, 2014, the park, with Mt. Taranaki at its center, was established in 1900. This isolated island of protected forest (dark green areas) is surrounded by once-forested pasturelands (light and brown green).


----------



## ekim68

One of world's largest landslide deposits discovered in Utah



> Some things can be too big to notice, as our flat-Earth-believing ancestors can attest, having failed to work out that the surface of the Earth curves around a sphere. Or, as the saying goes, you can focus on the details of some fascinating trees and miss interesting facts about the forest as a whole.
> 
> In southwest Utah, geologists had noticed some pretty cool "trees." The area had been volcanically active between 21 and 31 million years ago, building up a host of steep, volcanic peaks. A number of huge blocks of rock from these peaks, up to 2.5 square kilometers in area and 200 meters thick, are obviously out of place-they've been interpreted by geologists as the result of many landslides around the volcanoes. In a recent paper in Geology, David Hacker, Robert Biek, and Peter Rowley show that rather than being the result of many individual landslides, *these are actually all part of one jaw-droppingly large event.*


----------



## ekim68

Video.....

NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2


----------



## ekim68

Holuhraun Eruption in Iceland Still Going Strong



> If you can believe it, we're now in the fourth month for the Icelandic eruption that started north of the Bárðarbunga caldera in Iceland. The world watched and waited for this eruption after weeks of intense earthquakes, but since the eruption began in late August, we've had a nearly constant stream of basaltic magma eruption from the fissures in the Holuhraun lava fields between Bárðarbunga and Askja. This eruption has drifted from the headlines because the eruptive activity itself has been fairly tame - no giant ash plumes to disrupt air travel across Europe, but instead just a steady flow of lava creating a new lava field that covers over *72 square kilometers (~17,700 acres; see below).*


----------



## ekim68

Goce gravity map traces ocean circulation



> Scientists have produced what they say is the most accurate space view yet of global ocean currents and the speed at which they move.


----------



## ekim68

Volcano in south Japan erupts, disrupting flights



> TOKYO (AP) - A volcano in southern Japan blasted out chunks of magma Friday in the first such eruption in 22 years, causing flight cancellations and prompting warnings to stay away from its crater.
> 
> The Japan Meteorological Agency said that Mount Aso spewed out lava debris and smoke, shooting plumes of ash a kilometer (3,280 feet) into the sky. Dozens of flights from Kumamoto, the nearest city, were canceled.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists Have Finally Sampled the Most Abundant Material on Earth



> The most abundant material on Earth didn't have a name, and, in fact, hadn't been seen-until now. For the first time ever, scientists have gotten their hands on a sample of bridgmanite, a mineral that is believed to make up more than a third of the volume of the Earth.
> 
> As you might expect with a seeming paradox like that, bridgmanite exists deep within Earth-it's the material that is believed to make up the vast majority of the lower mantle, Earth's widest layer, which runs from roughly 410 to 1,796 miles beneath the Earth's surface. Overall, it makes up roughly 36 percent of the Earth's volume.


----------



## ekim68

Evidence Suggests California's Drought is the Worst in 1,200 Years



> As California finally experiences the arrival of a rain-bearing Pineapple Express this week, two climate scientists from the University of Minnesota and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have shown that the drought of 2012-2014 has been the worst in 1,200 years.


----------



## ekim68

Cities in Climate Change Danger, Warns Captain Planet



> Cities have been getting a lot of love these days, as home to more than half of the world's population and sites of revitalization, innovative governance strategies, and cultural vibrancy. But urban locations may also be ground zero for climate change, both as perpetrators of a warming atmosphere and as victims of its multi-tiered effects.
> 
> So says Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia and a leading voice in climate science circles. "Cities are where things are most rapidly heating," he says, "and they also represent particular concentrations of vulnerability."


----------



## ekim68

Clouds fill Grand Canyon in rare weather event


----------



## ekim68

NASA's Fermi Mission Brings Deeper Focus to Thunderstorm Gamma-rays



> Each day, thunderstorms around the world produce about a thousand quick bursts of gamma rays, some of the highest-energy light naturally found on Earth. By merging records of events seen by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope with data from ground-based radar and lightning detectors, scientists have completed the most detailed analysis to date of the types of thunderstorms involved.
> 
> "Remarkably, we have found that any thunderstorm can produce gamma rays, even those that appear to be so weak a meteorologist wouldn't look twice at them," said Themis Chronis, who led the research at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).


----------



## valis

huh.....didn't know that about thunderstorms......


----------



## ekim68

Amazon peatlands are 'most carbon-dense ecosystem'



> The most dense store of carbon in Amazonia is not above ground in trees but below ground in peatlands, a study has calculated.
> 
> An international team of researchers said their work, which uses satellite data and field measurements, provides the "most accurate estimates to date".
> 
> Protecting these landscapes is vital if efforts to curb climate change are to be successful, they added.


----------



## ekim68

This doomed Alaskan village shows just how unprepared we are for climate change



> The remote village of 563 people is located 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle, flanked by the Chukchi Sea to the north and an inlet to the south, and it sits atop rapidly melting permafrost. In the last decades, the island's shores have been eroding into the sea, falling off in giant chunks whenever a big storm hits.
> 
> The residents of Shishmaref, most of whom are Alaska Native Inupiaq people, have tried to counter these problems, moving houses away from the cliffs and constructing barriers along the northern shore to try to turn back the waves. But in July 2002, looking at the long-term reality facing the island, they voted to pack up and move the town elsewhere.


----------



## valis

yikes.......get ready, all.


----------



## ekim68

Here are some the secrets of Christmas trees and their tough, tenacious lives.



> Each Christmas, families gather around evergreens, real or fake, to celebrate the season.
> 
> But what holiday revellers may not realise is just how incredible these spruce, fir and pines can be.
> 
> In the wild, evergreen conifers survive drastic temperature swings, grow to towering heights and create ecosystems that shelter strange and wonderful creatures.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient, hydrogen-rich waters discovered deep underground at locations around the world



> A quantum change in our understanding of how much of Earth's crust may be habitable.
> 
> A team of scientists, led by the University of Toronto's Barbara Sherwood Lollar, has mapped the location of hydrogen-rich waters found trapped kilometres beneath Earth's surface in rock fractures in Canada, South Africa and Scandinavia.
> 
> Common in Precambrian Shield rocks - the oldest rocks on Earth - the ancient waters have a chemistry similar to that found near deep sea vents, suggesting these waters can support microbes living in isolation from the surface.


----------



## ekim68

This Is Not A Crater, So What Is It?



> This landform is just about as perfectly circular as a naturally-occurring landform can be, with a diameter just under 10 kilometres and a ridge about 600 meters tall. A river has cut through the lip, draining rainwater and runoff out of the center.


----------



## valis

Neat! Never heard of that.


----------



## ekim68

What the World Will Speak in 2115



> A century from now, expect fewer but simpler languages on every continent.


----------



## ekim68

Four mile pier



> The pier that extends from Progreso into the Gulf of Mexico is among the longest such structures in the world. Located in a port city in Mexico in the state of Yucatán, the pier was built for docking large cargo and passenger ships.


----------



## ekim68

Carnivorous Plant Is Clever Even Without a Brain



> Formulating a clever strategy doesn't require a brain, proves a new study on carnivorous pitcher plants, which vary their bug-trapping techniques in order to obtain the most food.
> 
> The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, demonstrates that evolved strategies can at times be just as effective as thinking through problems in response to certain challenges.


----------



## ekim68

Growth of the Holuhraun Lava Field



> Since August 2014, lava has gushed from fissures just north of Vatnajökull, Iceland's largest glacier. As of January 6, 2015, the Holuhraun lava field had spread across more than 84 square kilometers (32 square miles), making it larger than the island of Manhattan. Holuhraun is Iceland's largest basaltic lava flow since the Laki eruption in 1783-84, an event that killed 20 percent of the island's population.


----------



## ekim68

The Place Where Bridges Are Grown Instead of Built



> Do you know where the most sustainable foot bridges are? No, not in Germany, Costa Rica or the Nordic states, which are the greenest countries according to the GGEI (Global Green Economy Index) 2014, but in the Meghalaya state of northeastern India. We'll tell you why.


----------



## valis

that was a fantastic article.....:up:


----------



## ekim68

Iceland rises as its glaciers melt from climate change



> Earth's crust under Iceland is rebounding as global warming melts the island's great ice caps. In south-central Iceland some sites are moving upward as much as 1.4 inches (35 mm) per year. A new paper is the first to show the current fast uplift of the Icelandic crust is a result of accelerated melting of the island's glaciers and coincides with the onset of warming that began about 30 years ago, the researchers said.


----------



## valis

But remember....that stuff is all theory. Cant measure it. Cyclical. Political. The rue of Nigoth, Lord of the Worms.

But aint nothing warming, per se.


----------



## ekim68

Natch....Goebbels would be proud........


----------



## valis

:up:



Cant believe you used 'natch'....a few short months ago I had to look that one up.


----------



## ekim68

I'm Down with it...... (Remember, I have Grandkids who have the familiars...)


----------



## valis

Yer so hip you cant even see over your pelvis....


Night, Mike....on the morrow.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient climate records 'back predictions'



> Records of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere millions of years ago support current predictions on climate change, say scientists.
> 
> Evidence from the last warm period in the Earth's ancient past suggests the climate will respond as expected to rising CO2 levels.
> 
> The research, published in Nature, is in line with future predictions from the IPCC, says the UK-led team.
> 
> The evidence came from ancient plankton fossils drilled from the ocean floor.
> 
> These creatures' shells contain clues as to how the global climate cycled from cool to warm many times some 2.3 to 3.3 million years ago, across what researchers refer to as the Pliocene and Pleistocene Epochs in Earth history.


----------



## DaveBurnett

Ah, they still don't support ANY argument about the cause though.
Warmer seas will increase CO2 and increased CO2 will cause warmer seas. Which is cause and which is effect??


----------



## ekim68

Yellowstone's Morning Glory 



> For decades, visitors have been captivated by the burst of yellow and green that characterizes Morning Glory thermal spring at Yellowstone National Park. But it hasn't always looked this way. Using biological, chemical, and optical data, scientists have constructed a mathematical model that simulates how the spring looks now, and how it appeared before contamination led to changes in hue.
> 
> Morning Glory was once a deep blue, like the flower it's named after. Over the years, however, tourists have tossed lucky coins, rocks, and other debris into the pool, partially blocking the underground heat source and lowering the temperature of the spring to a range habitable by photosynthetic microorganisms that probably didn't live there before.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's surprise inside: Geologists unlock mysteries of the planet's inner core



> CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Seismic waves are helping scientists to plumb the world's deepest mystery: the planet's inner core.
> 
> Thanks to a novel application of earthquake-reading technology, a research team at the University of Illinois and colleagues at Nanjing University in China have found that the Earth's inner core has an inner core of its own, which has surprising properties that could reveal information about our planet.


----------



## ekim68

'Megadroughts' predicted to ravage the Southwest



> The Southwest, including California, along with the Great Plains states, will endure long-lasting "megadroughts" in the second half of this century, worse by far than anything seen in the past 1,000 years, a team of climate experts said Thursday.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic glacier's galloping melt baffles scientists



> An ice cap in the high Arctic has lost what British scientists say is a significant amount of ice in an unusually short time.
> 
> It has thinned by more than 50 metres since 2012 - about one sixth of its original thickness - and the ice flow is now 25 times faster, accelerating to speeds of several kilometres per year.
> 
> Over the last two decades, thinning of the Austfonna ice cap in the Svalbard archipelago − , roughly half way between Norway and the North Pole − has spread more than 50km inland, to within 10km of the summit.


----------



## ekim68

Ozone layer under threat, again?



> Just when we thought we could breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to the health of the earth's ozone layer, a new study is warning about an increase in gases that are thinning our planet's protective shield.
> 
> Researchers at Leeds University in England are calling attention to the impact of these harmful gases that have a rather benign-sounding name. They're called "very short-lived substances," or VSLS, because they have a lifespan of less than six months.
> 
> But despite their short lifespan, the damage these gases are causing is significant and likely to increase, according to the report released Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
> 
> About 90 percent of VSLS are naturally occurring and are produced by ocean life like seaweed or phytoplankton. They are part of the ozone's normal cycle of depletion and regeneration. But the other 10 percent are man-made and come from industrial chlorine-based chemicals such as dichloromethane, the production of which is on the rise.


----------



## ekim68

Nowadays Arabia is a fierce desert, but it was once densely vegetated



> When most of us think of Arabia, we think of rolling sand dunes, scorching sun, and precious little water. But in the quite recent past it was a place of rolling grasslands and shady woods, watered by torrential monsoon rains.
> 
> The finding could help settle how and when modern humans first left Africa, where our species evolved. If Arabia was once lush and fertile, it would have been an ideal place to migrate to.


----------



## ekim68

New Volcano Identified in Central Colombia



> You would think it might be hard to hide a volcano. However, the amazing power of surface processes to recover from volcanic eruptions means that the evidence of even large eruptions can be covered or scoured in a matter of decades to centuries. What was once a barren landscape after a large eruption is now covered in new vegetation, lakes and more.


----------



## ekim68

Dozens of new craters suspected in northern Russia



> Respected Moscow scientist Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky has called for 'urgent' investigation of the new phenomenon amid safety fears.
> 
> Until now, only three large craters were known about in northern Russia with several scientific sources speculating last year that heating from above the surface due to unusually warm climatic conditions, and from below, due to geological fault lines, led to a huge release of gas hydrates, so causing the formation of these craters in Arctic regions.
> 
> Two of the newly-discovered large craters - also known as funnels to scientists - have turned into lakes, revealed Professor Bogoyavlensky, deputy director of the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
> 
> Examination using satellite images has helped Russian experts understand that the craters are more widespread than was first realised, with one large hole surrounded by as many as 20 mini-craters, The Siberian Times can reveal.


----------



## ekim68

The big melt: Antarctica's retreating ice may re-shape Earth



> CAPE LEGOUPIL, Antarctica (AP) - From the ground in this extreme northern part of Antarctica, spectacularly white and blinding ice seems to extend forever. What can't be seen is the battle raging thousands of feet (hundreds of meters) below to re-shape Earth.
> 
> Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours into the sea - 130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That's the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings, enough ice melt to fill more than 1.3 million Olympic swimming pools. And the melting is accelerating.


----------



## ekim68

Chilean Volcano Spews a Spectacular Lava Fountain



> Early this morning, Villarrica in Chile produced a spectacular eruption that sent a lava fountain hundreds of meters over the volcano's summit crater. The eruption spread ash over the neighboring region and an accompanying lava flow melted snow on the slopes of the volcano creating some small volcanic mudflows and debris flows.


(Video included.)


----------



## ekim68

Greenland Reels: Climate Disrupting Feedbacks Have Begun



> Greenland is warmer than it has been in more than 100,000 years and climate disrupting feedback loops have begun. Since 2000, ice loss has increased over 600 percent, and liquid water now exists inside the ice sheet year-round, no longer refreezing during winter.


----------



## ekim68

Rare video captures volcanic lightning from an exploding volcano



> Volcanic lightning is one of those crazy, Old Testament-type phenomenons that makes you think that maybe hell is hidden under Earth. We've seen crazy photos before but here it's captured on video by Marc Szeglat.


----------



## ekim68

The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse.



> A hundred years from now, humans may remember 2014 as the year that we first learned that we may have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica, and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea level rise.
> 
> Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy - when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again. Northern Hemisphere residents and Americans in particular should take note - when the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those of us living closer to its top get more sea level rise than the rest of the planet, thanks to the law of gravity.


----------



## ekim68

A very rare supermoon eclipse of the sun is happening this week that won't take place again until 2034



> This Friday, March 20, marks this year's first and only total eclipse of the sun, when the moon passes directly between Earth and the sun.
> 
> Not only that, this is an extremely rare type of solar eclipse because it takes place on the first day of spring and when the moon is at its closest distance to Earth, known as a supermoon.


----------



## ekim68

Incredible Turquoise Ice Gleams Like Gemstones On Lake Baikal



> Landscape photographer Alexey Trofimov, who lives in Siberia, took these incredible pictures of the unusual phenomenon. Trofimov describes Lake Baikal itself as the pearl of our planet. Perhaps, then, the extraordinary blue-colored ice formations are its accompanying sapphires.


----------



## ekim68

Researchers stumble across Earth's largest asteroid impact zone



> Geophysicists conducting drilling as part of geothermal research claim to have stumbled across the largest asteroid impact zone ever found on Earth. Covering a 400 km (249 mi) wide area in Central Australia, the two ancient craters are believed to be the result of a single meteorite that split in two moments before crashing into the Earth.


----------



## ekim68

The Most Beautiful Artificial Caves Ever Built



> There's something kind of awe-inspiring about standing in a huge cave, and seeing the vaulted ceilings rise up over you. Caves are amazing miracles of nature - but sometimes, the best caves are actually carved by people. Here are astonishing videos of some of the world's greatest human-built caves.


----------



## valis

interesting.....been there dozens of times.

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/scientists-take-aim-at-four-corners-methane-mystery/?linkId=13386030


----------



## ekim68

There All Along: "Exceptional" Slowdown of the Gulf Stream From Greenland Melt 



> The Gulf Stream plays an immensely important role in moderating the climate of eastern North America and Europe. Moreover, Greenland melt impacts ocean current processes in the North Atlantic. For years, contradictory research has alternately said the Gulf Stream was slowing and that it was not slowing. The latest research looks at the Gulf Stream in a different way and has found that Greenland melt has been influencing the Gulf Stream for more than a century and that the evidence has been staring us in the face for a generation or more.


----------



## ekim68

What's Causing Weird Weather? Blame a 'Warm Blob' of Water



> What's behind the weirdly warm and dry weather in the West, and the weirdly wet and cold weather in the East? Two studies point to a huge "warm blob" of water that's been lurking off the U.S. West Coast. The long-lived patch, which measures about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) wide, is about 2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) above normal.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> There All Along: "Exceptional" Slowdown of the Gulf Stream From Greenland Melt


ah yes, the THC. Been writing about that bad boy for some time now. Thanks, Mike.


----------



## ekim68

An interesting read....

The First Man to Descend into Turkmenistan's Door to Hell



> As he stands on the edge of a crater hotter than Hades, flames licking mercilessly just below his feet, George Kourounis feels fear strike into his very heart. After all, no one has ever done this before; no one even knows for sure if he will survive it. His mind races with doubts: what if the intense heat is too much for his protective suit? What if he somehow slips? Yet all such fears must be pushed aside. He has a job to do, after all.


----------



## valis

read that this morning. Noped my way right on out of there.


----------



## ekim68

Calbuco volcano erupts in Chile, and nearby town evacuated



> SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The Calbuco volcano erupted Wednesday for the first time in more than 42 years, billowing a huge ash cloud over a sparsely populated, mountainous area in southern Chile.
> 
> Authorities ordered the evacuation of the 1,500 inhabitants of the nearby town of Ensenada, along with residents of two smaller communities.


----------



## ekim68

If Earth never had life, continents would be smaller



> VIENNA-It may seem counterintuitive, but life on Earth, even with all the messy erosion it creates, keeps continents growing. Presenting here this week at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union, researchers say it's the erosion itself that makes the difference in continental size. Plant life, for example, can root its way through rock, breaking rocks into sediment. The sediments, like milk-dunked cookies, carry liquid water in their pores, which allows more water to be recycled back into Earth's mantle. If not enough water is present in the mantle about 100 to 200 km deep to keep things flowing, continental production decreases.


----------



## DaveBurnett

All that excretion has to go somewhere, so it is not really a surprise.
Also erosion doesn't destroy matter, it just moves it.

I'm knocking the 'experts' not you Mike!


----------



## ekim68

Scientists find missing link in Yellowstone plumbing: This giant volcano is very much alive



> On Thursday, a team from the University of Utah published a study, in the journal Science that for the first time offers a complete diagram of the plumbing of the Yellowstone volcanic system.
> 
> The new report fills in a missing link of the system. It describes a large reservoir of hot rock, mostly solid but with some melted rock in the mix, that lies beneath a shallow, already-documented magma chamber. The newly discovered reservoir is 4.5 times larger than the chamber above it. There's enough magma there to fill the Grand Canyon. The reservoir is on top of a long plume of magma that emerges from deep within the Earth's mantle.


----------



## ekim68

Cool stuff....

Hypnotic Timelapse Videos Show A Face Of Mother Nature We Rarely See


----------



## ekim68

Surf's Up: MIT Helps Measure Largest Waves Ever Documented



> The latest study out of MIT has it all: A professor named Peacock; autonomous underwater vehicles zipping around the South China Sea; seafaring scientists braving the elements in the name of research; and waves so large that they're actually causing the moon to recede from Earth ever so slightly.





> To do so, Peacock tells Boston that the team attached resilient buoys to long and strong cables. The other end was attached to some very heavy weights that plunged down more than 3,000 meters to the ocean floor in some areas. An array of instrumentation ran along each cable, taking constant measurements at various depths. To capture additional information on the surrounding waters, the team regularly dispatched autonomous underwater vehicles-Peacock says they looked like "yellow torpedoes with wings"-that cruised around harvesting data points.
> 
> What did this ambitious undertaking reveal? Only the "largest waves documented in the global oceans," as the paper, published in the journal Nature, put it. Some of these waves topped 500 meters.


----------



## ekim68

Sea Level Rise Speeds Up



> Sea level rise is a game of millimeters a year, but those millimeters add up to a huge amount of water entering the world's oceans. And the rising tide could eventually swamp cities around the globe.
> 
> With tide gauges distributed sparsely around the planet, scientists have turned to satellites to provide a global picture of sea level since the early 1990s. New research published on Monday in Nature Climate Change refines those satellite estimates and provides some good and bad news. The good news? Total sea level rise is lower than previous estimates. The bad news? Sea level rise rates are speeding up.


----------



## ekim68

Massive Antarctic Ice Shelf Faces Imminent Risk of Collapse



> An Antarctic ice shelf that is twice the size of Hawaii is at "imminent risk" of collapse and needs to be monitored carefully, a new study finds.
> 
> The ice shelf-Larsen C-is located in roughly the same geography as the Larsen A and B ice shelves, which disintegrated in 1995 and 2002, respectively. Larsen C covers 19,300 square miles and is the largest shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. If it melts, it could significantly raise global sea levels, said Paul Holland, the lead author of the study and a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland's Glaciers are Accelerating So Fast, They Have Stretch Marks



> The evidence is overwhelming: Earth's polar regions are losing ice at a stunning rate. There's so much ice being lost from Antarctica, for example, that scientists can detect local changes in gravity.


----------



## ekim68

Huge ice shelf in Antarctica to collapse by 2020



> The last remaining section of Antarctica's Larsen B ice shelf, which partially collapsed in 2002, is quickly weakening and likely to disintegrate completely by 2020, said a new study out today.
> 
> Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that connect to a landmass, such as Antarctica, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.


----------



## ekim68

It was 35 years ago that Mount St. Helens blew its stack.....

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens gave way to a cataclysmic flank collapse, avalanche, and explosion that killed 57 people and displaced many others.


----------



## valis

true story; I was in Black Forest, Colorado, at the time, and have to this day a vial full of ash from Mt. St. Helens I collected on our back acreage. That's some 1300 miles away. We had about 4" over _everything._


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## valis

rather impressed I still have this.


----------



## ekim68

Right on Tim.....:up: We were living in Springfield at the time and it's about 170 miles south of the Mountain. We had ash raining down for almost a week afterwards. It wasn't long before some entrepreneurs were selling little containers of ash..


----------



## valis

sorta like the one I got, eh?


----------



## ekim68

Disappearing Lake Powell underlines drought crisis facing Colorado river 



> As water levels plummet to 45% in America's second-largest reservoir, new islands appear - and fears grow for a waterway that serves 40 million people.


----------



## valis

Jesus. Those people in the SW are screwed. Vegas is going away. Most of Los Angeles as well, I'd imagine.


----------



## ekim68

There's all kinds of talk about a number of desalination plants sprouting up in SoCal...


----------



## valis

Yup, talk. And in the meantime, golf courses flourish. Something tells me that this is going to end up as a SEP.


----------



## ekim68

The Invisible Mountains of Earth



> How gravity teaches us that the mountains we see extend far underground.


----------



## ekim68

Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

(You can point to an area and click to enlarge and the resolution is great... )

Mont Blanc


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> (You can point to an area and click to enlarge and the resolution is great... )
> 
> Mont Blanc


Beautiful!


----------



## ekim68

It's the biggest picture ever taken...


----------



## DaveBurnett

All right. Who tried looking in the back of the camper van??


----------



## ekim68

Most glaciers in Mount Everest area will disappear



> Most of the glaciers in the Mount Everest region will disappear or drastically retreat as temperatures increase with climate change over the next century, according to a group of international researchers.
> 
> The estimated 5,500 glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region  site of Mount Everest and many of the worlds tallest peaks  could reduce their volume by 70-99 percent by 2100, with dire consequences for farming and hydropower generation downstream, they said.


----------



## ekim68

7 important ocean trends, and what we can do about them



> More than 70% of the Earths surface is covered in water. About 97% of it exists in our oceans.
> 
> But the oceans aren't just full of aquatic creatures and colorful coral that comprise the perfect snorkel scenery. Major problems lurk on top of, and especially beneath the surface  problems that need our attention. That's why we need World Oceans Day.


----------



## ekim68

Intense Rain Bursts Rise with Heat, Forecast More Flash Flooding 



> The heaviest rain bursts within a storm happen when its warmest, according to new research that suggests rising temperatures could exacerbate flooding as intense downpours are concentrated into smaller windows.
> 
> The analysis by two Australian engineers shows that storms are becoming more unruly. Theyre prone to fits of faster rainfall during condensed periods of severity, and lessening rainfall during calmer, cooler times within the same event.


----------



## ekim68

Witness The Unbelievable Power Of Volcanic Eruptions Up Close


----------



## ekim68

Sahara threatening Tunisians' way of life



> In the Sahara desert, if water disappears then so does life.
> 
> The problem of desertification across the world's biggest low-latitude hot desert comes down to a combination of climate change and over-exploitation of resources.
> 
> The World Day to Combat Desertification started back in 1995. Each year organisers hope to highlight how serious an issue this is.
> 
> However, behind the rhetoric, those living in or close to the Sahara want to know what is actually being done.
> 
> Many of the people I have spoken to in oasis villages and towns in Tunisia tell me how they watch helplessly as their wells run dry and their land turns into a dusty, salty wasteland. Tens of thousands of palm trees have died or are dying. Those palm trees are not only a barrier to the sand, but also a source of fruit and income.
> 
> According to the United Nations, around 850 million people are directly affected by this land erosion.


----------



## ekim68

The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile



> The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile is erupting for the first time in 42 years, spewing huge amounts of ash into the atmosphere and prompting evacuations across a 24-mile wide area.


----------



## ekim68

This Hellish Underground Fire Has Burned for 100 Years



> Fires rage unimpeded just below the earths surface in Jharia, India, slowly consuming a vast store of coal and occasionally opening immense chasms that swallow everything above them. Johnny Haglund documents what its like living with such an inferno for The Earth is on Fire, which recently took second place at Pictures of the Year International for Science and Natural History Picture Story.


----------



## ekim68

Catastrophic Chinese floods triggered by air pollution



> What atmospheric scientist Jiwen Fan saw on her television in July 2013 appalled her. The worst flooding to hit China in 50 years was happening in Sichuan province, in the same place that had been devastated by a massive earthquake just 5 years earlier. Over the course of 5 days, 73 centimeters of rain pounded the mountains, peaking at 29 centimeters in a single day. Rivers burst their banks and poured through city streets, washing away homes, factories, and bridges. Steep valley slopes collapsed in deadly landslides. About 200 people died, and a further 300,000 were displaced.
> 
> But Fan was worried about more than just the immediate effect of the floods. The Richland, Washingtonbased researcheran expert on air pollution and climate at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washingtonwondered how they had gotten so strong so fast. The Sichuan basin, surrounded by mountains that trap smoke billowing from its industrial centers, is notorious for its dirty air, she says. Did air pollution play a role? To find out, she and her team of Chinese, American, and Israeli researchers designed precision computer simulations to model what had happened.
> 
> Air pollution can affect precipitation in many ways. Sometimes, the aerosol particles in smoke can reduce or delay rain. Sometimes, they can make thunderstorms more intense. Their best understood interaction is in changing how water vapor condenses to form droplets in clouds. But Fan and her team have proposed a first: that pollution also changes some air circulation patterns that lead to rainclouds.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> This Hellish Underground Fire Has Burned for 100 Years


wow. I'd heard of Centralia and that Russian site, but oddly not this one. Thanks Mike.


----------



## DaveBurnett

I used to live in a little town called Measham in the UK.
Coal seams are close to the surface there and some of them have been burning for over 40 years. In places the land has sunk into the vacated spaces and roads look like fairground switchbacks. Many houses have also collapsed.
On cold days water vapour rises of the land and drains look like steam engines. Snow never settles. 
I've seen tarmac road surfaces flow down the hill in Summer.


----------



## ekim68

Brewmaster captures rare water spout on Lake Tahoe



> Lake Tahoe was treated to a rare weather occurrence Wednesday night as a water spout formed along the west shore of the lake.


----------



## ekim68

Chinas Stunning Terraced Rice Paddies Woke Up Like This


----------



## ekim68

Thunderstorm brings snow to Hawaii in July



> MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (AP)  An overnight thunderstorm dropped 1½ to 2 inches of snow on the summit of Hawaii's tallest peak in July.


----------



## ekim68

Goats Take the Bite Out of Climate Change in Zimbabwe



> Many Zimbabweans are turning to raising small livestock like goats which survive dry conditions to avert climate change impacts that have claimed their cattle over the years.


----------



## ekim68

The Most Electric Place on Earth



> You know the saying lightning never strikes the same place twice? Forget it. On a good night, one lake in Venezuela hosts thousands of lightning strikes every hour.
> 
> The phenomenon is known variously as the Beacon of Maracaibo, Catatumbo lightning or  cue dramatic roll of thunder - the everlasting storm. That last one might be a slight exaggeration but where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo there is an average of 260 storm days per year.
> 
> Here the night sky is regularly illuminated for nine hours with thousands of flashes of naturally produced electricity.


----------



## ekim68

*Ecuador declares volcano emergency*



> Eruptions at the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador have sent plumes of ash and smoke two miles into the sky.
> 
> The eruptions have spread fine grey powder as far as the capital city 30 miles to the north of the volcano.


----------



## ekim68

Mississippi River Mouth Must Be Abandoned to Save New Orleans from Next Hurricane Katrina




> Hurricane Katrina demolished New Orleans 10 years ago, a grim anniversary to be markednext week. Huge earthen levees dissolved and concrete floodwalls toppled over. But the real culprit when the tropical cyclone made landfall was outside the city. Thousands of square miles of wetland marshes and swamps that had once provided a buffer between the city's coastline and the ocean had been badly tattered from decades of human damage. Thick, robust wetlands would have absorbed much of the surge of water that Katrina pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico. But levees had starved the wetlands of needed nutrients, making plants weak, and thousands of miles of manmade canals had torn the vegetation apart, allowing Katrina's onrushing storm surge to flow right into New Orleans.


----------



## ekim68

Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core




> A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth's surface. The finding could help explain where Earth's seas came from.
> 
> The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core.
> 
> The huge size of the reservoir throws new light on the origin of Earth's water. Some geologists think water arrived in comets as they struck the planet, but the new discovery supports an alternative idea that the oceans gradually oozed out of the interior of the early Earth.


----------



## ekim68

Three category 4 hurricanes developed in the Pacific simultaneously for the first time in recorded history




> Bill McKibbem





> warned us three decades ago that climate change would create a series of devastating phenomena that we have never before seen, and we are already starting to see that prediction come true. On Saturday evening, for the first time in recorded history, three category 4 hurricanes were churning in the central and eastern Pacific basins at the same time as illustrated in the above satellite image. Two of the hurricanes have since subsided, but the incident should be a major wake-up call for anyone still insisting that climate change is normal.


----------



## DaveBurnett

Climate change IS normal.
It used to happen long before man came along.


----------



## ekim68

Well you know what they say: "If it weren't for Change, everything would remain the same"...


----------



## ekim68

Inside the Crater That Leaks Neon Blue 'Lava'




> Reuben Wu





> loves volcanoes. It started as a childhood obsession rivaled only by space travel and dinosaurs, which explains his life goal of photographing the neon blue flames of the Kawah Ijen crater on Java.
> 
> The Blue Fire Crater, as it is sometimes called, isn't lava, but combusting sulfuric gas. The gas works its way through fissures to the surface, emerging at high pressure and extreme temperatures of up to 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of this gas ignites in flames up to 16 feet tall, and some becomes liquid sulfur that flows over the landscape.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient permafrost sample yields another giant virus




> This sounds like science fiction, but it actually happened. Researchers who study giant viruses obtained a chunk of permafrost that had been frozen for an estimated 30,000 years. Upon thawing it out, they placed it in with some amoeba. Before long, the giant viruses were bursting from the amoeba.
> 
> The culprit turned out to be the largest virus we've ever identified (physically; there are viruses with genomes four times the size). But the permafrost wasn't done with its somewhat creepy gifts, because the same researchers are back with a second giant virus they've pulled from the distant past.


----------



## ekim68

Hawaii to experience worst-ever coral bleaching due to high ocean temperatures




> Corals are recovering from last year's bleaching but warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures this year will likely lead to deadlier year for coral reef.


----------



## ekim68

World's longest continental volcano chain in Australia:




> Scientists have discovered the world's longest known chain of continental volcanoes, running 2,000 kilometres across Australia, from the Whitsundays in North Queensland to near Melbourne in central Victoria.
> 
> The volcanic chain was created over the past 33 million years, as Australia moved northwards over a hotspot in the Earth's mantle, said leader of the research Dr Rhodri Davies from The Australian National University (ANU).


----------



## ekim68

Secrets of Patagonia's rare and violent volcanoes




> Rhyolite eruptions are poorly understood as they are so rarely seen, but they can be exceptionally large and violent. A vast eruption of similar magma at Toba, Sumatra, only 70,000 years ago, plunged Earth into a volcanic winter that lasted for several years, which some argue drove humans close to extinction.
> 
> As well as belching towering, destructive plumes of ash, rhyolite eruptions are famed for creating lava flows made of obsidian - the mysterious black volcanic glass that has fascinated everyone from early tool-makers to Minecraft fans.


----------



## ekim68

Sinkhole swallows car, caravan at campsite near Queensland's Rainbow Beach




> A major sinkhole has swallowed vehicles at a popular camping spot near Queensland's Rainbow Beach overnight.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient Rocks Record First Evidence for Photosynthesis That Made Oxygen




> A new study shows that iron-bearing rocks that formed at the ocean floor 3.2 billion years ago carry unmistakable evidence of oxygen.
> 
> The only logical source for that oxygen is the earliest known example of photosynthesis by living organisms, say University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscientists.
> 
> "Rock from 3.4 billion years ago showed that the ocean contained basically no free oxygen," says Clark Johnson, professor of geoscience at UW-Madison and a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. "Recent work has shown a small rise in oxygen at 3 billion years. The rocks we studied are 3.23 billion years old, and quite well preserved, and we believe they show definite signs for oxygen in the oceans much earlier than previous discoveries."


----------



## ekim68

September Was the Most Extreme Month in 136 Years of Heat Records




> We did it again.
> 
> Last month was the hottest September on record for planet Earth, according to data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Not only was it a record-breaking September, but it was the largest jump from what's considered normal for _any_ month ever measured.
> 
> In 136 years of global temperature data, we are in uncharted territory. This new milestone follows the hottest summer on record, the hottest start to a year on record, the hottest 12 months on record, the hottest calendar year on record (2014) and the hottest decade on record.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://thevane.gawker.com/at-200-mph-hurricane-patricia-is-now-the-strongest-tro-1738224692']At 200 MPH, Hurricane Patricia Is Now the Strongest Tropical Cyclone Ever Recorded[/URL]




> Shortly after midnight on October 23, 2015, a group of courageous men and women flew into the center of Hurricane Patricia and landed in the history books. With measured winds of 200 MPH, Hurricane Patricia became the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded anywhere on Earth. Let that sink in for a moment.


----------



## valis

We were schduled to get 5-7 inches sunday anyhow. That has now ben upped to over a foot. This thing came out of nowhere.


----------



## DaveBurnett

That is asking for a rude comment!!


----------



## ekim68

And the Beat goes on.................


Greenland Is Melting Away




> On the Greenland Ice Sheet - The midnight sun still gleamed at 1 a.m. across the brilliant expanse of the Greenland ice sheet. Brandon Overstreet, a doctoral candidate in hydrology at the University of Wyoming, picked his way across the frozen landscape, clipped his climbing harness to an anchor in the ice and crept toward the edge of a river that rushed downstream toward an enormous sinkhole.


----------



## ekim68

Aurora Gallery


----------



## ekim68

Volcanic Lightning: How does it work?!




> The fusion of flash with ash! Say the words aloud, together, and it sounds impossible - the kind of thing a six-year-old might think up. And yet, volcanic lightning is very real. But how does it happen?
> 
> Few phenomena can compete with the raw beauty and devastating power of a raging thunderstorm, save for a particularly violent volcanic eruption. But when these two forces of nature collide, the resulting spectacle can be so sublime as to defy reason.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/05/1444911/-Study-of-huge-Siberian-craters-shows-Giant-Pool-of-Methane-below-them']Study of huge Siberian craters shows Giant Pool of Methane below them[/URL]




> Apparently in the arctic, all along the outward continental shelves and in Siberia Methane is beginning to outgas explosively with enough force to blow huge craters out of the earth.


----------



## ekim68

'Cloud tsunami' hits Sydney - in pictures




> Extraordinary photographs of a huge shelf cloud hitting the coast of New South Wales, Australia. The meteorological event - technically a type of _arcus_ cloud - is a wedge of cloud formed at the leading edge of a thunderstorm where the downdraft and an updraft of the storm intersect. The shelf cloud seen here - dubbed by Twitter a 'cloud tsunami' - measured several kilometres in length and swept across the city throughout the afternoon and early evening.


----------



## ekim68

Satellites Expose Just How Bad Indonesia's Fires Are




> Indonesia has been aflame for a couple months now. That happens every fall-the country's fire season is severe-but this time around, things are the worst they've been in almost two decades. This year's crazy-strong El Niño has desiccated the region's peat beds, while palm oil plantations exacerbate the problem by cutting down trees and draining the normally soggy land.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/a-vast-river-network-once-crisscrossed-the-sahara-1741984951']A Vast River Network Once Crisscrossed the Sahara[/URL]




> The Sahara is about the worst place on Earth to find water today, but that wasn't always the case. Thousands of years ago, its sandy dune fields were lush and verdant. A new scientific paper helps explain why: the Western Sahara used to be irrigated by a vast river network.
> 
> That's the fascinating conclusion of Charlotte Skonieczny and colleagues, who used radar satellite data to map the geologic features buried beneath the Western Sahara's sandy seas. The study, published in _Nature Communications_ this week, reveals the traces of a drainage network some 520 km (323 miles) in length. If still flowing today, it'd be one of the largest river basins on Earth.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists say Greenland just opened up a major new 'floodgate' of ice into the ocean




> As the world prepares for the most important global climate summit yet in Paris later this month, news from Greenland could add urgency to the negotiations. For another major glacier appears to have begun a rapid retreat into a deep underwater basin, a troubling sign previously noticed at Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier and also in the Amundsen Sea region of West Antarctica.
> 
> And in all of these cases, warm ocean waters reaching the deep bases of marine glaciers appears to be a major cause.


----------



## ekim68

Earth may have kept its own water rather than getting it from asteroids




> Carl Sagan famously dubbed Earth the "pale blue dot" for our planet's abundant water. But where this water came from-and when it arrived-has been a longstanding debate. Many scientists argue that Earth formed as a dry planet, and gained its water millions of years later through the impact of water-bearing asteroids or comets. But now, scientists say that Earth may have had water from the start, inheriting it directly from the swirling nebula that gave birth to the solar system. If true, the results suggest that water-rich planets may abound in the universe.


----------



## ekim68

Satellite Sensors Would Deliver Global Fire Coverage




> Wildfires can wreak havoc on human health, property and communities, so it's imperative to detect them as early as possible. That's why NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is working on a concept for a network of space-based sensors called FireSat in collaboration with Quadra Pi R2E, San Francisco.
> 
> FireSat would be a constellation of more than 200 thermal infrared imaging sensors on satellites designed to quickly locate wildfires around the globe. Once operational, FireSat would represent the most complete monitoring coverage of wildfires ever from space.


----------



## ekim68

Study: Half of all Amazonian tree species threatened by deforestation




> BELEM, Brazil, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- According to research newly published in the journal Science Advances, half of all tree species in the rain forests of the Amazon are on the decline, threatened by deforestation.
> 
> It's one of the first studies to look at deforestation in the Amazon on a species-by-species basis. Scientists have been noting the precipitous decline of tree stocks since the 1950s, but most research efforts have focused on total volume.


----------



## ekim68

Italy's Mt. Etna erupts in terrifying, beautiful fashion




> Mt. Etna, situated near the Sicilian coast in Italy, spewed lava and ash into the sky resulting in a "dirty thunderstorm" in which lightning forms in the volcano's cloud.


----------



## ekim68

Can electric signals in Earth's atmosphere predict earthquakes?

*



SAN FRANCISCO

Click to expand...

*


> , *CALIFORNIA-*Ask seismologists when they'll be able to predict earthquakes, and the answer is generally: sometime between the distant future and never. Although there have been some promising leads over the years, the history of earthquake forecasting is littered with false starts and pseudoscience. However, some scientists think that Earth's crust may give hints before it ruptures, in the form of electromagnetic anomalies in the ground and atmosphere that occur minutes to days before an earthquake.


----------



## ekim68

Detailed seafloor gravity map brings the Earth's surface into sharp focus




> Not so long ago the ocean floor was as unknown as the far side of the Moon. Now, an international team of scientists is using satellite data to chart the deep ocean by measuring the Earth's gravitational field. The result is a new, highly-detailed map that covers the three-quarters of the Earth's surface that lies underwater. The map is already providing new insights into global geology.


----------



## ekim68

2015 Was the Hottest Year on Record, by a Stunning Margin




> To say that 2015 was hot is an understatement. The average recorded temperature across the surface of the planet was so far above normal that it set a record for setting records.


----------



## ekim68

Australia town consumed by 'hairy panic'




> A fast-growing tumbleweed called "hairy panic" is clogging up homes in a small Australian town.
> 
> Extremely dry conditions mean the weeds pile up each day outside a row of homes at Wangaratta, in Victoria's northeast.
> 
> Frustrated residents are forced to clear out the weeds for several hours every day, with piles of hairy panic at times reaching roof height.


----------



## 2twenty2

Hairy Panic


----------



## ekim68

Large-ish Meteor Hits Earth... But No One Notices




> If a space rock hits the atmosphere, and no one is around to hear it, does the tabloid press still report it as an Earth-shattering event? Of course!
> 
> This pretty much summarizes a large-ish meteor impact over the South Atlantic Ocean, which occurred on Feb. 6, and was recorded by the Fireball and Bolide Reports page of NASA's Near Earth Object Program.
> 
> The event itself is notable because it is the largest atmospheric impact recorded since the famous Chelyabinsk bolide that exploded over Russia in 2013, causing widespread structural damage and injuries to the city with a population of 1 million.


----------



## ekim68

Lava + Ash + Lightning = the Perfect Volcano Photo


----------



## ekim68

Scientists gear up to drill into 'ground zero' of the impact that killed the dinosaurs




> This month, a drilling platform will rise in the Gulf of Mexico, but it won't be aiming for oil. Scientists will try to sink a diamond-tipped bit into the heart of Chicxulub crater-the buried remnant of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, along with most other life on the planet.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/if-you-dont-think-a-one-degree-temperature-rise-matters-1763283002']If You Don't Think a One-Degree Temperature Rise Matters, Read This[/URL]




> It's just one-degree, right? So, how big a difference can it really make? There's a place in the world where we can already look at for an answer.
> 
> A new study in _Nature Climate Change _looks at Brazil's Mato Grosso state, a rising agricultural powerhouse in the country and in the world. (Ten percent of all the world's soybeans already come from there.) It's also an area that has already seen temperatures quickly rise-and will probably keep right on seeing it, by up to an extra 2 degrees by 2050. Researchers at Brown and Tufts took a look backwards at data since 2002 from the state to see what had already happened with climbing temperatures.


----------



## ekim68

Satellite Eye on Earth: February 2016 - in pictures


----------



## ekim68

NASA: Global Warming Is Now Changing How Earth Wobbles




> Global warming is shifting the way the Earth wobbles on its polar axis, a new NASA study finds.
> 
> Melting ice sheets - especially in Greenland - are changing the distribution of weight on Earth. And that has caused both the North Pole and the wobble, which is called polar motion, to change course, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.


----------



## ekim68

Why are we so bad at predicting earthquakes?




> 'Nearly half of the world's big cities now lie in areas at risk from earthquakes," writes Andrew Robinson towards the end of his new book, Earth-Shattering Events.
> 
> It's a chilling statement made all the more so in the light of this weekend's news from Ecuador and Japan, where 7.8 and 7.3-magnitude earthquakes respectively have left scores of people dead and caused widespread damage to homes and buildings.


----------



## ekim68

Climate-exodus expected in the Middle East and North Africa




> The number of climate refugees could increase dramatically in future. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have calculated that the Middle East and North Africa could become so hot that human habitability is compromised. The goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, agreed at the recent UN climate summit in Paris, will not be sufficient to prevent this scenario.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/because-of-climate-change-five-pacific-islands-have-va-1775409699']Because of Climate Change, Five Pacific Islands Have Vanished[/URL]




> As climate change worsens around the world, its effects are increasingly being observed. One notable effect has been the disappearance of five Solomon Islands in the West Pacific due to rising sea levels.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> Because of Climate Change, Five Pacific Islands Have Vanished


----------



## ekim68

Earth's Relentless Warming Just Hit a Terrible New Threshold




> The number of climate records broken in the last few years is stunning. But here's a new measure of misery: Not only did we just experience the hottest April in 137 years of record keeping, but it was the 12th consecutive month to set a new record.


----------



## ekim68

India records its hottest day ever as temperature hits 51C (that's 123.8F)




> A city in northern India has shattered the national heat record, registering a searing 51C - the highest since records began - amid a nationwide heatwave.
> 
> The new record was set in Phalodi, a city in the desert state of Rajasthan, and is the equivalent of 123.8F.
> 
> It tops a previous record of 50.6C set in 1956.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> India records its hottest day ever as temperature hits 51C (that's 123.8F)


----------



## 2twenty2

Wow that is freaking hot!!


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-colorado-river-is-a-blue-ribbon-in-the-desert-when-1779411664']The Colorado River is a Blue Ribbon in the Desert When Seen From the ISS[/URL]




> Tim Peake snapped an amazing picture of the Grand Canyon earlier today as the International Space Station passed overhead. The Colorado River is a blue ribbon in the middle of a desert.


----------



## ekim68

'Huge wake up call': Third of central, northern Great Barrier Reef corals dead




> More than one-third of the coral reefs of the central and northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef have died in the huge bleaching event earlier this year, Queensland researchers said.
> 
> Corals to the north of Cairns - covering about two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef - were found to have an average mortality rate of 35 per cent, rising to more than half in areas around Cooktown.


----------



## ekim68

The power and glory of tides - in pictures




> The ebb and flow of oceans around the world reveal the planet's daily dance in the sloshing of billions of tonnes of water. Hugh Aldersey-Williams examines the collision of immovable object and irresistible force at the boundary between land and sea.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://www.neatorama.com/2016/06/13/The-Oldest-Cultivated-Tree-in-America/']The Oldest Cultivated Tree in America[/URL]



> A single pear tree in Danvers, Massachusetts, has been growing and producing fruit for almost 400 years.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> The Oldest Cultivated Tree in America


WOW!!


----------



## ekim68

CO2 levels likely to stay above 400ppm for the rest of our lives, new study shows



> A new study reveals that carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are likely to remain above 400 parts per million (ppm) throughout this year and for many years to come. Scientists from the Met Office Hadley Centre and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scrutinized data from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii and forecasted that levels would not dip below 400ppm for 'our lifetimes.'


----------



## ekim68

And more on that....


Antarctic CO2 Hit 400 PPM for First Time in 4 Million Years



> The most remote continent on Earth has caught up with its more populated counterparts


----------



## ekim68

19 breathtaking photos that reveal the mystical powers of fog



> A world shrouded in fog is quiet. The phenomenon makes you feel like you have to whisper, or it might drift away.


----------



## ekim68

Man-made pollutants found in Earth's deepest ocean trenches



> Crustaceans at depths of 10,000 metres contain higher concentrations of chemicals than do some animals in coastal waters.


----------



## ekim68

One of a Kind, actually.....

NASA: Watch One Year on Earth From 1 Million Miles Away


----------



## ekim68

Australia has moved 1.5 metres, so it's updating its location for self-driving cars



> Australia is changing from "down under" to "down under and across a bit".
> 
> The country is shifting its longitude and latitude to fix a discrepancy with global satellite navigation systems. Government body Geoscience Australia is updating the Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country's national coordinate system, to bring it in line with international data.
> 
> The reason Australia is slightly out of whack with global systems is that the country moves about 7 centimetres (2.75 inches) per year due to the shifting of tectonic plates.


----------



## ekim68

Melting Arctic ice turns abandoned military base into ticking toxic time bomb



> With temperatures rising across the globe, the poles are being hit particularly hard. Melting Arctic sea ice could wreak plenty of havoc through rising sea levels, but other potential hazards are coming to light. If these warming trends continue, a US military base, built into the Greenland Ice Sheet and abandoned since the 1960s, could eventually be freed from the ice - along with hundreds of thousands of liters of waste and pollutants.


----------



## ekim68

July 2016 Was Earth's Warmest Month on Record



> Global mean temperatures in July 2016 were the warmest on record not just for July, but for any month dating to the late 1800s, according to separate just-released analyses.


----------



## ekim68

Sprites Lightning


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/beautiful-blue-lakes-are-invading-east-antarctica-and-t-1785448250']Beautiful Blue Lakes Are Invading East Antarctica and That's Not Good[/URL]



> Something strange is happening to one of the coldest places on Earth. Dazzling blue lakes are blooming like summer wildflowers atop the East Antarctic ice sheet's Langhovde Glacier. And that's got scientists very worried-because they've seen these lakes before.
> 
> "Supraglacial lakes"-meltwater ponds that form as warm summer air heats the surface of an ice sheet-have been spreading across Greenland for years. To glaciologists, they're both a sign of global warming and a cause of ice sheet collapse: as meltwater from the lakes drains into the underlying ice, it can lubricate the ice sheet's foundation, causing it to weaken and eventually collapse. This feedback is thought to be one of the reasons Greenland is now melting at an accelerating rate, losing a trillion tons of ice between 2011 and 2014.


----------



## ekim68

Every Month This Year Has Been the Hottest in Recorded History



> Despite the cruise ship that's now plowing through a melting Arctic, or the wildfires that have consumed parts of North America, and devastating drought that's stricken in East Africa, it can still be easy to ignore sometimes that our climate is rapidly changing. But 2016 has been a remarkable year for record-breaking temperatures, and even in the midst of it, July stands out as the hottest month of all.


----------



## ekim68

New research examines how air pollution is melting Earth's Third Pole



> The third-largest region of ice on the planet is located on the Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountains, also known as the Third Pole. As the polar regions, the glaciers in this third region are shrinking. The difference is that the Third Pole is especially vulnerable to pollution due to its close proximity to densely populated and industrialized regions. New research is shedding light on these effects and potential ways to mitigate the disappearance of glacial ice.
> 
> In Western China alone, which consists of 48,571 glaciers with an area of 51,840 sq km (20,015 sq miles), there has been an 18 percent decrease in its glaciers over the last 30-50 years according to a study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists finally made a half-way decent map of Alaska



> To protect the Arctic from climate change, scientists require a detailed map which they can slowly update and reference over time. Such a resource has, until now, been difficult to produce because traditional capture methods -- low-flying aircraft, for instance -- are expensive or ill-equipped to deal with the region's harsh weather patterns. That's now changed, however, thanks to a project spearheaded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Science Foundation. Following a directive from President Obama, the group has captured Alaska with a new level of clarity, using commercial satellites owned by Digital Globe.
> 
> The three-dimensional topographic maps are based on 2-meter resolution images. The satellites captured the same location twice, 45 seconds apart, before sending them to a supercomputer which was able to combine them and extract elevation data. As _National Geographic_ reports, this allows a horizontal resolution (the shortest distance at which a change in depth can be recorded) of 7 to 17 feet. Subtle height differences of less than two feet can be measured too, culminating in some detailed and insightful models.


----------



## ekim68

Earth temperature Timeline by xkcd


----------



## ekim68

Atmospheric acidity almost back down to preindustrial levels



> After increased industrialization in the 1930s, atmospheric acidity levels rose up sharply to a peak in the 1970s, but 40 years after the US and Europe introduced legislation to combat air pollution, acidity in the air has now dropped back down to pre-1930 levels. These figures come out of research by the University of Copenhagen, which used a new technique to measure the pH balance of ice core samples from the Greenland ice sheet, and how it's changed year to year.


----------



## ekim68

World's reservoirs pumping out more greenhouse gas than Canada, study finds



> Fossil fuels, agriculture and transportation are examples of well-known sources when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and a changing climate, but a new study suggests there may be an additional silent contributor in our midst. Environmental scientists tracking greenhouse gases rising from the world's reservoirs say they produce the equivalent of around one gigaton of carbon dioxide each year, more than all of Canada, and a figure not currently taken into account when sizing up our environmental footprint.
> 
> Scientists have known for some time that reservoirs play a role in global warming. The difference between these and natural bodies of water is in what lies beneath, with the construction of manmade reservoirs usually flooding soil and vegetation rich with organic matter. When these nutrients are decomposed by microbes, they are transformed into carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide and flow upwards into the atmosphere.


----------



## ekim68

Removing CO2 From the Air Only Hope for Fixing Climate Change, New Study Says



> Without 'negative emissions' to help return atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm, future generations could face costs that 'may become too heavy to bear,' paper says.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/theres-an-enormous-natural-gas-seep-along-the-west-coas-1787971694']There's an Enormous Natural Gas Seep Along the West Coast[/URL]



> From British Columbia to Northern California, planet Earth's got a case of the toots. A recent deep ocean mapping survey has learned that a geologically-active strip of seafloor called the Cascadia Subduction Zone is bubbling methane like mad. It could be one of the most active methane seeps on the planet.
> 
> "It's like bottles of champagne all along the seafloor," said Jesse Ausubel, an organizer for the 2016 National Ocean Exploration Forum, where the gaseous discovery, along with other intriguing finds from recent deep ocean surveys, is being presented this week.


----------



## ekim68

Climate change could cross key threshold in a decade: scientists



> OXFORD, England (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The planet could pass a key target on world temperature rise in about a decade, prompting accelerating loss of glaciers, steep declines in water availability, worsening land conflicts and deepening poverty, scientists said this week.
> 
> Last December, 195 nations agreed to try to hold world temperature rise to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, with an aim of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
> 
> But the planet is already two-thirds of the way to that lower and safer goal, and could begin to pass it in about a decade, according to Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre.


----------



## ekim68

West Antarctica Begins to Destabilize With 'Intense Unbalanced Melting'



> If you want to see the future of New York, Tokyo, or Mumbai, look no further than West Antarctica, where a warmer sea is turning ice into water that may be headed to your doorstep.
> 
> The bottom of the world has drawn increased scrutiny from scientists over the last few years, as West Antarctic ice loss in some places shows signs of becoming "unstoppable." There's enough water locked up in West Antarctica's Amundsen Sea region alone to raise the global average sea level by four feet, and it's the fastest-melting spot on the continent. The National Science Foundation and a U.K. counterpart last week announced that they'll fund up to $25 million in research that will help the scientific community better understand the timing and mechanics of a critical glacier, the Thwaites. It's basically the climate-science equivalent of an FBI "Most Wanted" poster.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/the-deadliest-volcano-in-the-united-states-just-got-rea-1788437042']The Deadliest Volcano in the United States Just Got Really Weird[/URL]



> Picture a volcanic eruption: fiery magma and smoke billowing skyward as a towering mountain empties its over-pressurized belly of a hot meal. At least, that's how most of us think it works. So you can imagine volcanologists' surprise when they discovered that Mount St. Helens, which was responsible for the deadliest eruption in US history, is actually cold inside.


----------



## ekim68

Deadly 'Jacuzzi of Despair' discovered deep below Gulf of Mexico



> (RNN) - Exploration Vessel Nautilus went underwater in the Gulf of Mexico and captured footage of a deadly brine pool deep below the sea.
> 
> People and animals that swim near the pool are put in extreme danger of death due to lethal concentrations of chemicals.
> 
> It is about 100 feet in circumference and 12 feet deep, located almost 4,000 feet below the Gulf's surface, according to Seeker.


----------



## ekim68

The average U.S. family destroys a football field's worth of Arctic sea ice every 30 years



> The jet fuel you burned on that flight from New York City to London? Say goodbye to 1 square meter of Arctic sea ice.
> 
> Since at least the 1960s, the shrinkage of the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean has advanced in lockstep with the amount of greenhouse gases humans have sent into the atmosphere, according to a study published this week in _Science_. Every additional metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) puffed into the atmosphere appears to cost the Arctic another 3 square meters of summer sea ice-a simple and direct observational link that has been sitting in data beneath scientists' noses. "It's really basic," says co-author Dirk Notz, a sea ice expert at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. "In retrospect, it sounds like something someone should have done 20 years ago."
> 
> If both the linear relationship and current emission trends hold into the future, the study suggests the Arctic will be ice free by 2045-far sooner than some climate models predict.


----------



## ekim68

Huge lake discovered 15 kilometres under a volcano



> Our planet is blue inside and out. A massive reservoir of water has been discovered deep beneath a volcano in the Andes, and Earth's interior may be dotted with similar wet pockets lurking below other major volcanoes.
> 
> The unexpected water, which is mixed with partially melted magma, could help to explain why and how eruptions happen.
> 
> This water may also be playing a role in the formation of the continental crust we live on, and could be further evidence that our planet has had water circulating in its interior since its formation.


----------



## ekim68

Plants to thank for recent plateau in rise of atmospheric CO2



> We might have to treat our humble house plants to an extra helping of sunlight this week. As human-induced CO2 emissions continue to increase, a new study suggests that the Earth's vegetation has upped its game to help offset that growth. After a 40-year upward trend, the rate at which atmospheric CO2 levels increased hit a plateau between 2002 and 2014, thanks largely to plants plucking more CO2 out of the air than they have previously.
> 
> In 1959, the rate of growth of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere sat at about 0.75 parts per million (ppm) per year, and over the second half of the 20th century, that figure increased rapidly, up to 1.86 ppm per year in 2002. But in the years since then, the rate of growth has flatlined, despite the fact that human activity continues to pump out more and more CO2. That's not to say the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere isn't still going up - it is - but the rate of increase has slowed, remaining steady on about 1.9 ppm each year since 2002.


----------



## ekim68

US Southeast: Droughts + Pipelines + GE Trees = Firestorms



> Across the US Southeast, wild forests are burning. A devastating drought across the region has left the forests in the region vulnerable to fire. Under normal conditions, the region's forests have been compared to rain forests because they are so wet, and are home to record numbers of species of amphibians. But climate change has repeatedly brought drought to these forests, and with it the threat of fire.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/john-kerry-is-lucky-enough-to-see-antartica-before-it-m-1788880952']John Kerry Is Lucky Enough to See Antartica Before It Melts[/URL]



> John Kerry escaped to Antartica on Friday for a two-day trip, becoming the highest ranking US official to visit the melting continent.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/after-thousands-of-years-earths-frozen-life-forms-are-1686782409']After Thousands of Years, Earth's Frozen Life Forms Are Waking Up[/URL]



> What's happening in Siberia's thawing permafrost and Greenland's melting glaciers sounds borderline supernatural. Ancient viruses, bacteria, plants, and even animals have been cryogenically frozen there for millennia-and now, they are waking up.


----------



## ekim68

Groundbreaking Study Shows Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes



> According to a new study published in the journal _Science, _seismic activity in northwest Alberta over the last five years were likely caused by fracking, in which chemically-laden water and sand is injected at high pressures into shale formations to release oil or gas.
> 
> The article, _Fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western Canada_, was authored by Xuewei Bao and David Eaton from the University of Calgary.
> 
> For the study, the researchers mapped out more than 900 seismic events near Duvernay shale drilling sites around the Fox Creek area dating back to December 2014. This included a 4.8-magnitude earthquake in January in northern Alberta that's likely the strongest fracking-induced earthquake ever.


----------



## ekim68

'Unprecedented': More than 100 million trees dead in California



> There are about 21 million acres of trees spread across California's 18 national forests, and the latest figures show 7.7 million of them - more than one-third - are dead.


----------



## poochee

ekim68 said:


> 'Unprecedented': More than 100 million trees dead in California


...


----------



## ekim68

Time to try something different, eh?


----------



## poochee

Yep!


----------



## ekim68

Amid higher global temperatures, sea ice at record lows at poles



> (CNN)For what appears to be the first time since scientists began keeping track, sea ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic are at record lows this time of year.
> 
> "It looks like, since the beginning of October, that for the first time we are seeing both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice running at record low levels," said Walt Meier, a research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who has tracked sea ice data going back to 1979.


----------



## ekim68

100-year-old expedition logbooks reveal Antarctic sea ice patterns



> In the early years of the 20th century, several teams of explorers were racing to reach a new frontier: the South Pole. During what's known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, many explorers perished and the expeditions were fraught with failure, but their efforts were not in vain. Now, over a century later, their logbooks and journals have helped piece together a new discovery: Antarctic sea ice coverage may not be on a steady downward trend, but fluctuating over cycles lasting decades.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/huge-cracks-in-the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-may-signal-1789427855']Huge Cracks In the West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Signal Its Collapse[/URL]



> Last year, a 225 square-mile chunk of West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier broke off and tumbled into the sea. Now, Earth scientists at Ohio State University have pinpointed the root cause of the iceberg calving event: a crack that started deep below ground and 20 miles inland.
> 
> It's like nothing scientists have witnessed in West Antarctica before, and it doesn't bode well for the ice sheet's future.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/extreme-tornado-outbreaks-are-happening-more-often-acro-1789559806']Extreme Tornado Outbreaks Are Happening More Often Across the US[/URL]



> Tornadoes that come in bunches are on the rise in the United States, according to a new study. Though it might be tempting to blame climate change, scientists aren't entirely sure what's causing this troubling trend.
> 
> From 1965 to 2015, the frequency of tornado outbreaks-that is, six or more tornadoes that occur in close succession-has increased in the continental United States, according to a new study published in the journal _Science_. Alarmingly, these extreme weather clusters have caused nearly 80 percent of tornado-related fatalities between 1972 and 2010.


----------



## ekim68

Probe into mysterious avalanche points finger at climate change



> Back in July, a massive avalanche thundered through a valley in the Tibet Plateau, sweeping 70 million tons of glacier ice onto the floor below and killing nine yak herders and hundreds of animals in its way. Scientists were puzzled, because the area is relatively flat and glacier collapse is unprecedented in western Tibet. Researchers analyzing the catastrophe have now published findings that suggest meltwater at the base of the glacier lubricated the ice on its path of destruction, meltwater that probably wouldn't have been there if not for rising temperatures in the region.


----------



## ekim68

Methane surge needs 'urgent attention'



> Scientists say they are concerned at the rate at which methane in the atmosphere is now rising.
> 
> After a period of relative stagnation in the 2000s, the concentration of the gas has surged.
> 
> Methane (CH4) is a smaller component than carbon dioxide (CO2) but drives a more potent greenhouse effect.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/two-billion-year-old-water-found-in-canadian-mine-1790199436']Two Billion-Year-Old Water Found in Canadian Mine[/URL]



> Canadian Geoscientists have uncovered water that dates back a whopping two billion years. It's the oldest water ever discovered on Earth, and it could broaden our understanding of how life emerged on our planet-and possibly elsewhere.


----------



## ekim68

There's a Jet Stream in our Core



> 19 December 2016
> 
> We would normally associate jet streams with the weather but, thanks to ESA's magnetic field mission, scientists have discovered a jet stream deep below Earth's surface - and it's speeding up.


----------



## 2twenty2

COLD HARD FACTS? Satellite spots MASSIVE object hidden under the frozen wastes of Antarctica

Scientists baffled by bizarre observations of gigantic 'anomaly' buried beneath polar icecap

It stretches for a distance of 151 miles across and has a maximum depth of about 848 metres.

Some researchers believe it is the remains of a truly massive asteroid which was more than twice the size of the Chicxulub space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs


----------



## ekim68

What we learned about Earth's climate in the hottest of years



> In many ways, climate change this year was no different to all the other years since the turn of the century. Early data from the World Meteorological Organization shows global temperatures to be simmering away at 1.2° C (2.2° F) above pre-industrial levels, on track to make 2016 the hottest on record. If that phrase sounds familiar, it is because it would mean 16 of the 17 hottest years recorded have occurred since 2000, the other being 1998.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/a-huge-chunk-of-antarctic-ice-is-on-the-cusp-of-breakin-1790841885']A Huge Chunk of Antarctic Ice Is on the Cusp of Breaking Away[/URL]



> Scientists have been watching a giant rift in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf for many years, but the crack grew substantially this past December, prompting concerns that it's about to break free. The resulting iceberg is expected to be one of largest ever recorded.


----------



## ekim68

No Hoax: 2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record



> It's not a hoax. There's no conspiracy. And no exaggeration. What follows are 137 years of diligently kept scientific records that show how humans are transforming Earth's climate. The bright red line represents 2016-the third consecutive year to set a new record. The streak is the steepest and most sustained surge in planetary temperatures in the modern age.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/we-finally-know-what-s-causing-namibias-mysterious-fair-1791329145']We Finally Know What's Causing Namibia's Mysterious Fairy Circles[/URL]



> For decades, scientists have struggled to understand the strange circles of barren land that litter the Namib Desert. Called "Fairy Circles," their formation has been attributed to everything from supernatural forces to poison gas and subterranean insects. Now, scientists may have finally solved this enduring mystery.
> 
> A new study published in _Nature _has found that Namibian Fairy Circles are the product of not one, but two ecological forces.


----------



## ekim68

Lost continent under Indian Ocean?



> Scientists at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa say they've discovered evidence of a "lost continent," leftover from the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, whose breakup began some 200 million years ago. The evidence takes the form of ancient zircon minerals found in much-younger rocks. If these scientists are right, the lost continent may be located under the popular island destination of Mauritius and its remains may be scattered widely across the Indian Ocean basin.


----------



## ekim68

Iceland On Alert, Several Volcanoes Show Unusual Activity Levels



> Iceland is one country laden with dormant and semi-active volcanoes. Recently the country has been put on high alert after some of the volcanic systems showed some activity.
> 
> The volcanic systems which are always under observation by geophysicists have of late been showing some expansion in their crust and 4 of the 30 major volcanic systems of Iceland have been unusually active.
> 
> The four most active volcanoes of Iceland are Katla, Hekla, Bárðarbunga and Grímsvötn.


----------



## ekim68

New theory explains why the Earth's core doesn't melt



> Geologists estimate that the Earth's core is a sweltering 5,700 K (5,427° C, 9,800° F), putting it about on par with the surface of the Sun - and yet the inner core is a solid ball of iron. Why it doesn't liquify is a bit of a mystery, but now a study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology puts forward a new theory, simulating how solid iron can remain atomically stable under such extreme conditions.


----------



## ekim68

Lightning strikes Seattle's Space Needle twice in one day



> March 1 (UPI) -- Seattle's thundersnow storm this week brought with it another unusual weather occurrence -- lightning striking the Space Needle twice in a single day.
> 
> The official Twitter account for the Space Needle posted a video of a "rare lightning strike" during Monday's thundersnow storm.


----------



## ekim68

New Research Suggests Earth's Mantle Might Be Hotter Than Anyone Expected



> New data suggests that the upper parts of Earth's mantle are around 60°C (108°F) hotter than previously expected.
> 
> The mantle is the layer between our planet's super-hot core and outer crust, and it plays an incredibly important role in things like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tectonic shifts. But despite the impact the mantle has on our planet, scientists have always struggled to pinpoint its temperature, and new research suggests our previous estimates were off the mark.


----------



## ekim68

The Azure Window is lost and gone forever



> "There was a big raging sea beneath the window," he told the _Times of Malta_.
> 
> "Suddenly, the arch collapsed into the sea with a loud whoomph, throwing up a huge spray. By the time the spray had faded, the stack had gone too."


----------



## ekim68

NASA AI auto-captured the changes in famous Ethiopian volcano



> Artificial intelligence can help satellites and other spacecraft observe interesting phenomena before humans even spot them. Case in point: NASA's Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) spacecraft started capturing images of Ethiopia's Erta Ale volcano as soon as it developed a new fissure in late January. Volcanologists are keeping a close eye on Erta Ale, since it's one of the handful of volcanoes with lava lakes at the summit. They sent in requests asking NASA to use its Earth Observing-1 satellite to snap photos of the eruption, but by that time, the images were already available.


----------



## ekim68

'New' wave-like cloud finally wins official recognition



> Twelve "new" types of cloud - including the rare, wave-like asperitas cloud - have been recognised for the first time by the International Cloud Atlas.
> 
> The atlas, which dates back to the 19th Century, is the global reference book for observing and identifying clouds.


----------



## ekim68

Supersonic plasma jets discovered in Earth's upper atmosphere



> A few months after spotting a jet stream of molten iron in the Earth's outer core, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm satellites have found a similar system at work in the upper atmosphere. There, the electrical fields created through solar winds interacting with the planet's magnetic field have been found to drive supersonic plasma jets, which can heat the ionosphere to temperatures as high as 10,000º C (18,032º F).


----------



## ekim68

Aerial survey reveals extent of coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef



> After a study last month revealed that the Great Barrier Reef was suffering a coral bleaching event for the second consecutive year, scientists have completed an aerial survey of the reef offering more evidence of the environmental catastrophe that is currently taking place.


----------



## ekim68

Global Warming Could Thaw Far More Permafrost Than Expected, Study Says



> More than 40 percent of the world's permafrost-landscape covered in frozen soil-is at risk of thawing even if the world succeeds in limiting global warming to the international goal of 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new study.
> 
> Currently, permafrost covers about nearly 5.8 million square miles, and scientists found as much as 2.5 million square miles of that could thaw-about twice the area of Alaska, California and Texas combined-in a 2 degree Celsius scenario. Thawing would be more limited if warming can be held to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but could still affect 1.8 million square miles.


----------



## ekim68

NASA just snapped the first photos of a mysterious crack in one of Greenland's largest glaciers



> The first photographs of a new and ominous crack in Greenland's enormous Petermann Glacier were captured by a NASA airborne mission Friday.
> 
> NASA's Operation IceBridge, which has been flying over northwest Greenland for the past several days, took the photos after being provided coordinates by Stef Lhermitte, a professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who had spotted the oddly located chasm by examining satellite images.


----------



## ekim68

For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river



> A team of scientists on Monday documented what they're describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change.
> 
> They found that in mid-2016, the retreat of a very large glacier in Canada's Yukon territory led to the rerouting of its vast stream of meltwater from one river system to another - cutting down flow to the Yukon's largest lake, and channeling freshwater to the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, rather than to the Bering Sea.


----------



## ekim68

Before & after photos of melting glaciers capture climate change in action



> With the Earth experiencing its hottest year on record in 2016, the evidence for climate change keeps building. But much of this evidence comes in the form of models and statistics, which can be hard for the general public to process. To make it easier to visualize the effects the changing climate is having on the planet, environmental scientists have put together a series of before-and-after photos, highlighting drastic ice loss.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists Consider Brighter Clouds to Preserve the Great Barrier Reef



> A group of Australian marine scientists believe that altering clouds might offer one of the best hopes for saving the Great Barrier Reef.
> 
> For the last six months, researchers at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the University of Sydney School of Geosciences have been meeting regularly to explore the possibility of making low-lying clouds off the northeastern coast of Australia more reflective in order to cool the waters surrounding the world's biggest coral reef system.
> 
> During the last two years, the Great Barrier Reef has been devastated by wide-scale bleaching, which occurs as warm ocean waters cause corals to discharge the algae that live in symbiosis with them. Last year, as El Niño events cranked up ocean temperatures, at least 20 percent of the reef died and more than 90 percent of it was damaged.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic sea ice could be a thing of the past by the 2030s



> Evidence continues to mount that climate change has pushed the Arctic into a new state. Skyrocketing temperatures are altering the essence of the region, melting ice on land and sea, driving more intense wildfires, altering ocean circulation, and dissolving permafrost.
> 
> A new report chronicles all these changes and warns that even if the world manages to keep global warming below the targeted 2 degrees C threshold, some of the shifts could be permanent. Among the most harrowing are the disappearance of sea ice by the 2030s and more land ice melt than previously thought, pushing seas to more extreme heights.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctica's collapsing ice shelf just sprouted a new crack



> Winter has descended on Antarctica. Even as cold and darkness blankets the bottom of the world, the region's most watched ice shelf is is continuing its epic breakdown.
> 
> A crack started spreading across the Larsen C ice shelf in 2010, reaching 100 miles in length in February. Researchers with Project MIDAS, a British group monitoring the ice shelf, have spotted the first major change to the rift since then. A roughly six-mile crack branching off the main chasm recently formed, further altering the already unstable ice shelf.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://gizmodo.com/antarticas-dragon-skin-ice-is-incredible-1795044577']Antarctica's 'Dragon Skin' Ice Is Incredible[/URL]



> Dragon skin ice sounds like something you'd encounter beyond The Wall in the _Game of Thrones_ fantasy realm. But good news nerds, you can find this magical-sounding stuff right here on Earth-though you've gotta be lucky, and willing to travel to some of the most hostile environments on the planet. Like the team of Antarctic scientists who came across vast expanses of the bizarre, scaly ice in the Ross Sea last week.


----------



## ekim68

Towering Rock Once Hidden Beneath Earth Seen from Space



> Shiprock thrusts up from the surrounding New Mexico desert without warning. It's no wonder this abrupt landform is the center of a Navajo legend involving a giant bird that turned to stone - it's impossible to look at the sheer cliffs without wondering what created them.
> 
> A new view of Shiprock from space offers a few hints. Leading toward the rugged rock formation in San Juan County is a dark dike, a part of the volcano that created the 1,969-foot-tall (600 meters) cliff formation.


----------



## ekim68

Climate change is turning Antarctica green, say researchers




> Antarctica





> may conjure up an image of a pristine white landscape, but researchers say climate change is turning the continent green.
> 
> Scientists studying banks of moss in Antarctica have found that the quantity of moss, and the rate of plant growth, has shot up in the past 50 years, suggesting the continent may have a verdant future.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic stronghold of world's seeds flooded after permafrost melts



> It was designed as an impregnable deep-freeze to protect the world's most precious seeds from any global disaster and ensure humanity's food supply forever. But the Global Seed Vault, buried in a mountain deep inside the Arctic circle, has been breached after global warming produced extraordinary temperatures over the winter, sending meltwater gushing into the entrance tunnel.
> 
> The vault is on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen and contains almost a million packets of seeds, each a variety of an important food crop. When it was opened in 2008, the deep permafrost through which the vault was sunk was expected to provide "failsafe" protection against "the challenge of natural or man-made disasters".
> 
> But soaring temperatures in the Arctic at the end of the world's hottest ever recorded year led to melting and heavy rain, when light snow should have been falling.


----------



## valis

9 years. 9 years ago that place ws selected as 'failsafe protection'. Whoops.


----------



## ekim68

This summer is going to be great … for hurricanes



> Less than a year after Hurricane Matthew raked the East Coast, killing 34 people and causing $10 billion in damage in the U.S. alone, coastal areas are once again preparing for the onset of the Atlantic hurricane season.
> 
> This year, forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are expecting to see above average storm numbers in the Atlantic, despite the uncertainty of whether an El Niño will develop over the summer. The forecast is currently for 11 to 17 named storms to form, of which five to nine are expected to become hurricanes, and two to four major hurricanes (Category 3 or above).


----------



## ekim68

Massive crack in Antarctica ice shelf grows 11 miles in only 6 days



> A massive crack in an Antarctic ice shelf grew by 11 miles in the past six days as one of the world's biggest icebergs ever is poised to break off.
> 
> The crack n the Larsen C ice shelf is now about 120 miles long, and only eight miles remain until the crack cuts all the way across, producing an iceberg about the size of the state of Delaware.


----------



## valis

funny thing? Last night watched 'Day After Tomorrow' again.....AND read about the methane craters in the Barents Sea......yikes.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic Sea Ice Primed for Phenomenal Melt Season



> The Arctic Ocean's coating of sea ice-now remarkably thin and sparse after a record-warm winter-could plummet by late summer to the lowest extent in 38-plus years of observations. Weather conditions over the next few weeks will determine just how much melting ultimately occurs. However, the ice is so depleted that even a melt season from here on that's average by recent standards could leave the ice at a record-low extent.


----------



## ekim68

Sunnier Skies Driving Greenland Surface Melt



> In the past two decades, the Greenland ice sheet has become the biggest single contributor to rising sea levels, mostly from melt across its vast surface. That surface melt is, in turn, driven mostly by an uptick in clear, sunny summer skies, not just rising air temperatures, a new study finds.
> 
> What's causing the decline in cloud cover isn't yet clear, but the work shows that understanding what's behind the trend and developing ways to better represent clouds in global climate models will be crucial to predicting how much Greenland will melt in the future.
> 
> The nearly two-mile-thick Greenland ice sheet covers an area about three times the size of Texas and holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 23 feet if it were all to melt.


----------



## ekim68

CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE EDGE OF SPACE



> Fortunately, AIM has an instrument onboard named SOFIE that can unravel the water-temperature knot. Hervig, Siskind, and another co-author, Uwe Berger of the Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany, recently interpreted the 36-year SBUV record using data from SOFIE, and this is what they found:
> 
> At altitudes where PMCs form, temperatures decreased by 0.5 ±0.2K per decade. At the same time, water vapor increased by 0.07±0.03 ppmv (~1%) per decade.
> 
> "These results settle the decades old question of whether or not the observed long-term change in PMCs is an indicator of changing temperature or humidity," says James Russell, AIM Principal Investigator. "It's _both_."
> 
> These results are consistent with a simple model linking PMCs to two greenhouse gases. First, carbon dioxide promotes PMCs by making the mesosphere colder. (While increasing carbon dioxide warms the surface of the Earth, those same molecules refrigerate the upper atmosphere - a yin-yang relationship long known to climate scientists.) Second, methane promotes PMCs by adding moisture to the mesosphere, because rising methane oxidizes into water.


----------



## ekim68

Massive iceberg breaks away from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf



> July 12 (UPI) -- Scientists knew this day was coming. It was only a matter of time before a massive fissure finally broke and a huge iceberg separated from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf.
> 
> According to the latest images from NASA's Aqua MODIS satellite, the giant iceberg broke off from the Antarctic ice shelf sometime between Monday and Wednesday.
> 
> At 2,239 square miles, the iceberg is gigantic. Its size is roughly four times the size of the city of London, and its volume is twice that of Lake Erie. It weighs more than 1 trillion metric tons and, with the iceberg now gone, the Larsen C ice shelf is now 12 percent smaller.


----------



## ekim68

Sea level fears as Greenland darkens



> Scientists are "very worried" that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet could accelerate and raise sea levels more than expected.
> 
> They say warmer conditions are encouraging algae to grow and darken the surface.
> 
> Dark ice absorbs more solar radiation than clean white ice so warms up and melts more rapidly.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists discover new tectonic plate



> Aug. 14 (UPI) -- A team of researchers from Rice University in Texas have discovered a new tectonic plate off the coast of Ecuador. There were 56 plates; now, there are 57 -- and researchers think there could be one more to find.
> 
> Scientists discovered the microplate -- which they've dubbed "Malpelo" -- while analyzing the movements of what they believed to be the convergence of a trio of plates.
> 
> Researchers were studying the coming together of a major tectonic plate and two smaller plates. The edges of the Pacific lithospheric plate roughly form the Ring of Fire, a region of volcanic activity. Filling in the gaps between larger plates are smaller plates. Just west of the Galapagos Islands, the Pacific plate is met by Cocos and Nazca.


----------



## ekim68

Oldest ice-core ever drilled dates back 2.7 million years



> Scientists working in the Allen Hills region of Antarctica have drilled the oldest ice core ever. Dating back an estimated 2.7 million years, this ice sample is more than 1.5 million years older than any other previously recovered and the data garnered from the sample offers a rich insight into the climate of the planet millions of years ago.
> 
> Up until recently, scientists faced a problem finding extremely old ice core samples. Heat from the Earth's core tends to melt the super deep layers of ice over time, and the oldest ice core scientists thought they were able to harvest was around 800,000 years old.


----------



## ekim68

Swiss Trees in Danger of Dying Out as Climate Warms



> The most important tree for Switzerland's forestry industry, the Norway spruce, is in danger of dying out in much of the country because it cannot adapt fast enough as Swiss trees swelter in the rising temperatures.


----------



## ekim68

Hurricane Harvey: Why Is It So Extreme?



> Hurricane Harvey is drowning southeastern Texas for the fourth day, putting a vast area under feet of water. Experts say Harvey has been stuck longer in one place than any tropical storm in memory. That is just one of the hurricane's extremes; the storm is off the charts by many measures. _Scientific American_ wanted to learn why, and we asked meteorologist Jeff Masters for help. Masters is the co-founder of Weather Underground, a web site that meteorologists nationwide go to for their own inside information about severe weather. Masters also wrote a fascinating article on why the jet stream is getting weird.


----------



## ekim68

Hurricane Irma Just Became the Strongest Hurricane on Record in the Atlantic Basin



> Irma is now the strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic basin, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm packs up to 180 mile per hour winds (stronger than Hurricane Katrina which devastated the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts in 2005) and is forecast to remain a category 4 or 5 hurricane for the next couple of days.


----------



## ekim68

Giant Iceberg's Split Exposes Hidden Ecosystem



> Biologists are racing to secure a visit to a newly revealed region of the Southern Ocean as soon as it is safe to sail there. One of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke free from the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in July. As it moves away into the Weddell Sea, it will expose 5,800 square kilometres of sea floor that have been shielded by ice for up to 120,000 years. If researchers can get to the area quickly enough, they'll have the chance to study the ecosystem beneath before the loss of the ice causes it to change.


----------



## ekim68

Thousands flee Bali volcano Mount Agung fearing eruption

*



BALI, Indonesia

Click to expand...

*


> -- More than 120,000 people have fled the region around the Mount Agung volcano on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, fearing it will soon erupt, an official said Thursday.
> 
> Nyoman Parwata, an official at the disaster mitigation agency's command post in Bali, said the number of evacuees has swelled to about 122,500.
> 
> They are scattered in more than 500 locations across the island famed for its beaches, lush green interior and elegant Hindu culture, taking shelter in temporary camps, sports centers and other public buildings.


----------



## ekim68

A Dramatic Increase in Annual Average Temperatures for U.S. Cities This Decade



> A daily, or even monthly, temperature record (whether hot or cold) is an impressive, headline-grabbing feat. Even more significant is when a city or town sets a record for the average temperature across an entire year. This takes all four seasons into account, whereas week-long or even month-long heat waves or cold waves tend to be ironed out over the course of a calendar year.


----------



## ekim68

This Isn't 'the New Normal' for Climate Change - That Will Be Worse



> It's been a terrifying season for what we used to call natural disasters. For the first time in recorded history, three hurricanes arose simultaneously in the Caribbean. Harvey and Irma ravaged a series of islands then turned north and hit the U.S. mainland. Days later came Maria, the third storm this season to register among the top-four most devastating hurricanes in dollar terms to ever make landfall in the U.S.


----------



## ekim68

As ice sheet melts, Greenland's fjords become less salty



> Oct. 13 (UPI) -- New data suggests the water around Greenland is becoming less salty as the island's ice sheet melts.
> 
> Researchers with Denmark's Aarhus University detailed the impact of melting ice on Greenland's coastal waters in a new paper published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.
> 
> The loss of ice in Greenland is relatively well documented. Over the last two decades, the island's ice has roughly doubled its melt rate. But few studies have looked at how the influx of freshwater is impacting coastal waters.


----------



## ekim68

Moment of Impact: A Journey Into The Chicxulub Crater



> When the Chicxulub asteroid slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, it obliterated 80 percent of Earth's species, blasted out a crater 200 kilometers across, and signaled an abrupt end to the Cretaceous Period.
> 
> The impact, its catastrophic effects, and its aftermath have engrossed scientists and the public alike since it was first discovered.


----------



## valis

Nice find, Mike.


----------



## ekim68

Flaw in ocean temperature models suggests climate change could be worse than predicted



> A newly published study conducted by a collaborative team of French and Swiss researchers is suggesting a flaw in the way past ocean temperatures have been estimated. This discovery claims that oceans may have been much cooler over the past 100 million years than records suggest, meaning that the recent spike in ocean temperatures might be more significant and alarming than we thought.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/beautiful-blue-lakes-are-invading-east-antarctica-and-t-1785448250']Beautiful Blue Lakes Are Invading East Antarctica and That's Not Good[/URL]



> Something strange is happening to one of the coldest places on Earth. Dazzling blue lakes are blooming like summer wildflowers atop the East Antarctic ice sheet's Langhovde Glacier. And that's got scientists worried-because they've seen these lakes before.
> 
> "Supraglacial lakes"-meltwater ponds that form as warm summer air heats the surface of an ice sheet-have been spreading across Greenland for years. They're both a sign of global warming and a cause of ice sheet collapse: as meltwater from the lakes drains into the underlying ice, it can lubricate the ice sheet's foundation, causing it to weaken. This feedback is thought to be one of the reasons Greenland is now melting at an accelerating rate. (Earth's northernmost ice sheet shed roughly a trillion tons between 2011 and 2014.)


----------



## ekim68

Ozone Layer Hole Shrinks to Smallest Size Since 1988, Scientists Say



> The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is the smallest it's been since 1988, NASA said.
> 
> According to a press release, the hole in the Earth's ozone layer is 1.3 million square miles smaller than last year and 3.3 million square miles smaller than 2015.


----------



## 2twenty2

http://www.newsweek.com/antarctica-...me-almost-hot-yellowstone-supervolcano-705086

A mantle plume producing almost as much heat as Yellowstone supervolcano appears to be melting part of West Antarctica from beneath.


----------



## ekim68

NASA's breathtaking photographs of Antarctica's new giant iceberg



> In July one of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke off Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf. The massive 6,000 km² (2,300 mi²) chunk of ice represented ten percent of the total ice shelf. As part of NASA's annual IceBridge polar ice mapping project we are now seeing close-up photographs of this giant new iceberg for the first time - and it is undeniably spectacular.


----------



## ekim68

A new NASA tool predicts how high seas will rise in your city if specific glaciers melt



> Glaciers in Greenland are melting at an  increasingly rapid pace, partially due to rising global temperatures caused by human activity.
> 
> Though Greenland and Antarctica are far from cities like New York and London, the melting glaciers in both regions are expected to raise sea levels enough to change many of the world's coastlines.
> 
> But different glacial systems will affect different cities to varying degrees, according to new research from NASA. These disparities depend on where and how much different glaciers feed water into the ocean, and where that water flows.
> 
> The scientists created an interactive tool that allows users to pick from 293 coastal cities and see how those areas could be affected if particular ice masses melt into the ocean.


----------



## ekim68

Ice Apocalypse



> In a remote region of Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay, 2,500 miles from the tip of South America, two glaciers hold human civilization hostage.
> 
> Stretching across a frozen plain more than 150 miles long, these glaciers, named Pine Island and Thwaites, have marched steadily for millennia toward the Amundsen Sea, part of the vast Southern Ocean. Further inland, the glaciers widen into a two-mile-thick reserve of ice covering an area the size of Texas.
> 
> There's no doubt this ice will melt as the world warms. The vital question is when.


----------



## RT

Not sure this is an anomaly, but interesting...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...asting-rainbow-appears-Taiwan-NINE-HOURS.html


----------



## ekim68

Looks like an anomaly to me and I'm gonna share it....:up:


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/dramatic-iceberg-breakup-in-antarctica-has-scientists-e-1821018353']Dramatic Iceberg Breakup in Antarctica Has Scientists Even More Worried[/URL]



> Two months ago, a giant iceberg snapped off West Antarctica's imperiled Pine Island Glacier. Scientists have been tracking the iceberg via satellites, and they've witnessed something rather bizarre. Very soon after calving, the 'berg began shattering into lots of smaller pieces.
> 
> Some are interpreting this at yet another sign that the ice shelf buttressing Pine Island-which has been thinning for decades-is becoming perilously weak.


----------



## RT

Not only are scientists worried...


----------



## RT

The Russians, sultans of the dash cam vids, but always seem to have some thing odd going on somewhere, at some time...
Have a look


----------



## RT

Well THIS is rather


----------



## ekim68

Well I guess those are Anomalies, but I've put up a couple of new Videos and I'm at 93....

A big Whoops since you posted again, timing is everything...


----------



## RT

What? You mean years old???


----------



## ekim68

Yes, Years, Youngtimer.....


----------



## RT

Gawd Mike! You saying that makes feel old! 
Explain THIS!

(I don't hear a darn thing)


----------



## ekim68

I didn't hear anything either.....But I subscribe to the fact of listening to my ears rather than my senses... It's amazing how Information is Transferred, eh?


----------



## RT

Aye, our ears are shot from too much loud music, or we just assimilate stuff as it comes our way


----------



## RT

An odd thing HERE


----------



## RT

I knew Burmese Pythons were an invasive species in Florida...and there many across the world...

but just a movie quote... Pythons...why does it always have to be pythons..?


----------



## ekim68

Rising Arctic temperatures are breaking records, altering U.S. weather, even confusing computers



> This is not good news. The newly released 2017 Arctic Report Card, a peer-reviewed collection of essays from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), found that ice is disappearing from the Arctic at an alarming rate that exceeds even climate science's most dire projections.
> 
> "The Arctic shows no sign of returning to the reliably frozen region it was decades ago," NOAA wrote in a summary of the report. "Arctic temperatures continue to increase at double the rate of the global temperature increase."


----------



## ekim68

2 independent studies say climate change worsened Hurricane Harvey's rains.




> A new report by the World Weather Attribution consortium





> finds that warming boosted downpours associated with the storm by 15 percent. Separate research out of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that, thanks to climate change, the amount of precipitation caused by the hurricane could have been nearly 40 percent higher than expected.
> 
> Both studies were announced at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans. Harvey made landfall in Texas on August 25, dumping more than 50 inches of rain in less than a week - roughly the amount of precipitation Houston gets in an entire year.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> 2 independent studies say climate change worsened Hurricane Harvey's rains.


and in other news, water is still wet.


----------



## ekim68

Let it go: The Arctic will never be frozen again



> Last week, at a New Orleans conference center that once doubled as a storm shelter for thousands during Hurricane Katrina, a group of polar scientists made a startling declaration: The Arctic as we once knew it is no more.
> 
> The region is now definitively trending toward an ice-free state, the scientists said, with wide-ranging ramifications for ecosystems, national security, and the stability of the global climate system. It was a fitting venue for an eye-opening reminder that, on its current path, civilization is engaged in an existential gamble with the planet's life-support system.


----------



## ekim68

Under the Midnight Sun



> In September 2017, a new iceberg calved from Pine Island Glacier-one of the main outlets where the West Antarctic Ice Sheet flows into the ocean. Just weeks later, the berg named B-44 shattered into more than 20 fragments. On December 15, 2017, the Landsat 8 Earth-orbitng satellite took this image of the broken berg. An area of relatively warm water, known as a polyna, has kept the water ice free between the iceberg chunks and the glacier front. The polynya's warm water could have caused the rapid breakup of B-44.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/climate-change-is-causing-the-seafloor-to-sink-1821632553']Climate Change Is Causing the Seafloor to Sink[/URL]



> If there's one thing we're learning about this global planetary experiment called climate change, it's that there are unexpected consequences. Case in point: All of the water pouring off Earth's melting ice sheets is making the oceans heavier, so much so that seafloors are literally sinking. And that could be messing with our measurements of global sea level rise.


----------



## ekim68

2018 Could Bring Increase in Severe Worldwide Earthquakes



> The new year could bring an increase in massive and devastating earthquakes,  research from October suggested. But as our prediction of earthquakes becomes better, so does our ability to prepare for these natural disasters.
> 
> About four years ago, the Earth's rotation slowed slightly. Although the decrease was not enough to notice, the Earth's slower rotation may spark an increase in severe earthquakes for 2018, researchers from University of Colorado Boulder predicted in the fall.
> 
> According to the team's research, which they presented at the  Geological Society of America annual meeting in Seattle this October, there may be a trend between slower Earth rotations and more global earthquakes. Over the past 100 years, there was a 25 to 30 percent increase in the number of significant earthquakes associated with a slowdown in the Earth's rotation.


----------



## ekim68

Ocean acidification altering the architecture of California mussel shells



> Jan. 5 (UPI) -- California mussels aren't built like they used to be. According to new research, increasing ocean acidification is altering the structural makeup of mussel shells along the West Coast.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/the-ozone-hole-is-finally-healing-1782885459']The Ozone Hole Is Finally Healing[/URL]



> Nearly thirty years after an international treaty banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons, the Antarctic ozone hole is finally starting to heal. By mid to late century, it should be fully recovered.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/it-snowed-in-the-sahara-and-the-photos-are-breathtaking-1821884950']It Snowed in the Sahara and the Photos Are Breathtaking[/URL]


----------



## ekim68

'Atmospheric rivers' aid the West - and imperil it



> Atmospheric rivers can cause dangerous deluges - an atmospheric river contributed to the mudslides that recently killed more than a dozen people in southern California - but they also provide up to half the annual precipitation on the West Coast. To make the most of those benefits while reducing risks, researchers are improving forecasts using computer models, weather balloons and instruments dropped from airplanes. The knowledge they're gaining could help reservoir managers stockpile more water for dry periods without sacrificing the safety of downstream communities. And as climate change intensifies both floods and shortages in the coming decades, meeting that balance will become even more critical.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's Relentless Warming Sets a Brutal New Record in 2017



> The burn continues. What follows are 138 years of scientific records tracing the human transformation of Earth's climate. The bold pink line up top represents 2017, the third-hottest on record. The only years to exceed it-2015 and 2016-occurred amid a powerful El Nino weather pattern that ripped heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. In the absence of El Nino, the swelter of 2017 was unprecedented.


----------



## ekim68

Oldest "oxygen oasis" marks Earth's first breath of fresh air



> Carbon dioxide is the current villain in the story of atmospheric gases, but billions of years ago the bad guy was our friend oxygen. Although it's weird to think that we wouldn't be here today were it not for a global catastrophe, the Great Oxygenation Event actually wiped out most life on Earth at the time. This ramped up about 2.5 billion years ago, but now scientists have discovered signs of the oldest known "oxygen oasis" in South Africa, showing that the process started almost half a billion years earlier.


----------



## ekim68

We All Nearly Missed The Largest Underwater Volcano Eruption Ever Recorded



> She was flying home from a holiday in Samoa when she saw it through the airplane window: a "peculiar large mass" floating on the ocean, hundreds of kilometres off the north coast of New Zealand.
> 
> The Kiwi passenger emailed photos of the strange ocean slick to scientists, who realised what it was - a raft of floating rock spewed from an underwater volcano, produced in the largest eruption of its kind ever recorded.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/greenland-may-be-rife-with-geothermal-activity-1822296994']Greenland May Be Rife With Geothermal Activity[/URL]



> Greenland is shedding ice like a popsicle on defrost, and climate change is to blame. But some of Greenland's fast-flowing glaciers may also be feeling the burn of different heat source-one that hails from Earth's deep interior.
> 
> A study out today in _Nature Scientific Reports_ offers evidence of a significant geothermal heat source warming the bottom of a fjord in northeastern Greenland. This heat source, which roughly corresponds to a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine powering a heater beneath the fjord (or enough power to light up roughly 1,600 American homes), lubricates the base of overlying glaciers, potentially accelerating their journey toward the sea.


----------



## ekim68

The Magnetic Field Is Shifting. The Poles May Flip. This Could Get Bad.



> One day in 1905, the French geophysicist Bernard Brunhes brought back to his lab some rocks he'd unearthed from a freshly cut road near the village of Pont Farin. When he analyzed their magnetic properties, he was astonished at what they showed: Millions of years ago, the Earth's magnetic poles had been on the opposite sides of the planet. North was south and south was north. The discovery spoke of planetary anarchy. Scientists had no way to explain it.
> 
> Today, we know that the poles have changed places hundreds of times, most recently 780,000 years ago. (Sometimes, the poles try to reverse positions but then snap back into place, in what is called an excursion. The last time was about 40,000 years ago.) We also know that when they flip next time, the consequences for the electrical and electronic infrastructure that runs modern civilization will be dire. The question is when that will happen.


----------



## ekim68

Massive 'ocean' discovered towards Earth's core



> A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth's surface. The finding could help explain where Earth's seas came from.
> 
> The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core.
> 
> The huge size of the reservoir throws new light on the origin of Earth's water. Some geologists think water arrived in comets as they struck the planet, but the new discovery supports an alternative idea that the oceans gradually oozed out of the interior of the early Earth.
> 
> "It's good evidence the Earth's water came from within," says Steven Jacobsen of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The hidden water could also act as a buffer for the oceans on the surface, explaining why they have stayed the same size for millions of years.


----------



## ekim68

The Arctic is full of toxic mercury, and climate change is going to release it



> We already knew that thawing Arctic permafrost would release powerful greenhouse gases. On Monday, scientists revealed it could also release massive amounts of mercury - a potent neurotoxin and serious threat to human health.


----------



## ekim68

'Sinking' Pacific nation is getting bigger: study



> The Pacific nation of Tuvalu-long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels-is actually growing in size, new research shows.
> 
> A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
> 
> It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.
> 
> Co-author Paul Kench said the research, published Friday in the journal _Nature Communications_, challenged the assumption that low-lying island nations would be swamped as the sea rose.


----------



## valis

Huh. Did not expect that but it is very good news.


----------



## ekim68

I've been reading some interesting things on the weight of water on the mantels and plates and things shift all over the place...


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> I've been reading some interesting things on the weight of water on the mantels and plates and things shift all over the place...


It's mantle, btw. And so have I. Ive read that the influx of fresh water is dropping the sea floor (due to weight) and thus dropping global sea level.

http://geographical.co.uk/nature/cl...or-sinking-under-the-weight-of-climate-change.

Something to consider to say the least.


----------



## ekim68

Oh, Mantle...................................


----------



## valis

Mickey!


Sorry, tired here.


----------



## ekim68

I saw Mickey and Roger back in 1961 when the Yankees played the Angels at Chavez Ravine Stadium... Small Town Kid in Los Angeles was the Biggest Wow ever....


----------



## valis

Now THAT is cool. Been to Chavez Ravine a ton (been to Anaheim stadium the most) and my best memories are of Garvey and Cey.

Not exactly Mantle and Maris company. 

That is just awesome Mike.


----------



## ekim68

Sea level rise accelerating: acceleration in 25-year satellite sea level record



> Global sea level rise is not cruising along at a steady 3 mm per year, it's accelerating a little every year, like a driver merging onto a highway, according to a powerful new assessment led by CIRES Fellow Steve Nerem. He and his colleagues harnessed 25 years of satellite data to calculate that the rate is increasing by about 0.08 mm/year every year -- which could mean an annual rate of sea level rise of 10 mm/year, or even more, by 2100.


----------



## ekim68

Ocean-wide sensor array provides new look at global ocean current



> The North Atlantic Ocean is a major driver of the global currents that regulate Earth's climate, mix the oceans and sequester carbon from the atmosphere - but researchers haven't been able to get a good look at its inner workings until now. The first results from an array of sensors strung across this region reveal that things are much more complicated than scientists previously believed.
> 
> Researchers with the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP) presented their findings this week at an ocean science meeting in Portland, Oregon. With nearly two years of data from late 2014 to 2016, the team found that the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - which pumps warm surface water north and returns colder water at depth - varies with the winds and the seasons, transporting an average of roughly 15.3 million cubic metres of water per second.


----------



## ekim68

New cutting-edge science confirms that Antartica is losing ice faster every year



> New data analysis confirms what scientists have suspected for a while now: West Antarctic ice melt is speeding up.


----------



## ekim68

Bering Sea loses half its sea ice over two weeks



> The Bering Sea has lost roughly half its sea ice over the past two weeks and has more open water than ever measured at this time of year.
> 
> "This is unprecedented," said Brain Brettschneider, a climate researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "The amount of ice is less than it's ever been during the satellite era on any date between mid-January and early May."


----------



## valis

But remember; climate change is not a thing.


----------



## ekim68

North Pole surges above freezing in the dead of winter, stunning scientists



> The sun won't rise at the North Pole until March 20, and it's normally close to the coldest time of year, but an extraordinary and possibly historic thaw swelled over the tip of the planet this weekend. Analyses show that the temperature warmed to the melting point as an enormous storm pumped an intense pulse of heat through the Greenland Sea.


----------



## ekim68

There's a 'Doorway to The Underworld' in Siberia So Big It's Uncovered Ancient Forests



> It's no secret that Siberia's permafrost is on thin ice. Conditions are varying so much that huge holes are appearing out of nowhere, and, in some places, tundra is quite literally bubbling underneath people's feet.
> 
> But one of the biggest craters in the region, known by the local Yakutian people as the 'doorway to the underworld', is growing so rapidly that it's uncovering long-buried forests, carcasses, and up to 200,000 years of historical climate records.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/dangerous-heat-is-coming-to-cities-very-soon-1823584678']Dangerous Heat Is Coming to Cities Very Soon[/URL]



> Fleeing the sweltering, cement jungles of many urban centers during the dog days of summer is going to become even more critical in coming years as temperatures continue to rise.
> 
> According to a new report from the Urban Climate Change Research Network, based at Columbia University, average annual temperatures in 100 cities around the world are projected to increase by 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the 2020s from their 1971-2000 average. Thirteen of these cities could exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warming over the next decade or so, thus easily breaching the goal of the Paris Agreement less than a decade after its signing. These cities include Seattle; Leipzig, Germany; Moscow, Russia; Ottawa, Canada, and other cities in higher-latitude regions.


----------



## ekim68

Pockets of water may lay deep below Earth's surface



> Small pockets of water exist deep beneath Earth's surface, according to an analysis of diamonds belched from hundreds of kilometers within our planet. The work, which also identifies a weird form of crystallized water known as ice VII, suggests that material may circulate more freely at some depths within Earth than previously thought.


----------



## Shellae

WOW...so many moving parts to take into consideration...who'da thunk!!


----------



## ekim68

And there's more... 


U of C researchers predict locations where lightning is likely to spark wildfires



> Apparently lightning can strike the same place twice after all.
> 
> A study by researchers at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering suggests it's possible to predict where lightning will strike and how often.
> 
> They say satellite data and artificial intelligence can help foresee where lightning poses a greater risk to spark wildfires.


----------



## ekim68

World's largest collection of ocean garbage is now twice the size of Texas



> The world's largest collection of ocean garbage is growing.
> 
> The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic, floating trash located halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, a study published Thursday finds. That's twice the size of Texas.


----------



## ekim68

World's future climate change hotspots mapped



> A new interactive online map highlights the places which could be hardest hit by climate change in the future. The map is accessible to anyone with an internet connection and can be used to compare climates of different locations around the world. Its creators say it could help predict places where extreme weather events like tornadoes could happen in the future, even if there haven't been many in the past.
> 
> The map is called ClimateEx, and it is based on around 50 years of weather data from 50,000 weather stations around the world. It also uses projected data as far forward as the year 2070. Both the historic and future data comes from the WorldClim database of global climate data.


----------



## ekim68

A Megaflood-Powered Mile-High Waterfall Refilled the Mediterranean



> Six million years ago the Mediterranean Sea was a very different place than it is today. Plate tectonics had closed the Strait of Gibraltar separating modern-day Spain and Morocco, leaving the Mediterranean cut off from the Atlantic Ocean. The newly enclosed sea succumbed to evaporation, its water level falling by thousands of meters, turning it into a desertlike environment pockmarked with shallow pools as salty as today's Dead Sea.
> 
> One hypothesis suggests a megaflood rapidly refilled the Mediterranean. Now, a study of buried ocean sediments near Sicily shows this flood may have washed all the way into the sea's partially filled eastern basin via a waterfall about 1,500 meters high.


----------



## ekim68

More Than 75 Percent of Earth's Land Areas Are 'Broken,' Major Report Finds




> Once-productive lands have become deserts, are polluted, or deforested, putting 3.2 billion people at risk.


----------



## ekim68

Sahara has grown 10% in 100 years, research finds



> March 30 (UPI) -- Africa's Sahara Desert has grown 10 percent in nearly 100 years, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Maryland.
> 
> The Sahara, which is the world's largest warm-weather desert and roughly equal in size to the contiguous United States with 3.6 million square miles, has expanded by 11 percent to 18 percent depending on the season.
> 
> The study was published Thursday in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.


----------



## ekim68

The temperature of the ocean is rising



> Further improvements in data-gathering technology could improve forecasting of extreme weather events


----------



## ekim68

Large crack in East African Rift is evidence of continent splitting in two



> A large crack, stretching several kilometers, made a sudden appearance recently in south-western Kenya. The tear, which continues to grow, caused part of the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse and was accompanied by seismic activity in the area.
> 
> The Earth is an ever-changing planet, even though in some respects change might be almost unnoticeable to us. Plate tectonics is a good example of this. But every now and again something dramatic happens and leads to renewed questions about the African continent splitting in two.


----------



## ekim68

Exclusive photos show the hidden lives of minke whales in a warming Antartica.



> The research team shared some of their pictures and video exclusively with Grist. These images from a remote corner of the world offer a window into minkes' little-known lives, and they also underscore a hidden aspect of human-made climate change: We barely understand what we're losing.
> 
> The Antarctic Peninsula is warming at a rate four times that of the rest of the planet, leading to large losses of sea ice and a catastrophic collapse of huge ice shelves, prime habitat for ice-loving minkes. Last year, a trillion-ton iceberg - one of the largest ever recorded - broke away from the peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf. In the decades to come, the rate of ice melt will double, and more ice shelves could collapse later this century should the world continue to warm at its current rate.


----------



## ekim68

One-degree rise in temperature causes ripple effect in world's largest High Arctic lake



> A 1 C increase in temperature has set off a chain of events disrupting the entire ecology of the world's largest High Arctic lake.
> 
> "The amount of glacial meltwater going into the lake has dramatically increased," said Martin Sharp, a University of Alberta glaciologist who was part of a team of scientists that documented the rapid changes in Lake Hazen on Ellesmere Island over a series of warm summers in the last decade.
> 
> "Because it's glacial meltwater, the amount of fine sediment going into the lake has dramatically increased as well. That in turn affects how much light can get into the water column, which may affect biological productivity in the lake."
> 
> The changes resulted in algal blooms and detrimental changes to the Arctic char fish population, and point to a near certain future of summer ice-free conditions.


----------



## ekim68

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, longer and more frequent



> April 10 (UPI) -- Heatwaves are most frequently thought of as affecting land, but the prolonged periods of extremely high temperatures are impacting the ocean, too.
> 
> New research suggests marine heatwaves are getting longer and hotter -- and are happening more frequently.


----------



## ekim68

The oceans' circulation hasn't been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That's bad news.



> The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warmth into the Northern Hemisphere's high latitudes is slowing down because of climate change, a team of scientists asserted Wednesday, suggesting one of the most feared consequences is already coming to pass.
> 
> The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a "new record low," the scientists conclude in a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature. That's a decrease of 3 million cubic meters of water per second, the equivalent of nearly 15 Amazon rivers.


----------



## ekim68

Diamonds in Sudan meteorite 'are remnants of lost planet'



> Diamonds found in a meteorite that exploded over the Nubian desert in Sudan a decade ago were formed deep inside a "lost planet" that once circled the sun in the early solar system, scientists say.
> 
> Microscopic analyses of the meteorite's tiny diamonds revealed they contain compounds that are produced under intense pressure, suggesting the diamonds formed far beneath the surface of a planet.
> 
> In this case, the mysterious world was calculated to be somewhere between Mercury and Mars in size.
> 
> Astronomers have long hypothesised that dozens of fledgling planets, ranging in size from the moon to Mars, formed in the first 10m years of the solar system and were broken apart and repackaged in violent collisions that ultimately created the terrestrial planets that orbit the sun today.


----------



## ekim68

Many low-lying atoll islands could be uninhabitable by mid-21st century



> Sea-level rise and wave-driven flooding will negatively impact freshwater resources on many low-lying atoll islands in such a way that many could be uninhabitable in just a few decades. According to a new study published in _Science Advances_, scientists found that such flooding not only will impact terrestrial infrastructure and habitats, but, more importantly, it will also make the limited freshwater resources non-potable and, therefore, directly threaten the sustainability of human populations.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/scientists-are-livestreaming-spooky-sounds-on-the-ocean-1825560720']Scientists Are Livestreaming Spooky Sounds on the Ocean Floor[/URL]



> Few of us will ever visit the deep ocean, but thanks to the wonders of online streaming, there are more opportunities to experience this alien environment than ever before. Robots are live-streaming underwater volcanoes, undersea canyons, and shipwrecks. Now, scientists are streaming a spooky-ass audio feed from the deep, too.


----------



## ekim68

Dead zone in the Arabian Sea is getting bigger, underwater robots confirm



> April 27 (UPI) -- The dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, part of the Arabian Sea, is getting larger and the environmental damages are worse than expected.
> 
> Dead zones are large portions of the ocean where little to no oxygen exists, making it impossible for most marine organisms to survive. According to a new survey conducted by a pair of underwater robots, the dead zone in the Gulf of Oman is now larger than Scotland.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's magnetic field is weakening - but it's not about to reverse



> We owe our existence to the Earth's magnetic field, the invisible barrier that protects the planet from the harsh radiation of space. But this shield is far from static, and tends to wane and even reverse at semi-regular intervals. With the magnetic field currently weakening, there's been a lot of talk in recent years that another flip might be imminent, but a new study has looked at the history of these events and found that a reversal probably isn't about to happen.
> 
> The cause for concern starts with what's known as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). In this area, stretching across the Atlantic Ocean from Chile to Zimbabwe, the magnetic field is substantially weaker than elsewhere in the world. Ever since this region was discovered in 1958, it's been growing, as part of an overall weakening of the entire magnetic field over the last few centuries.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/pakistan-may-have-just-set-a-world-heat-record-1825690035']Pakistan May Have Just Set a World Heat Record[/URL]



> Temperatures reported to have cracked 50.2 degrees Celsius (122.3 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday in Nawabshah, located about 127 miles northeast of Karachi. If confirmed, that could make the measurement not just the hottest ever recorded for April in Pakistan, but the hottest ever reliably recorded for April anywhere on Earth.


----------



## valis

Humans hunted rhinos 700k years ago, in the Philippines.


----------



## ekim68

Wow.... And this statement really shows how off the Technology on how they Date things..



> Using four different dating techniques, including electron-spin resonance methods, the researchers dated the items to between 777,000 to 631,000 years ago, with the most likely date being 709,000 years ago.


----------



## valis

Yup. And of course my baby sis knows all that stuff is made up, but she just lacks the proof.


----------



## ekim68

Overnight, earthquakes and lava become the new norm on Hawaii island



> PAHOA, Hawaii >> In the span of less than 24 hours, Hawaii island shook from the state's strongest earthquake since 1975, evacuated roughly 1,800 people from lower Puna, and witnessed six new Kilauea volcano lava fissures burn into the small rural community of Leilani Estates.


----------



## 2twenty2

https://www.independent.co.uk/envir...rs-mauna-loa-observatory-hawaii-a8337921.html



> Carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere reach 'highest level in 800,000 years'
> 
> Levels exceed average of 410 parts per million across an entire month for the first time


----------



## ekim68

More on Hawaii....


Lava flow intensifies in Hawaii eruptions, spews 200 feet in air



> After a day of relative calm, Kilauea roared back in full force on Sunday, spewing lava 300 feet in the air, encroaching on a half mile of new ground and bringing the total number of destroyed structures to 31.


----------



## ekim68

The biggest hurricanes are gaining power faster than before



> The Atlantic Ocean's biggest hurricanes are getting stronger more quickly than they were 30 years ago, according to new research. And they're now gaining power in different parts of the Atlantic than was previously the case.


----------



## ekim68

New theory explains why the Earth's core doesn't melt



> Geologists estimate that the Earth's core is a sweltering 5,700 K (5,427° C, 9,800° F), putting it about on par with the surface of the Sun - and yet the inner core is a solid ball of iron. Why it doesn't liquify is a bit of a mystery, but now a study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology puts forward a new theory, simulating how solid iron can remain atomically stable under such extreme conditions.





> This diffusion normally destroys the crystal structure by liquifying it, but in this case, the iron manages to preserve its BCC structure. The researchers liken the planes to cards in a deck.
> 
> "The sliding of these planes is a bit like shuffling a deck of cards," says Belonoshko. "Even though the cards are put in different positions, the deck is still a deck. Likewise, the BCC iron retains its cubic structure. The BCC phase goes by the motto: 'What does not kill me makes me stronger.' The instability kills the BCC phase at low temperature, but makes the BCC phase stable at high temperature."


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.com/san-diego-s-beaches-are-glowing-with-bioluminescent-alg-1825900294']San Diego's Beaches Are Glowing With Bioluminescent Algae[/URL]



> Forget catching rays on the beach. If you're near San Diego, do yourself a favor and go check out the surf at night.
> 
> A rare bioluminescent red tide has created ghostly scenes on the shores of Southern California, from La Jolla to Encinitas. The last one was five years ago and only lasted a week so the clock is ticking to catch the phenomenon.


----------



## ekim68

Records tumble as monster wave rolls through Southern Ocean



> The wild waters to the south of New Zealand have played host to record-breaking swell, with a buoy moored in the Southern Ocean picking up the largest wave ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere.
> 
> "This is a very exciting event and to our knowledge it is largest wave ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere," says Dr Tom Durrant, Senior Oceanographer at MetOcean Solutions, the science consultancy behind the finding. "Our own previous record was one year ago when we measured a 19.4 m (64 ft) wave, and before that in 2012 an Australian buoy recorded a maximum individual wave of 22.03 m (72 ft)."
> 
> The 23.8 m (78 ft) wave came crashing down in the midst of a ferocious storm with winds in excess of 65 knots.


----------



## ekim68

Newly discovered subglacial Antarctic mountains and valleys could impact sea level rise



> The South Pole may seem like a flat desert of ice, but a recent international survey has discovered that there's a complex topography under the surface that could have a major effect on the Earth's sea levels. Using data collected by an extensive aerogeographic survey conducted as part of ESA's PolarGAP project, the new subglacial map of the Antarctic high latitudes reveals mountain ranges buried beneath the ice and three gigantic valleys that could control how the southern ice cap flows into the sea.


----------



## ekim68

Hurricanes Are Moving More Slowly, Which Means More Damage



> Hurricanes are moving more slowly over both land and water, and that's bad news for communities in their path.
> 
> In the past 70 years, tropical cyclones around the world have slowed down 10 percent, and in some regions of the world, the change has been even more significant, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal _Nature_.
> 
> That means storms are spending more time hanging out, battering buildings with wind and dropping more rain.


----------



## ekim68

There's no shortage of going-ons on Earth that astronauts can see from space: auroras, towering clouds, volcanic eruptions.



> Now, there's a grim addition to the list: a (once) massive iceberg that's got a date with death.
> 
> In March 2000, the biggest iceberg ever to peel off the Ross Ice Shelf began its 18-year trek in open waters. Iceberg B-15 started as a Connecticut-sized ice behemoth at around 4,200 square miles-over twice as big as the now-famous iceberg A-68, which broke off the Larsen C ice shelf last July. After a barrage of wind and forceful currents, B-15 gradually broke down into smaller and smaller fragments (as icebergs do). Only four sizable sections remain.


----------



## ekim68

A good read.. :up:


One of the Deepest Caves in the World is Even Bigger Than We Thought




> While trapped inside Mexico's Sistema Huautla by torrential flooding, cavers and scientists discovered new connections-expanding the map of the Western Hemisphere's deepest cave.


----------



## valis

good read indeed....thanks Mike. :up:


----------



## RT

nice photos too, awesome spelunking challenge


----------



## ekim68

Lava boils away largest lake on Big Island in about 90 minutes



> Green Lake, the largest freshwater lake on Hawaii's Big Island, has completely disappeared, another victim of the Kilauea volcano, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
> 
> Lava from Fissure 8 begin pouring into the lake on June 2, turning it into a roiling cauldron. A thick, white plume of water vapor billowed hundreds of feet over the lake. It took only an hour and half for the molten rock to evaporate the entire body of water, which was about 200 feet deep.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctica's ice sheet is melting 3 times faster than before



> WASHINGTON (AP) - The melting of Antarctica is accelerating at an alarming rate, with about 3 trillion tons of ice disappearing since 1992, an international team of ice experts said in a new study.
> 
> In the last quarter century, the southern-most continent's ice sheet - a key indicator of climate change - melted into enough water to cover Texas to a depth of nearly 13 feet (4 meters), scientists calculated. All that water made global oceans rise about three-tenths of an inch (7.6 millimeters).


----------



## ekim68

Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano destroys 467 homes



> June 16 (UPI) -- Lava from the Kilauea Volcano has destroyed 467 homes and covered 5,914 acres, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Saturday.
> 
> Activity on Saturday included an explosive event at Halemaumau Crater that had the energy of a 5.3 magnitude earthquake, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.
> 
> As Fissure 8 in the lower East Rift Zone remains active, lava fountains are reaching 170 feet tall, leaving gas emissions high. Winds will to continue to bring vog to the central, southern and western parts of Hawaii Island, officials said.


----------



## ekim68

Satellite image shows rain puddles in the world's largest contiguous sand desert



> June 15 (UPI) -- An image shared by NASA this week features a rare sight, rain puddles in Rub' al-Khali, the world's largest contiguous sand desert.
> 
> At the end of May, the tropical cyclone Mekunu passed across the Arabian Peninsula. The port of Salalah, in Oman, received 11 inches of rain in just 24 hours -- two times the city's average annual precipitation total.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctica Is Getting Taller, and Here's Why



> Bedrock under Antarctica is rising more swiftly than ever recorded - about 1.6 inches (41 millimeters) upward per year. And thinning ice in Antarctica may be responsible.
> 
> That's because as ice melts, its weight on the rock below lightens. And over time, when enormous quantities of ice have disappeared, the bedrock rises in response, pushed up by the flow of the viscous mantle below Earth's surface, scientists reported in a new study.


----------



## ekim68

Volcanic heat source found beneath large Antarctic glacier



> June 25 (UPI) -- Scientists have discovered a volcanic heat source underneath Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier.
> 
> Already threatened by rising atmospheric temperatures and warming ocean currents, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's enemy list continues to grow.


----------



## ekim68

Baltic Sea oxygen loss is unprecedented, study shows



> July 5 (UPI) -- New analysis shows the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea have lost unprecedented amounts of oxygen during the 20th century.
> 
> The Baltic Sea hosts some of the largest dead zones, vast expanses of saltwater with little or no oxygen, in the world. Animal life cannot survive inside a dead zone.
> 
> The Baltic's massive dead zones are the result of decades of fertilizer and pollution runoff, fueling the growth of algal blooms. When the blooms die, microbial communities consume the decomposing algae, pulling large amounts of oxygen from the water during the process.


----------



## ekim68

Four-mile-long iceberg breaks off Greenland glacier in dramatic video



> Many consequences of climate change can be imperceptible, but others can catch our eye in the most dramatic of ways. One such example is a monumental chunk of ice breaking off a glacier and washing into sea, something dramatically captured on video by a team of scientists in eastern Greenland last week.


----------



## ekim68

Quadrillion tons of diamond discovered deep within the Earth



> In case you weren't already sure that diamonds aren't as unique or valuable as advertisers want us to believe, the next blow to Big Diamond might have just arrived. Using sound waves, geologists have discovered a gigantic stash of the so-called precious stones deep in the Earth's interior, possibly to the tune of a quadrillion tons.


----------



## ekim68

Lake Bed Reveals Details About Ancient Earth



> Sleuthing by a Rice University postdoctoral fellow is part of a new Nature paper that gives credence to theories about Earth's atmosphere 1.4 billion years ago.


----------



## ekim68

Fire Scientists Are Sure of Only One Thing: This Will Get Worse



> Subtract out the conspiracists and the willfully ignorant and the argument marshaled by skeptics against global warming, roughly restated, assumes that scientists vastly overstate the consequences of pumping greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere. Uncertainties in their calculations, the skeptics say, make it impossible to determine with confidence how bad the future was going to be. The sour irony of that muttonheaded resistance to data is that, after four decades of being wrong, those people are almost right.
> 
> As of July 31, more than 25,000 firefighters are committed to 140 wildfires across the United States-over a million acres aflame. Eight people are dead in California, tens of thousands evacuated, smoke and pyroclastic clouds are visible from space. And all any fire scientist knows for sure is, it only gets worse from here. How much worse? Where? For whom? Experience can't tell them. The scientists actually are uncertain.


----------



## ekim68

Plankton bloom, glacial meltwater link more complex than thought



> Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Glacial meltwater can fuel plankton blooms, but new research suggests the link between ice loss and algae isn't as straightforward as scientists previously thought.
> 
> According to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, the depth of the glacier from which the meltwater originates determines whether the runoff will encourage or curb plankton blooms.
> 
> Algal blooms off the coast of Greenland peak during the summer months, when meltwater rates increase. And previous studies have suggested the latter accelerates the former.
> 
> During recent surveys, however, scientists found evidence that inland glacial retreat precipitated decreases in plankton blooms -- the inverse of what many scientists expected.


----------



## ekim68

Warmer oceans are transforming kelp forest ecosystems



> Aug. 24 (UPI) -- As oceans warm, the dynamics of kelp forest ecosystems are changing.
> 
> A new survey of kelp forests off Britain's southwest coasts found the abundance of the warm water kelp species _Laminaria ochroleuca_ has increased. The change could affect the ecological functions provided by kelp forests, as well as the mix of species that rely on kelp forests for food and shelter.
> 
> "As the ocean warms, species are moving up slopes and towards the poles in order to remain within their preferred environmental conditions," marine biologist Albert Pessarrodona said in a news release. "Species with warm affinities are migrating to many habitats previously dominated by cold-water ones, transforming ecosystems as we know them."


----------



## 2twenty2

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/27/us/giant-coral-reef-atlantic-coast-trnd/index.html


> Scientists discover hidden deep-sea coral reef off South Carolina Coast


----------



## ekim68

Quadrillion tons of diamond discovered deep within the Earth



> In case you weren't already sure that diamonds aren't as unique or valuable as advertisers want us to believe, the next blow to Big Diamond might have just arrived. Using sound waves, geologists have discovered a gigantic stash of the so-called precious stones deep in the Earth's interior, possibly to the tune of a quadrillion tons.


----------



## ekim68

Central California is sinking at an accelerated rate



> Aug. 30 (UPI) -- New research suggests Central California's San Joaquin Valley is once again sinking at an alarming rate, as groundwater is drained faster than it can be replenished.
> 
> Between October 2011 and September 2015, California experienced its driest four-year spell since scientists began tracking precipitation totals in 1895. Heavy rains in early 2017 offered farmers a brief respite, and helped municipalities replenish reservoirs.
> 
> New analysis suggests the rebound is no more and subsidence is back.


----------



## ekim68

Images of Earth's crust explain why Mount St. Helens is out of line



> Sept. 4 (UPI) -- New high-resolution images of Earth's crust explain why Mount St. Helens is out of line with the Cascade Arc of volcanoes.
> 
> The images revealed a massive subsurface rock formation beneath Spirit Lake. The batholith diverts magma to the west of the arc, fueling the Cascade's most active volcano.


----------



## ekim68

Cool stuff.. 

A look at Antarctica


----------



## valis

i really want to go there before I die.


----------



## ekim68

Too cold for me, but then I came from a Desert town...


----------



## valis

you ever read Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robertson? He of Green Mars fame?


----------



## ekim68

Nope, is it good? Back when my Grandson was about ten years old, he and I took a tour on a small ship docked in Newport that made yearly trips to Antarctica. Towards the end of the tour our guide told us that the wind always blew in one direction and I asked her if it might be due to the Rotation of the Earth and she said she'd look into it...


----------



## valis

lol....no answer and that was her job...

yeah, it is very good. KSR is known for hard sci-fi, so a lot of his stuff is technical. But I loved Antarctica.


----------



## RT

But...but did you guys actually see "The Thing?" etc.?
Or that X Files episode "Ice?"
(OK that last wasn't exactly an Antarctica locale, but similar...)
No matter, as an armchair explorer these days, BBC's "Frozen Planet" seems warmer and safer...

but would that I could, in days past I'd have been up for a look see.


----------



## ekim68

"The Thing"?


----------



## ekim68

See the difference? My quote sign in front of the question mark..


----------



## RT

Sure Mike, but I thought punctuation went on the "inside."
Normally...


----------



## RT

FYI, I actually did write that as you posted, but went back to edit just to make it more confusing for us...or me...erm...


----------



## ekim68

Subterfuge?


----------



## RT

Naw, not at all...
matter of sematics I guess...


----------



## ekim68

Lyrics, Huh, I never had much Luck with them, give me the Melody Line...


----------



## RT

Well reckon you have it covered HERE, but guess there's some other mixed up old guys too...  
(really like that one, BTW, awesome bass line)

Somehow this thread must get back on topic, doncha think? ... could be moments or days ...
but that's ok...


----------



## ekim68

On Topic, what's that?


----------



## RT

You tawlkin' to moi?
:shrug:


----------



## ekim68

Giant iceberg finally heads out to sea



> After over a year since it dramatically broke loose from the Antarctic ice cap, one of the largest icebergs on record has finally set to sea. In July 2017, iceberg A68 split off from the Larsen C ice shelf, but shallow waters to the north and unexpectedly heavy ice to the east kept it pinned in its original position. Now, thanks to strong southern spring winds, the multi-trillion tonne ice cube has split free and has pivoted out into the Weddell Gyre.


----------



## ekim68

Britain formed from three colliding continental land masses, not two



> Sept. 14 (UPI) -- Some 400 million years ago, landmasses collided to form the British Isles. Geologists have previously suggested the collision involved two landmasses, Avalonia and Laurentia.
> 
> But new research by geologists at the University of Plymouth suggests England, Wales and Scotland were formed by a collision among three landmasses. Armorica was also involved in the tectonic mashup.
> 
> Today, most of what's left of Armorica forms France's Breton peninsula. Analysis for rock formations in England's Devon and Cornwall counties revealed an ancient connection between England and France.


----------



## ekim68

Climate change having an outsize impact on national parks




> "What is Glacier National Park if it doesn't have glaciers anymore?" researcher John Williams said.


----------



## ekim68

Photos From the Deadly Earthquake and Tsunami in Indonesia



> On September 28, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Indonesia's Sulawesi island, near the city of Palu, also triggering a localized tsunami, which swept across coastal Palu and the surrounding area.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-weirdly-geometric-iceberg-is-freaking-us-out-1829917119']This Weirdly Geometric Iceberg Is Freaking Us Out[/URL]



> Well here's something you don't see everyday: an iceberg so unbelievably geometric in shape you'd think it was deliberately carved with a gigantic chainsaw. Scientists have documented this sort of thing before, but this latest 'berg, which recently split from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, happens to be a rather extraordinary example.


----------



## Shellae

Glacial dust storm. 
https://www.livescience.com/64001-glacier-flour-greenland.html


----------



## ekim68

The seafloor is dissolving, thanks to human activity



> Excess carbon dioxide isn't just building up in the atmosphere - the oceans are holding onto more of the stuff too, fizzing them up like soda. As the seas get warmer and more acidic, all kinds of havoc is wrought, and now a new study has identified yet another symptom. Researchers at Princeton and McGill Universities have found that the seafloor is beginning to dissolve as a result of human activity.
> 
> According to the Smithsonian's Ocean Portal organization, about 525 billion tons of CO2 has been absorbed by the world's oceans since the beginning of the industrial era, making seawater up to 30 percent more acidic than it was 200 years ago. That makes it the fastest known change in ocean chemistry in 50 million years or so, and the effects have already been devastating.


----------



## ekim68

Massive Antarctic Iceberg Spotted on NASA IceBridge Flight



> NASA's Operation IceBridge on Wednesday, November 7, flew over an iceberg that is three times the size of Manhattan - the first time anyone has laid eyes on the giant iceberg, dubbed B-46 by the U.S. National Ice Center, that broke off from Pine Island Glacier in late October.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/a-massive-impact-crater-has-been-detected-beneath-green-1830437095']A Massive Impact Crater Has Been Detected Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet[/URL]



> An unusually large asteroid crater measuring 19 miles wide has been discovered under a continental ice sheet in Greenland. Roughly the size of Paris, it's now among the 25 biggest asteroid craters on Earth.
> 
> An iron-rich asteroid measuring nearly a kilometer wide (0.6 miles) struck Greenland's ice-covered surface at some point between 3 million and 12,000 years ago, according to a new study published today in Science Advances.


----------



## ekim68

Rising seas give island nation a stark choice: relocate or elevate




> Climate change means the low-lying Marshall Islands must consider drastic measures, including building new artificial islands.


----------



## ekim68

Researchers locate carbon reserve six feet below the soil's surface



> Nov. 26 (UPI) -- At least a quarter of all the carbon stored in Earth's soil is found locked up in minerals roughly six feet beneath the surface. But new research suggests this unique carbon reservoir will become less efficient at carbon storage as the planet warms.
> 
> To better understand how rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will impact the planet's climate, scientists need to more accurately model Earth's many carbon cycles. Soil hosts one of those carbon cycles.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland ice sheet melt 'off the charts' compared with past four centuries



> Surface melting across Greenland's mile-thick ice sheet began increasing in the mid-19th century and then ramped up dramatically during the 20th and early 21st centuries, showing no signs of abating, according to new research published Dec. 5, 2018, in the journal _Nature_. The study provides new evidence of the impacts of climate change on Arctic melting and global sea level rise.


----------



## ekim68

Unusual Seismic Waves Rumbling Around the Planet Likely Caused by Magma Shift, Experts Say



> Unusual seismic waves traveled around the world on Nov. 11 and experts now think a magma shift is the cause of the mysterious event, according to the Guardian.
> 
> The rumbling originated just offshore of Mayotte, an island between the southeast coast of Africa and Madagascar, before shaking through Africa. Locations in Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia recorded the rumbling. Even further away, places in Chile, New Zealand, Canada and Hawaii picked up the rumblings that sped around the globe at 9,000 miles per hour.
> 
> What the French Geological Survey (BRGM) called the "atypical very low-frequency signal" was a repeating wave that would register about every 17 seconds and lasted some 20 minutes total. Strangely, nobody felt it.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists say most diverse coral site ever seen on Great Barrier Reef discovered



> A team of researchers says it has discovered the most diverse coral site ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef.
> 
> Great Barrier Reef Legacy, a non-profit organisation that conducts research trips on the reef, and scientist Charlie Veron, known as the godfather of coral, have identified the site on the outer reef.
> 
> In a space no longer than 500 metres, the researchers say they recorded at least 195 different species of corals on a research expedition last month.


----------



## ekim68

40 million Americans depend on the Colorado River. It's drying up.



> Prompted by years of drought and mismanagement, a series of urgent multi-state meetings are currently underway in Las Vegas to renegotiate the use of the Colorado River. Seven states and the federal government are close to a deal, with a powerful group of farmers in Arizona being the lone holdouts.
> 
> The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1-in-8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country's agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver. The river supports native nations and industry across the vast desert Southwest - including 90 percent of U.S.-grown winter vegetables. Simply put: The region could not exist in its current form without it.


----------



## ekim68

Rivers can cause earthquakes, geologists claim



> Dec. 21 (UPI) -- New research suggests river erosions can explain the pattern of earthquakes faraway from plate boundaries, like the 4.4 magnitude quake that shook Eastern Tennessee last week.
> 
> Geologists Ryan Thigpen and Sean Gallen designed a model to simulate how the removal of 500 feet of rock influences crust behavior in the Tennessee Valley. The model's results match the pattern of earthquakes in the region over the last century.


----------



## ekim68

Etna volcano wakes up in Italy producing quakes, column of ash



> Dec. 24 (UPI) -- The Mount Etna volcano, the highest in activity in Europe and one of the most active in the world, woke up Monday morning producing intense seismic activity and producing a cloud of ash visible from several miles away.
> 
> The activity started at 8:50 a.m. local time and just in the first three hours there were nearly 130 earthquakes, according to a statement from the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-just-melted-a-hole-through-3-500-feet-of-ice-1831329404']Scientists Just Melted a Hole Through 3,500 Feet of Ice to Reach a Mysterious Antarctic Lake[/URL]



> While you were baking cookies and binging Netflix shows over Christmas, a team of about 50 scientists, drillers, and support staff was attempting to punch through nearly 4,000 feet of ice to access an Antarctic subglacial lake for just the second time in human history. And folks, they did it.
> 
> On Friday, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) team announced they'd reached Lake Mercer after melting their way through an enormous frozen river with a high-pressure, hot-water drill. The multi-year effort to tap into the subglacial lake-one of approximately 400 scientists have detected across Antarctica-offers a rare opportunity to study the biology and chemistry of the most isolated ecosystems on Earth.


----------



## ekim68

Earth is missing a huge part of its crust. Now we may know why.




> A fifth of Earth's geologic history might have vanished because planet-wide glaciers buried the evidence.


----------



## ekim68

Deep Pacific Waters Are Cooling Down Due To Centuries-Ago Little Ice Age, New Study Suggests



> Most of the world's waters may be warming as a result of climate change, but a new study shows that the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean still appear to be cooling down hundreds of years after the period in history known as the "Little Ice Age."
> 
> According to a report from _Science Daily_, a team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and Harvard University discovered that there has been a "lag" of a few centuries in terms of temperature change in the deep Pacific. This part of the ocean, the report stressed, is still seemingly cooling and adjusting to the temperature drops of the Little Ice Age while the rest of the Pacific gets warmer as a result of modern factors.


----------



## ekim68

Just 5% of Earth's landscape is untouched



> Humans have a greater influence on the world's landscape than previously thought, according to a comprehensive new high-resolution analysis of human modification of the planet. The map, published in the journal _Global Change Biology_, is meant to guide conservation strategy in the coming years.
> 
> *Why it matters:* The new study finds that just 5% of the Earth's land surface is currently unaffected by humans, far lower than a previous estimate of 19%.
> 
> 95% of the Earth's land surface has some indication of human modification, while 84% has multiple human impacts, the study found.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's magnetic field is acting up and geologists don't know why



> Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth's north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet's core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world's geomagnetism experts into a rare move.
> 
> On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet's magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.


----------



## ekim68

Aerial photography captures the beauty of how water shapes our planet



> Water.Shapes.Earth is a spectacular photographic project from veteran artist and storyteller Milan Radisics. The project tells the story of how water shapes the planet by using aerial photography to deliver a series of stunning images that sit on the border between abstract art and documentary realism.


----------



## ekim68

Australia registers hottest night on record



> Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Australia has a new record for hottest nighttime temperature.
> 
> During the early morning hours of Jan. 18, as Thursday became Friday in Australia, a weather station near Dubbo, a city in New South Wales, recorded an overnight low of 35.9 degrees Celsius, 96.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- a new record.


----------



## ekim68

Yellowstone's forests could be grassland in just a few decades




> "Forests are critical from both social and ecological perspectives," researcher Winslow Hansen said. "The Greater Yellowstone region may be a very different place to live and visit over the next few decades."


----------



## ekim68

Cool stuff... 

Ocean Art contest winners highlight the amazing spectacle of the Big Blue


----------



## ekim68

Greenland ice melting four times faster than in 2003



> Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought -- and will likely lead to faster sea level rise -- thanks to the continued, accelerating warming of the Earth's atmosphere, a new study has found.


----------



## ekim68

Baffin Island landscapes ice-free for first time in 40,000 years



> Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Rapidly retreating Arctic glaciers have revealed ancient moss and lichens, ice-free for the first in 40,000 years, according to new analysis by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
> 
> The survey of newly thawed plants, contextualized by temperature records gleaned from Greenland ice cores, suggests the Arctic is experiencing summer highs warmer than any century in 115,000 years.


----------



## ekim68

Carbon dioxide levels will soar past the 410 ppm milestone in 2019



> We will pass yet another unwelcome milestone this year. The average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to rise by 2.8 parts per million to 411 ppm in 2019 - passing 410 ppm just a few years after first passing the 400 ppm mark.
> 
> That's the forecast of Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Centre in the UK, who began making annual CO2 forecasts a few years ago to test our understanding of the factors involved. The Met Office began publicly releasing the forecasts last year.
> 
> The rise in atmospheric CO2 is the main cause of global heating. Before the industrial age began the CO2 concentration was around 280 ppm, and had not risen much higher for hundreds of thousands of years.


----------



## ekim68

Climate change tipping point could be coming sooner than we think



> A Columbia Engineering study, published today in _Nature_, confirms the urgency to tackle climate change. While it's known that extreme weather events can affect the year-to-year variability in carbon uptake, and some researchers have suggested that there may be longer-term effects, this new study is the first to actually quantify the effects through the 21st century and demonstrates that wetter-than-normal years do not compensate for losses in carbon uptake during dryer-than-normal years, caused by events such as droughts or heatwaves.


----------



## ekim68

Huge Cavity in Antarctic Glacier Signals Rapid Decay



> A gigantic cavity - two-thirds the area of Manhattan and almost 1,000 feet (300 meters) tall - growing at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is one of several disturbing discoveries reported in a new NASA-led study of the disintegrating glacier. The findings highlight the need for detailed observations of Antarctic glaciers' undersides in calculating how fast global sea levels will rise in response to climate change.











[/URL]


----------



## ekim68

Cloud study shows how planes can significantly boost rainfall in their path



> Aircraft are a major contributor to CO2 emissions, but it's not just their pollution that can affect the weather and climate - they've been known to mess with the clouds as they pass through or over them. A new study has found that planes could be boosting rainfall and snowfall by up to 10 times, and examined the microphysics behind it.
> 
> The study began when University of Helsinki researcher Dimitri Moisseev noticed something odd in radar data: Very narrow, straight streamers of clouds seemed to be producing heavier rain or snow than larger surrounding areas. Their location gave a clue to what was causing them - they seemed to mostly point towards the nearby Helsinki-Vantaa airport.


----------



## ekim68

Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers by 2100



> NEW DELHI - Rising temperatures in the Himalayas, home to most of the world's tallest mountains, will melt at least one-third of the region's glaciers by the end of the century even if the world's most ambitious climate change targets are met, according to a report released Monday.


----------



## ekim68

ekim68 said:


> Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers by 2100


More on this..


Thaw of Himalayas set to disrupt Asia's rivers, crops: study



> The study said the thaw will disrupt rivers including the Yangtze, Mekong, Indus and Ganges, where farmers rely on glacier melt water in the dry season. About 250 million people live in the mountains and 1.65 billion people in river valleys below.


----------



## Brigham

Perhaps this is natures way of culling the overpopulation of humankind.


----------



## valis

I'd say it is more humans way of culling; we sorta brought this on ourselves...


----------



## ekim68

Lightning's electromagnetic fields may have a weird "healing" effect on living cells



> You definitely don't want to be on the receiving end of a lightning strike, but in the right doses the stuff may have a healing effect. A new study from Tel Aviv University suggests that the electromagnetic fields given off by lightning activity around the world could protect living cells from certain kinds of damage, which may have had implications for the evolution of life on Earth.
> 
> At any given time, there are some 2,000 thunderstorms raging somewhere on Earth. The energy from those constant lightning strikes resonate through a cavity between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere. These are known as Schumann Resonances, and they in turn produce extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fields.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's atmosphere extends much farther than previously thought



> Most people think that the Earth's atmosphere stops a bit over 62 miles (100 km) from the surface, but a new study based on observations made over two decades ago by the joint US-European Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite shows that it actually extends as far 391,000 miles (630,000 km) or 50 times the Earth's diameter. This makes the Moon a very high altitude aircraft.


----------



## ekim68

It's raining on Greenland's ice sheet. That's a big problem.



> Changing weather patterns have triggered a stark change in how Greenland is melting, according to a new paper published on Thursday. By combining data from satellites and weather stations, a team of scientists found that rainstorms are now driving nearly one-third of the frozen island's rapid melt.
> 
> In terms of sea-level rise, meltwater runoff from the top of the Greenland ice sheet has recently surpassed the contribution of icebergs breaking off from its edges. Those runoff events are increasingly tied to rainstorms - even during winter - that trigger extensive new ice melt.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/indian-scientists-measure-1-3-billion-volt-thunderstorm-1833328768']Indian Scientists Measure 1.3-Billion-Volt Thunderstorm, the Strongest on Record[/URL]



> Scientists in India observed the highest-voltage thunderstorm ever documented with the help of a subatomic particle you might not hear much about: the muon.


----------



## ekim68

Earth's Magnetic Field May Be Responsible For Its Water



> A study by scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) on the magnetic fields of planets has found that most planets discovered in other solar systems are unlikely to be as hospitable to life as Earth.
> 
> Plants and animals would not survive without water on Earth. The sheer strength of Earth's magnetic field helps to maintain liquid water on our blue planet's surface, thereby making it possible for life to thrive.
> 
> Scientists from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics modeled the magnetic fields of exoplanets -- planets beyond our solar system -- and found very few have a magnetic field as strong as Earth.


----------



## ekim68

Meteor blast over Bering Sea was 10 times size of Hiroshima



> A meteor explosion over the Bering Sea late last year unleashed 10 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, scientists have revealed.
> 
> The fireball tore across the sky off Russia's Kamchatka peninsula on 18 December and released energy equivalent to 173 kilotons of TNT. It was the largest air blast since another meteor hurtled into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, in Russia's south-west, six years ago, and the second largest in the past 30 years.


----------



## ekim68

Länta Glacier in the Alps is shrinking



> April 1 (UPI) -- As showcased by NASA's "Image of the Day," the Länta Glacier is significantly smaller than it was 20 years ago.
> 
> This week, NASA shared a series of images captured by its Landsat satellites. The Landsat program is the longest-running mission dedicated to capturing satellite imagery of Earth.


----------



## ekim68

Canada warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, report says



> Canada is warming on average at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the world, a new scientific report indicates.
> 
> The federal government climate report also warns that changes are already evident in many parts of the country and are projected to intensify.


----------



## ekim68

Global CO2 Emissions Hit an All-Time High in 2018; is a Hothouse Earth in our Future?



> Global energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide jumped by 1.7% in 2018, reaching the highest levels ever recorded, 33.1 metric gigatons, announced the International Energy Agency (IEA) last week. The United States' CO2 emissions grew by 3.1% in 2018, reversing a decline a year earlier, while China's emissions rose by 2.5% and India's by 4%. The global CO2 growth rate was the highest since 2013. Global energy consumption rose 2.3% in 2018, nearly twice the average rate of growth since 2010, and was driven by a robust global economy as well as higher heating and cooling needs in some parts of the world.


----------



## ekim68

Earthquakes linked to fracking in China



> April 5 (UPI) -- Two damage-causing earthquakes have been linked to fracking operations in China's Sichuan Province.
> 
> The two earthquakes, which originated in the South Sichuan Basin, registered magnitudes of 5.7 and 5.3. Though no one was killed, 17 people were hurt. Farmhouses, barns and local infrastructure suffered $7.5 million in damages.
> 
> When scientists analyzed the seismic data, they traced the earthquakes to shallow origins, between one and six miles beneath the surface. Human activities, including oil and gas extraction, are often responsible for shallow earthquakes.


----------



## ekim68

Giant iceberg enters "final phase" of breaking away from Antarctica



> A huge iceberg, roughly twice the size of New York City, is set to soon break off from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. With two large cracks due to meet within the next few months, a research station has already been relocated as scientists watch the rifting event enter its "final phase."
> 
> The soon-to-be-born iceberg would measure more than 1,500 sq km (580 sq mi), and is between 150 and 250 m (492 and 820 ft) thick. Researchers have been watching the Brunt Ice Shelf carefully since 2012, when a crack that had sat dormant for 35 years suddenly showed signs of movement again. Chasm 1, as it's known, has grown steadily over the last seven years.


----------



## ekim68

Ice Ages occur when tropical islands and continents collide



> Earth's steady state is warm and balmy, but half a dozen times over the past billion years, the planet developed ice caps and glaciers. Researchers have now amassed evidence that these cold snaps occurred when tectonic activity propelled continents headlong into volcanic island arcs in the tropics, uplifting ophiolites that rapidly absorbed carbon dioxide, cooling Earth. Once collisions stopped, CO2 again built up from volcanic eruptions and a runaway greenhouse effect warmed the planet.


----------



## ekim68

European experts sound alarm as mosquito- and tick-borne diseases set to flourish in warmer climate



> New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Amsterdam, Netherlands (13-16 April) shows that the geographical range of vector-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever, leishmaniasis, and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is expanding rapidly.
> 
> Spurred on by climate change and international travel and trade, vector-borne disease outbreaks are set to increase across much of Europe over the next few decades--and not just in the temperate countries around the Mediterranean. Even previously unaffected areas in higher latitudes and altitudes, including some parts of northern Europe, could see an increase in outbreaks unless action is taken to improve surveillance and data sharing, and to monitor environmental and climatic precursors to outbreaks, alongside other preventive measures.


----------



## ekim68

Why lightning often strikes twice



> In contrast to popular belief, lightning often does strike twice, but the reason why a lightning channel is 'reused' has remained a mystery. Now, an international research team led by the University of Groningen has used the LOFAR radio telescope to study the development of lightning flashes in unprecedented detail. Their work reveals that the negative charges inside a thundercloud are not discharged all in a single flash, but are in part stored alongside the leader channel at Interruptions. This occurs inside structures which the researchers have called needles. Through these needles, a negative charge may cause a repeated discharge to the ground. The results were published on 18 April in the science journal _Nature_.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/skyscrapers-rooftop-pool-spills-everywhere-as-earthquak-1834215176']Skyscraper's Rooftop Pool Spills Everywhere as Earthquake Rocks Manila[/URL]



> The Philippines was rocked with a 6.3 earthquake this morning that sent buildings swaying and people running for safety. But one of the most bizarre videos of the earthquake so far has to be this footage of water pouring out of a residential skyscraper in Manila's Binondo district. According to local reports, that water is from a penthouse swimming pool.


----------



## ekim68

6 reasons national parks need saving and not just celebrating



> In one extreme: North America's tallest peak, Mount Denali, looms in all its 20,310 feet of snow-crusted glory. In another: Death Valley's cracked earth and salt flats sit as low as 282 feet below sea level. Our national parks protect some of the most unique and extreme places in the country.
> 
> Climate change threatens to make these places unrecognizable.
> 
> National parks are seeing faster temperature increases than the rest of the country. A study from last year found that between 1895 and 2010, national parks warmed a little more than 1 degree C - about double the temperature increase the rest of the U.S. experienced.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists identify source of strange glow in the sky



> It might be hard to believed that a phenomenon as eye-catching as aurora could go undocumented, but in 2016 a new type of sky light was discovered, and given the strange name of STEVE. Exactly how the phenomenon worked was unknown, but a new study has now found some answers.
> 
> While it can look a bit like your garden variety aurora, STEVE has been spotted at much lower latitudes, and shines in different colors. Where auroras are mostly green, STEVE is made up of a long thin ribbon of pink, mauve or red light, sometimes accompanied by green streaks likened to a "picket fence."


----------



## ekim68

World's largest ice shelf is melting 10 times faster than the global average



> April 29 (UPI) -- Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, the largest ice shelf in the world, is melting ten times faster than the global average.
> 
> Over the last several years, scientists have been tracking the interactions between the northwest section of the ice shelf and the Southern Ocean. Their analysis suggests an influx of warm ocean water is responsible for the ice shelf's accelerated melt rate.


----------



## ekim68

The Aral Sea Drying Out. This NASA Time-Lapse Video Shows It from Space



> The ongoing collapse of the Aral Sea ecosystem, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, shows up clearly in a NASA video.
> 
> The lake used to be full of water, thanks to runoff from mountains as well as annual rainfall. But after the 1960s, when the Soviet Union diverted two major rivers feeding the lake to serve agricultural needs, the sea quickly shrank from the fourth-largest body of water in the world to a shallow lake bed.


----------



## ekim68

A tectonic plate may have peeled apart-and that could shrink the Atlantic Ocean



> For years, João Duarte has puzzled over a seemingly boring underwater expanse off the coast of Portugal. In 1969, this site spawned a massive earthquake that rattled the shore and sparked a tsunami. But you would never know why just from looking at the broad, featureless surface of the seabed. Duarte, a marine geologist from the Instituto Dom Luiz at the University of Lisbon, wanted to find out what was going on.
> 
> Now, 50 years after the event, he may finally have an answer: The bottom of the tectonic plate off Portugal's coast seems to be peeling away from its top. This action may be providing the necessary spark for one plate to start grinding beneath another in what's known as a subduction zone, according to computer simulations Duarte presented in April at the European Geosciences Union meeting.


----------



## ekim68

There is more CO2 in the atmosphere today than any point since the evolution of humans



> CNN)"We don't know a planet like this."
> That was the reaction of meteorologist Eric Holthaus to news that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached heights not seen in the entirety of human existence -- not history, _existence_.


----------



## ekim68

Impossible research produces 400-year El Nino record, revealing startling changes



> Melbourne: Australian scientists have developed an innovative method using cores drilled from coral to produce a world first 400-year long seasonal record of El Niño events, a record that many in the field had described as impossible to extract.
> 
> The record published today in _Nature Geoscience_ detects different types of El Niño and shows the nature of El Niño events has changed in recent decades.
> 
> This understanding of El Niño events is vital because they produce extreme weather across the globe with particularly profound effects on precipitation and temperature extremes in Australia, South East Asia and the Americas.


----------



## ekim68

Quarter of West Antarctic glacier ice unstable, says 25-year satellite study



> With the Earth in a state of flux at the moment, we need to keep a particularly close eye on Antarctica. Plenty of satellites are whizzing overhead to do just that, and now a new study has examined 25 years of data they've collected to get a sense of the extent of ice loss across Antarctica. According to the findings, warming waters have destabilized as much as a quarter of the glacier ice in West Antarctica.


----------



## ekim68

12 Powerful Facts About Hurricanes



> Hurricanes are a stunning, and dangerous, display of nature's power. They're some of the largest and most intense storms nature can produce. Today, we know more about these systems and have an easier time measuring and predicting them than ever before. There's more than meets the eye when it comes to hurricanes. As the 2019 hurricane season kicks off (it runs from June 1st through November 30th), here are some things you might not know about these dangerous storms.


----------



## ekim68

The Iceberg Series chronicles the sublime shapes of Greenland's sea ice



> A new series of photographs from award-winning aerial photographer Tom Hegen explores the abstract beauty in icebergs. Shot off the west coast of Greenland, Hegen's work captures the majesty of these giant white castles.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off US Northeast



> In a new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast, scientists have made a surprising discovery: a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying below the salty ocean. It appears to be the largest such formation yet found in the world. The aquifer stretches from the shore at least from Massachusetts to New Jersey, extending more or less continuously out about 50 miles to the edge of the continental shelf. If found on the surface, it would create a lake covering some 15,000 square miles. The study suggests that such aquifers probably lie off many other coasts worldwide, and could provide desperately needed water for arid areas that are now in danger of running out.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland Ice Sheet: 'More than 50 hidden lakes' detected



> Scientists have identified more than 50 new lakes of liquid water lying under the Greenland Ice Sheet.
> 
> Only four had previously been detected.
> 
> Antarctica hides some 470 lakes beneath its ice but this latest UK/US study proves the northern polar region also has its share.
> 
> They are nothing like as big, however. The largest down south, Lake Vostok, is 250km long. The biggest subglacial lake in Greenland is just 6km long.


----------



## ekim68

Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' to tackle climate crisis



> Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.
> 
> As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating. New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as "mind-blowing".


----------



## ekim68

The World's Eighth Lava Lake Was Just Discovered on a Remote Sub-Antarctic Island



> Lakes of flowing, angry lava hidden within volcanoes are not as common as movies like _The Lord of the Rings_ and _Shrek_ would have us think. Before today, there were only seven known persistent lava lakes on Earth.
> 
> British satellite images just confirmed the eighth, inside the crater of Mount Michael, an active volcano located on Saunders Island, a British Overseas Territory (BOT) in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, Gizmodo reports.
> 
> The existence of the lava lake wasn't exactly a surprise; researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and University College London have suspected as much for as long as 30 years. In the 1990s, images showed thermal anomalies around the crater, but the resolution of the images wasn't good enough to prove anything.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists discover the biggest seaweed bloom in the world



> ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. ( July 4, 2019).--Scientists led by the USF College of Marine Science used NASA satellite observations to discover the largest bloom of macroalgae in the world called the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB), as reported in _Science_.
> 
> They confirmed that the belt of brown macroalgae called Sargassum forms its shape in response to ocean currents, based on numerical simulations. It can grow so large that it blankets the surface of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.


----------



## ekim68

The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea.



> The California coast grew and prospered during a remarkable moment in history when the sea was at its tamest.
> 
> But the mighty Pacific, unbeknownst to all, was nearing its final years of a calm but unusual cycle that had lulled dreaming settlers into a false sense of endless summer.
> 
> Elsewhere, Miami has been drowning, Louisiana shrinking, North Carolina's beaches disappearing like a time lapse with no ending. While other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and cooler water. This "sea level rise suppression," as scientists call it, went largely undetected. Blinded from the consequences of a warming planet, Californians kept building right to the water's edge.
> 
> But lines in the sand are meant to shift. In the last 100 years, the sea rose less than 9 inches in California. By the end of this century, the surge could be greater than 9 feet.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient life awakens amid thawing ice caps and permafrost



> Climate change stories often highlight the teetering fragility of Earth's ecological system. The picture grew even more dire when a United Nations report said that 1 million of our planet's plant and animal species face the specter of extinction. But for a few exceptional species, thawing ice caps and permafrost are starting to reveal another narrative - one of astonishing biological resilience.
> 
> Researchers in a warming Arctic are discovering organisms, frozen and presumed dead for millennia, that can bear life anew. These ice age zombies range from simple bacteria to multicellular animals, and their endurance is prompting scientists to revise their understanding of what it means to survive.


----------



## ekim68

Small Temperature Bumps Can Cause Big Arctic Methane Burps



> As temperatures rise in the rapidly warming Arctic, scientists are growing more and more concerned about the region's permafrost-the carbon-rich, frozen soil that covers much of the landscape. As permafrost warms up and begins to thaw out, microbes in the soil may release large quantities of both climate-warming carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, potentially worsening the effects of climate change.
> 
> Researchers are carefully monitoring the natural emissions from permafrost in the Arctic. And in recent years, they've also begun designing their own experiments aimed at investigating the way the frozen soil might react to future climate change.
> 
> They're finding that even a little bit of warming may cause permafrost to release significantly higher levels of greenhouse gases into the air.


----------



## ekim68

The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim



> The California coast grew and prospered during a remarkable moment in history when the sea was at its tamest.
> 
> But the mighty Pacific, unbeknownst to all, was nearing its final years of a calm but unusual cycle that had lulled dreaming settlers into a false sense of endless summer.


----------



## ekim68

Thanks to climate change, parts of the Arctic are on fire. Scientists are concerned



> It's the opposite of hell freezing over: Satellite images are showing areas of the Arctic catching fire.
> 
> From eastern Siberia to Greenland to Alaska, wildfires are burning. While it isn't uncommon for these areas to see wildfires, there is cause for concern now, Thomas Smith, an assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, told USA TODAY.
> 
> "The magnitude is unprecedented in the 16-year satellite record," said Smith. "The fires appear to be further north than usual, and some appear to have ignited peat soils."


----------



## ekim68

In the US, wells being drilled ever deeper as groundwater vanishes



> Groundwater is an "invisible resource," writes environmental engineer Debra Perrone. It "flows slowly under our feet through cracks in rocks and spaces in sediments," she says, contrasting it with the more visible and obvious dams and rivers on the surface. This invisible resource is a quiet hero, supplying around a quarter of the US' daily freshwater needs.
> 
> Its distributed nature makes groundwater a challenging resource to manage. Unlike on the surface, where we can manage through public infrastructure like dams and reservoirs, groundwater is mostly tapped through millions of wells drilled by individuals, businesses, and farms. But current levels of groundwater use are not sustainable: resources are being steadily depleted as groundwater use outpaces natural replenishment.


----------



## ekim68

This Is What It's Like to Watch the Arctic Die




> There is no talk of international intrigue among people living and working in the Arctic, only dread of what a warming planet might mean.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland Is Melting Away Before Our Eyes



> Amid an ongoing heat wave, new data show the Greenland ice sheet is in the middle of its biggest melt season in recorded history. It's the latest worrying signal climate change is accelerating far beyond the worst fears of even climate scientists.
> 
> The record-setting heat wave that sweltered northern Europe last week has moved north over the critically vulnerable Greenland ice sheet, triggering temperatures this week that are as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal.


----------



## ekim68

Climate crisis may be increasing jet stream turbulence, study finds



> The climate crisis could be making transatlantic flights more bumpy, according to research into the impact of global heating on the jet stream.
> 
> Jet streams are powerful currents of air at the altitudes which planes fly. . They result from the air temperature gradient between the poles and the tropics, and reach speeds of up to 250mph (400kmph). They also sometimes meander.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland's Rapid Melting Is a Hugely Underplayed Story



> The announcement that 11 billion tons dropped off the Greenland Ice Sheet in one day turned out to be a made-for-television example of the effects of climate change. Dramatic videos of water pouring off the glaciers went viral. But apart from the occasional spectacular image, it's hard to focus the attention of the news media on the Greenland Ice Sheet. And that's too bad.
> 
> Because it's worse than you thought.


----------



## ekim68

Lightning struck near the North Pole 48 times. It's not normal.



> Lightning happens all the time, but certain parts of the world get far less of it than others, including near the North Pole. Lightning requires atmospheric instability, something that's set up when cold, parched air sits atop warmer, wetter air. At very high latitudes, that hotter, damper air tends not to show up.
> 
> That's why it took scientists by surprise when dozens of lightning strikes were detected within 300 nautical miles of the North Pole this past weekend.


----------



## ekim68

Arctic Ocean could have no September sea ice if global average temperatures increase by 2 degrees



> Arctic sea ice could disappear completely through September each summer if average global temperatures increase by as little as 2 degrees, according to a new study by the University of Cincinnati.


----------



## ekim68

July 2019 was hottest month on record for the planet



> Much of the planet sweltered in unprecedented heat in July, as temperatures soared to new heights in the hottest month ever recorded. The record warmth also shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows.


----------



## ekim68

First-ever mandatory water cutbacks will kick in next year along the Colorado River



> Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will be required to take less water from the Colorado River for the first time next year under a set of agreements that aim to keep enough water in Lake Mead to reduce the risk of a crash.


----------



## ekim68

Amazon burning: Brazil reports record forest fires



> BRASILIA (Reuters) - Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil's space research center INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='http://www.geologyin.com/2014/12/new-embryonic-subduction-zone-found.html']New 'Embryonic' Subduction Zone Found[/URL]



> A new subduction zone forming off the coast of Portugal heralds the beginning of a cycle that will see the Atlantic Ocean close as continental Europe moves closer to America.
> 
> Published in Geology, new research led by Monash University geologists has detected the first evidence that a passive margin in the Atlantic ocean is becoming active. Subduction zones, such as the one beginning near Iberia, are areas where one of the tectonic plates that cover Earth's surface dives beneath another plate into the mantle -- the layer just below the crust.


----------



## ekim68

A giant rocky raft is drifting towards Australia to help restore the Great Barrier Reef



> A huge raft of volcanic rock has been spotted floating in the South Pacific Ocean, and it's due to reach Australian waters in a matter of months. Strange as it sounds, this is good news - scientists say the pumice will help restock the ailing Great Barrier Reef with coral and sea creatures collected during its voyage.
> 
> The "raft" is made up of pumice, a porous type of rock that has such a low density that it can float on water. The rock was produced in underwater volcanic eruptions on August 7 near the island of Tonga. Pumice rafts like these happen fairly regularly in the area, perhaps every five years or so, but this one is particularly big - it reportedly stretches for 150 km2 (58 mi2).


----------



## ekim68

Earth's last magnetic pole flip took 22,000 years to complete



> The Earth has a magnetic field, in many ways similar to a bar magnet.





> In a bar magnet, it's due to iron atoms; each has a small magnetic field, and the atoms themselves are aligned in such a way that they all add together, creating the overall magnetic field.
> 
> In the Earth it's far more complicated. The Earth's core is composed of two layers; the inner core, which is solid, and the outer core, which is liquid. The core is very hot, and the inner core heats the outer core above it. Heated from below, the liquid in the outer core convects: Hot fluid rises and cooler stuff sinks. But there's iron in the core and it's hot enough to be ionized, to have one or more electrons stripped off, giving atoms a net positive charge. When a charged particle moves it creates a magnetic field, and all those atoms moving in the same direction generate Earth's overall magnetic field.


----------



## ekim68

Wait, melting glaciers are helping capture carbon?



> Full-tilt chaos has descended on the Arctic, a region that's now warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This summer it's been sweltering under unprecedented heat, and wildfires have so far consumed 2.4 _million _acres in Alaska alone, releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide. It's so hot up there that thunderstorms, more often seen in tropical climes, are striking near the North Pole.
> 
> Add to this bizarro affair a strange, perhaps counterintuitive finding in the far north of Canada, right next to Greenland. Researchers have found that watersheds fed by melting glaciers are actually soaking up a significant amount of carbon dioxide, in contrast to your typical river, which emits carbon dioxide.


----------



## ekim68

Humans versus Earth: the quest to define the Anthropocene



> Crawford Lake is so small it takes just 10 minutes to stroll all the way around its shore. But beneath its surface, this pond in southern Ontario in Canada hides something special that is attracting attention from scientists around the globe. They are in search of a distinctive marker buried deep in the mud - a signal designating the moment when humans achieved such power that they started irreversibly transforming the planet. The mud layers in this lake could be ground zero for the Anthropocene - a potential new epoch of geological time.


----------



## ekim68

Bacteria Feeding On Arctic Algae Blooms Can Seed Clouds



> New research finds Arctic Ocean currents and storms are moving bacteria from ocean algae blooms into the atmosphere where the particles help clouds form.
> 
> These particles, which are biological in origin, can affect weather patterns throughout the world, according to the new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters.


----------



## ekim68

Vintage film shows Thwaites Glacier ice shelf melting faster than previously observed



> Newly digitized vintage film has doubled how far back scientists can peer into the history of underground ice in Antarctica, and revealed that an ice shelf on Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is being thawed by a warming ocean more quickly than previously thought. This finding contributes to predictions for sea-level rise that would impact coastal communities around the world.


----------



## ekim68

Crater rocks reveal what happened hours and days after dinosaur-killing asteroid



> Almost 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid slammed into the Earth and changed it forever. Roughly three quarters of all life on the planet was wiped out, including the dinosaurs, and the scar is still visible as a gigantic crater under the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Now a drilling expedition to the crater has turned up new details of the immediate aftermath of this world-changing impact.
> 
> The current hypothesis is that an asteroid more than 10 km (6.2 mi) wide was responsible for the impact. Any living creatures near the impact zone would have been instantly killed of course, but it was the longer-lasting effects that caused most of the deaths worldwide. Wildfires were set ablaze, towering tsunamis rippled outwards, and so much vaporized rock and dust was flung into the atmosphere that it blocked the Sun completely for 18 months. That would trigger global cooling and disrupt photosynthesis, killing plants and in turn causing the food chain to collapse.





> The latest batch of results from this drilling study have now filled in some of the finer details of what happened in the hours and days following the impact. The most eye-catching detail they noticed was that as much as 130 m (425 ft) of material was deposited in just one day. That makes it one of the fastest rates of accumulation ever found in the geological record.


----------



## ekim68

There's a Lost Continent 1,000 Miles Under Europe



> Scientists have reconstructed the tumultuous history of a lost continent hidden underneath Southern Europe, which has been formally named "Greater Adria" in a new study.
> 
> This ancient landmass broke free from the supercontinent Gondwana more than 200 million years ago and roamed for another 100 million years before it gradually plunged underneath the Northern Mediterranean basin.


----------



## ekim68

'They're forming like roaches.' The 6 tropical storms whirling at once have set a record



> Sure, it's the middle of hurricane season. But this is ridiculous.
> 
> The six named storms whirling at once this week in the Atlantic and Pacific set a record, forecasters reported.
> 
> "While Humberto and Kiko were spinning in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific, four new tropical cyclones formed Tuesday: Imelda and Jerry in the Atlantic Basin, and Mario and Lorena in the Eastern Pacific Basin," the Weather Channel reported.


----------



## ekim68

(Video.)


The daring journey inside the world's deepest cave



> The Veryovkina Cave is the deepest known cave on Earth. It took half a century and about 30 expeditions for Russian cave explorers to reach its record depth of 2,212 meters. Speleologists still think there is more to be discovered.


----------



## ekim68

Imelda's Floods: Part of a New Normal for Southeast Texas


----------



## ekim68

Powerful methane fountains seen bubbling to surface of Siberian sea



> Methane is a highly potent and insidious greenhouse gas that is continuing to surprise scientists with not just where it can come from, but the quantities with which it is leaking into the atmosphere. The latest, and certainly most dramatic, example comes via a Russian expedition through the East Siberian Sea, where scientists encountered fountains of methane bubbles in concentrations never seen before.
> 
> While there isn't as much methane in the atmosphere as there is carbon dioxide, it is around 28 times better at trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere, making it a very effective greenhouse gas.


----------



## ekim68

Glacial rivers absorb carbon faster than rainforests, scientists find



> In the turbid, frigid waters roaring from the glaciers of Canada's high Arctic, researchers have made a surprising discovery: for decades, the northern rivers secretly pulled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a rate faster than the Amazon rainforest.
> 
> The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, flip the conventional understanding of rivers, which are largely viewed as sources of carbon emissions.


----------



## ekim68

Satellite captures rare images of atmospheric gravity waves



> (CNN)A rarely-seen natural phenomenon has been captured on camera as it pulses through clouds over the ocean.
> 
> Atmospheric gravity waves can be seen in satellite images taken by Australian weather forecast service Weatherzone on Monday and Tuesday.
> 
> The images show the waves spreading out from the coast of Western Australia, sending ripples through clouds over the Indian Ocean.


----------



## ekim68

Amazon Watch: What Happens When the Forest Disappears?



> At a remote site where the world's largest rainforest abuts land cleared for big agriculture, Brazilian and American scientists are keeping watch for a critical tipping point - the time when the Amazon ceases to be a carbon sink and turns into a source of carbon emissions.


----------



## ekim68

More on the Amazon area....


Human Activities Are Drying Out the Amazon: NASA Study



> A new NASA study shows that over the last 20 years, the atmosphere above the Amazon rainforest has been drying out, increasing the demand for water and leaving ecosystems vulnerable to fires and drought. It also shows that this increase in dryness is primarily the result of human activities.


----------



## ekim68

The climate chain reaction that threatens the heart of the Pacific



> The salmon catch is collapsing off Japan's northern coast, plummeting by about 70 percent in the past 15 years. The disappearance of the fish coincides with another striking development: the loss of a unique blanket of sea ice that dips far below the Arctic to reach this shore.


----------



## ekim68

UN greenhouse gas report paints 2018 as multi-record-breaking year



> The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has released a new report, the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, and as you might expect the news isn't great. In 2018, the globally-averaged concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere was 407.8 parts per million (ppm), a new record high that hasn't been seen in millions of years. The report concludes that the window of opportunity to mitigate the effects of climate change is closing fast.
> 
> For this new report, the WMO collected data from 53 countries, and crunched it to get an average carbon reading for the whole planet, over the whole year. In 2018, that global average was 407.8 ppm, which is almost 50 percent higher than the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm.


----------



## ekim68

Mystery sounds from storms could help predict tornadoes



> Mysterious rumbles that herald tornadoes could one day be used to predict when and where they will strike, according to researchers.
> 
> Storms emit sounds before tornadoes form, but the signals at less than 20Hz are below the limit for human hearing. What causes these rumbles has also been a conundrum.
> 
> Now researchers said they have narrowed down the reasons for the sounds - an important factor in harnessing the knowledge to improve warnings.


----------



## ekim68

Cracks in the Greenland ice sheet are producing massive waterfalls, raising scientists' concerns for sea level rise



> A cerulean lake consisting of glacial meltwater on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, located about 18 miles from where the Store Glacier meets the sea in west Greenland, briefly became one of the world's tallest waterfalls during the course of five hours in July 2018.
> 
> The waterfall, like many others on the ice sheet's surface, was triggered by cracks in the ice sheet. In the case of this one meltwater lake that scientists closely observed in July 2018, the water cascaded more than 3,200 feet to the underbelly of the glacier, where the ice meets bedrock. There, the water can help lubricate the base of the ice sheet, helping the ice move faster toward the sea.


----------



## ekim68

Remembrance Lake



> Shinto priests at Lake Suwa have been observing a mythic ice phenomenon since the 1400s. Now, the ice is getting ever thinner and the lake is slowly vanishing from the everyday lives of the people who surround it.


----------



## ekim68

Saving the ozone layer drastically reduced climate change effects



> With so many dire reports coming out about the state of the climate, it's easy to feel hopeless. But humanity has shown in the past that we can come together to solve seemingly insurmountable environmental problems. The Montreal Protocol in the 1980s has allowed the ozone layer to recover, and now scientists have found that it had another benefit - it's already slowed climate change by as much as 25 percent.


----------



## ekim68

The world's supply of fresh water is in trouble as mountain ice vanishes



> The high mountains cradle more ice and snow in their peaks than exists anywhere else on the planet besides the poles. Over 200,000 glaciers, piles of snow, high-elevation lakes and wetlands: All in all, the high mountains contain about half of all the fresh water humans use.


----------



## ekim68

Unusual glacier flow could be first-ever look at ice stream formation



> Scientists have captured the birth of a high-speed ice feature for the first time on top of a Russian glacier.
> 
> In a remote archipelago of the Russian Arctic, Vavilov Ice Cap had been moving at a glacial pace for decades. Then, in 2013, it suddenly started spewing ice into the sea, flowing in what scientists call a glacial surge. But a new study suggests this surge has now become something entirely different.
> 
> The authors of the new study published in the AGU journal _Geophysical Research Letters_ have documented what they believe is the first observation of a transition from a glacial surge to a longer-lasting flow called an ice stream.


----------



## ekim68

Evidence points to "iron snow" falling on Earth's inner core



> A team of geologists from China and the US have found evidence to suggest that snow may be falling within the broiling hot core of planet Earth. Of course, this isn't your everyday surface snow - the researchers say that these flakes would be made of iron alloys, gently settling down onto the solid inner core through the more fluid outer core.
> 
> Our best models of Earth's inner workings tell us that our planet is a layer-cake of different materials. We're walking around atop a thin, rocky crust, which floats on top of a flowing-but-largely-solid mantle. Below that lies the outer core, an extremely hot ring of molten iron that surrounds the solid iron inner core.


----------



## ekim68

Bushfires Release Over Half Australia's Annual Carbon Emissions



> The unprecedented bushfires devastating swathes of Australia have already pumped out more than half of the country's annual carbon dioxide emissions in another setback to the fight against climate change.


----------



## ekim68

A decade of change from 300 miles above




> Some engineering accomplishments of the past decade were so big you can see them from space, but so were some of our environmental impacts.


----------



## ekim68

Australia's fires could change the country forever



> Wildfires are a part of the natural rhythms of Australia's environment. But scientists haven't seen anything like this before.
> 
> The country is grappling with some of the worst wildfires in its history. At least 12 million acres of land have already been scorched and more than 100 blazes are still active - and the season has yet to reach its peak.
> 
> The blazes threaten to reshape Australia's ecology even in places where plants and animals have adapted to yearly fires.


----------



## ekim68

A better estimate of water-level rise in the Ganges delta



> For the first time, scientists have provided reliable regional estimates of land subsidence and water-level rise in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta. Depending on the region of the delta, water-level rise could reach 85 to 140 cm by 2100. The work, published in _PNAS_ on 6 January 2020 by researchers from the CNRS, IRD, BRGM, La Rochelle Université, Université des Antilles and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology1, should provide input for future impact studies and adaptation plans.


----------



## ekim68

Earth posts second-hottest year on record to close out our warmest decade



> The planet registered its second-hottest year on record in 2019, capping off a five-year period that ranks as the warmest such span in recorded history. In addition, the 2010s will go down in history as the planet's hottest decade, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a science initiative of the Europe Union.


----------



## ekim68

Ocean temperatures hit highest levels ever recorded



> Where some consequences of climate change are plain to see, like the bushfires currently ravaging Australia, others require us to look beneath the surface - but that doesn't make them any less significant. As the planet has continued to warm, nowhere has this been felt more than its oceans, which absorb the majority of extra heat captured as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. A new study has laid bare the alarming reality of this trend, with the analysis revealing the world's oceans were warmer in 2019 than any other time in recorded human history.


----------



## ekim68

More about this:


[URL='https://www.fastcompany.com/90451729/the-ocean-is-as-hot-as-if-wed-dropped-3-6-billion-atomic-bombs-into-it']The ocean is as hot as if we'd dropped 3.6 billion atomic bombs into it[/URL]


----------



## ekim68

In pictures: Taal erupts and coats Philippines towns in ash



> Taal is the Philippines' second most active volcano. It is also one of the world's smallest volcanoes, and has recorded at least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years.


----------



## ekim68

NASA Determines Australian Meteor Crater is the Oldest Known



> The Earth is pocked with roughly 190 major meteor craters, yet scientists only know the age of just a few. Recently, A NASA scientist analyzed the age of the Yarrabubba meteor crater in Australia and found it to be 2.229 billion years old, making it now the oldest crater currently known.
> 
> "It's 200 million years older than the previously oldest known crater, which was the over 200-kilometer Vredefort Dome crater in South Africa," said Timmons Erickson, a research scientist with the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division, or ARES, at NASA's Johnson Space Center.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded



> Just days after the earth saw its warmest January on record, Antarctica has broken its warmest temperature ever recorded. A reading of 65 degrees was taken at Esperanza Base along Antarctica's Trinity Peninsula on Thursday, making it the ordinarily frigid continent's highest measured temperature in history.


----------



## ekim68

Iceberg that's twice the size of Washington cleaves off Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, in a sign of warming



> An iceberg about twice the size of the District of Columbia broke off Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica sometime between Feb. 8 and 9, satellite data shows, confirming yet another in a series of increasingly frequent calving events in this rapidly warming region.
> 
> The Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica, and along with the Thwaites Glacier nearby, it's a subject of close scientific monitoring to determine whether these glaciers are in a phase of runaway melting, potentially freeing up vast inland areas of ice to flow to the sea and raising sea levels.
> 
> According to NASA, the region surrounding the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers contains enough "highly vulnerable ice" to raise global sea levels by about 4 feet.


----------



## ekim68

Temperature in Antarctica soars to near 70 degrees, appearing to topple continental record set days earlier



> A weather research station on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula registered a temperature of 69.3 degrees (20.75 Celsius) on Feb. 9, according to Márcio Rocha Francelino, a professor at the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil.
> 
> The nearly 70-degree temperature is significantly higher than the 65-degree reading taken on Feb. 6 at the Esperanza Base along Antarctica's Trinity Peninsula on Feb. 6. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is reviewing that reading to see if it qualifies as the continent's hottest temperature on record.


----------



## ekim68

Warmest January on Record Globally



> The 2020s are off to an ominously warm start. The planet just saw its warmest January in records going back to 1880, NOAA concluded in its monthly global climate report issued Thursday.


----------



## ekim68

'Ice volcanoes' erupt on a Lake Michigan beach. Here's what they look like.


----------



## ekim68

The Earth's Weird Gravity



> All things being equal (which they're not) it would cost SpaceX about $190,000 less to launch from Sri Lanka rather than Florida. Because this region has the weakest gravity in the world.
> 
> In school we learned that objects fall at 9.8 m/s², but this is actually a global average (news to me). There's less gravity at the top of a mountain, and less at the equator where the spinning of the Earth stretches out the whole pudding. There's also more or less depending on the density of the rock.


----------



## ekim68

The ends of the Earth are melting - really fast. Here's what you need to know



> It's easy to confuse the frozen and remote regions of the Arctic and Antarctica. So as the climate crisis ravages the poles of the Earth, here are four questions that explain how they could transform our planet physically and politically.


----------



## ekim68

Australian summers now a full month longer, says climate change report



> From the Himalayas to the Arctic, global warming is making for longer and drier summer seasons with significant consequences to the landscape. Australia, which just experienced its hottest and driest year on record and was then ravaged by devastating bushfires at its end, is one telling example. A team of researchers taking stock of this alarming trend have crunched the numbers on the Australian summer's current start and end points, finding that it now runs for one month longer than the mid-20th century benchmark.


----------



## ekim68

[URL='https://www.fastcompany.com/90475405/the-amazon-rainforest-could-disappear-within-our-lifetime']The Amazon rainforest could disappear within our lifetime[/URL]



> The Amazon rainforest-the world's largest rainforest, covering more than three million square miles-has been under threat from deforestation and exploitation for decades. But scientists now think that the damage done to the forest could be fundamental. A new study looks at how quickly the largest ecosystems in the world could be lost after they reach critical tipping points. The larger the ecosystem, they found, the faster it can change. And the Amazon could reach that tipping point and disappear within 50 years.


----------



## ekim68

3D NASA map tracks methane buildup and movement in the atmosphere



> Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas that can come from all kinds of places, including industrial facilities, agriculture, the production of oil and gas, and natural sources like wetlands and bodies of water. NASA has developed a new 3D map to not only keep track of its sources but follow its movement as it builds up and travels in the atmosphere, offering a new tool in the efforts to mitigate its impacts.


----------



## ekim68

Great Barrier Reef suffers third severe bleaching event in five years



> Climate change poses a real threat to the future of the world's reef systems, but some are already feeling that in very real ways. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is a prime example, having already suffered back-to-back severe mass bleaching events in the past five years. Scientists have this week confirmed it is in the midst of a third, citing the detection of "very widespread bleaching" following a buildup of heat in the preceding months.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient Antarctica was a warm swampy rainforest, says sediment study



> It's hard to imagine Antarctica as anything other than a freezing lifeless landscape, but that wasn't always the case. Now, an international team has recovered a 90-million-year old soil sample that paints the most detailed picture of ancient Antarctica ever found, revealing a swampy rainforest and balmy temperatures.
> 
> According to the study, during the peak of the Age of the Dinosaurs, West Antarctica was covered in dense vegetation, rivers and swamps. The annual average air temperature was around 12 °C (53.6 °F), and during summer that average went up to a pleasant 19 °C (66.2 °F). Rainfall amounts and intensity were similar to the lowlands of places like Wales.


----------



## ekim68

The Deepest Hole in the World



> For 24 years, Soviet scientists dug deeper into the Earth's surface than anyone had ever done before. The result was the Kola Superdeep Borehole located on the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
> 
> The ambitious project began in the 1970s, and scientists in the former Soviet Union began to drill a hole that was just 9-inches in diameter. The hole eventually extended 7.5 miles into the Earth's crust, farther than the deepest point in the ocean, Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean at 6.8 miles.
> 
> What did the scientists learn, and what did they find at these incredible depths? Quite a lot actually. They found single-celled plankton organisms at 4.3 miles down, and at nearly the same depth they discovered water. They also discovered that the temperature reached 356° F at the bottom of the hole which was more than their estimates. This became the reason the hole had to be eventually abandoned in 1994. The hole was simply too hot for drilling to continue. The environment became more liquid because of the hot conditions, and the borehole was increasingly more difficult to maintain. Plus it ruined equipment quickly.


----------



## ekim68

The world's largest iceberg may have just begun its death march



> Iceberg A-68 is large enough to hold New York City five times over - and it may finally be cracking to its doom.


----------



## ekim68

Glacier detachments: A new hazard in a warming world?



> On the evening of 5 August 2013, a startling event occurred deep in the remote interior of the United States' largest national park. A half-kilometer-long tongue of Alaska's Flat Creek glacier suddenly broke off, unleashing a torrent of ice and rock that rushed 11 kilometers down a rugged mountain valley into the wilderness encompassed by Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.


----------



## ekim68

NASA Space Laser Missions Map 16 Years of Ice Sheet Loss



> Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have made precise, detailed measurements of how the elevation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.


----------



## ekim68

5 Strange Wonders of the Natural World



> The natural world is full of beauty, wonder, and weirdness. Some aspects of nature, like seemingly impossible land formations or peculiar flora, are so bizarre that science is still working to explain exactly what they are and how they came to be. Some things are so strange that researchers believe it could only have been man-made…despite a complete lack of evidence to explain its existence either way.


----------



## ekim68

USF researchers find human-driven pollution alters the environment even underground 



> The Monte Conca cave system on the island of Sicily is a vast system of springs and pools, sitting below a nature preserve. It might be presumed to be one of the few places untouched by human-driven pollution.
> 
> But new research published by a USF microbiology and geoscience team has found that even below ground, the microbial communities in the pools of water in the Monte Conca cave show signs of being altered by pollution from above.


----------



## ekim68

Meteor that blasted millions of trees in Siberia only 'grazed' Earth, new research says



> Now, a team of researchers has proposed a solution to this long-standing puzzle: A large iron meteor hurtled toward Earth and came just close enough to generate a tremendous shock wave. But the meteor then curved away from our planet without breaking up, its mass and momentum carrying it onward in its journey through space.


----------



## ekim68

Yale study suggests tectonic plates formed very early in Earth's history  



> With tectonic plates bumping and grinding against each other, Earth is a pretty active planet. But when did this activity begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that plate tectonics started about a billion years earlier than is currently thought, which places it very soon after the planet's formation.


----------



## ekim68

The Mysterious Anomaly Weakening Earth's Magnetic Field Seems to Be Splitting



> New satellite data from the European Space Agency (ESA) reveal that the mysterious anomaly weakening Earth's magnetic field continues to evolve, with the most recent observations showing we could soon be dealing with more than one of these strange phenomena.


----------



## Brigham

Will this make us more susceptible to the solar wind and increase the chances of being hit with meteorites?


----------



## ekim68

Nothing can change the chances of being hit by a meteorite, however solar wind would be able to do some damage if the change is big enough.


----------



## ekim68

Discovery of ancient super-eruptions indicates the Yellowstone hotspot may be waning



> Researchers report two newly identified super-eruptions associated with the Yellowstone hotspot track, including what they believe was the volcanic province's largest and most cataclysmic event. The results indicate the hotspot, which today fuels the famous geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles in Yellowstone National Park, may be waning in intensity.


----------



## ekim68

Tropical Depression Cristobal Could Make Historic Lake Superior Landfall



> This has been the year of murder hornets, massive locust invasions on two continents, and a sudden start to Atlantic hurricane season, among other oddities (not to mention the deadly pandemic). So perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Lake Superior is set to see its first post-tropical cyclone ever recorded, and yet here we are.


----------



## ekim68

25 Things You Didn't Know About the World's Oceans



> If you don't know much about the deep blue sea-like why it's not actually blue, for example-check out 25 facts we've culled about the world's largest and most fascinating real estate.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists detect unexpected widespread structures near Earth's core



> University of Maryland geophysicists analyzed thousands of recordings of seismic waves, sound waves traveling through the Earth, to identify echoes from the boundary between Earth's molten core and the solid mantle layer above it. The echoes revealed more widespread, heterogenous structures-areas of unusually dense, hot rock-at the core-mantle boundary than previously known.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> 25 Things You Didn't Know About the World's Oceans


good read Mike, thanks...


----------



## ekim68

It Was 100 Degrees in Siberia Today. Yes, _That _Siberia



> A freak heatwave has been scorching most of the Arctic for weeks now, but it broke records Saturday when the temperature hit 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit in a town in Siberia, one of Russia's northernmost regions.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient sunken continent of Zealandia laid bare in new interactive maps



> Newly released maps of Zealandia, a massive sunken landmass many have argued should be classified as Earth's eighth continent, are revealing the topography of this underwater land in unprecedented detail. The new trove of data comes from New Zealand research institute GNS Science, which has released two new maps alongside an interactive website designed to give people novel ways to explore the complex geoscience data.


----------



## ekim68

Why massive Saharan dust plumes are blowing into the US



> It's normal for Saharan dust to blow into the Americas - in fact, the phosphorus it carries is a reliable fertilizer of the Amazon rainforest. The dust makes the journey year after year, starting around mid-June and tapering off around mid-August. The good news is, the dust plumes can deflate newly forming hurricanes they might encounter on the way over. But the bad news is that dust is a respiratory irritant, and we could use fewer of those during the COVID-19 pandemic.


----------



## ekim68

Siberian Forest Fires Increase by Fivefold in Week Since Record High Temperature



> The number of fires in the vast north Asian region of Siberia increased fivefold this week, according to the Russian forest fire aerial protection service, as temperatures in the Arctic continued higher than normal in the latest sign of the ongoing climate crisis.


----------



## ekim68

Human-induced climate change reversed 6,500-year global cooling trend 



> What would Earth's climate naturally be doing if it weren't for human intervention? Researchers at Northern Arizona University have now analyzed over 12,000 years of climate data, and found that human-induced warming interrupted and reversed a long-term natural global cooling period.


----------



## ekim68

Satellites show huge Antarctic iceberg drifted 1,000 km in three years 



> On 12 July, 2017, one of the biggest icebergs ever seen broke off from the Antarctic mainland. Now on the third anniversary of the event, satellite data has shown that the berg has traveled over 1,000 km (620 mi) and managed to stay relatively intact.


----------



## ekim68

536 AD - the worst year in history



> 2020 has already been immortalised. It is a year that nobody will forget. However, when speaking of the worst year recorded in human history there are many to choose from:


----------



## ekim68

Global emissions of heat-trapping methane hit record high 



> While a lot of our efforts to combat global warming center on limiting the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, methane also has a significant role to play. New analysis has revealed that emissions of this particularly potent greenhouse gas have now hit record highs, with the surge being driven in large part by the burning of fossil fuels and increased agricultural activity.


----------



## ekim68

COVID-19 lockdown caused 50 percent global reduction in human-linked Earth vibrations



> The lack of human activity during lockdown caused human-linked vibrations in the Earth to drop by an average of 50 percent between March and May 2020.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> COVID-19 lockdown caused 50 percent global reduction in human-linked Earth vibrations


okay, that is neat...had no idea that was studied...


----------



## ekim68

Increasing Arctic freshwater is driven by climate change



> New, first-of-its-kind research from CU Boulder shows that climate change is driving increasing amounts of freshwater in the Arctic Ocean. Within the next few decades, this will lead to increased freshwater moving into the North Atlantic Ocean, which could disrupt ocean currents and affect temperatures in northern Europe.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists use LiDAR to see deeper into the ocean *

*


> More commonly seen on things like robots and self-driving cars, LiDAR devices work by emitting laser beams, then measuring the _exact_ amount of time it takes for that light to be reflected back off of any objects. In this way, it's not only possible to detect the presence of obstacles, but also their distance from the user, and their contours.


----------



## ekim68

Canada's last fully intact Arctic ice shelf collapses



> (Reuters) - The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday.


----------



## valis

jesus...40% in 2 days? that does not bode well....


----------



## ekim68

Past evidence supports complete loss of Arctic sea-ice by 2035



> A new study, published this week in the journal _Nature Climate Change_, supports predictions that the Arctic could be free of sea ice by 2035.


----------



## ekim68

Researchers track slowly splitting 'dent' in Earth's magnetic field



> Earth's magnetic field acts like a protective shield around the planet, repelling and trapping charged particles from the Sun. But over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean, an unusually weak spot in the field -- called the South Atlantic Anomaly, or SAA -- allows these particles to dip closer to the surface than normal.


----------



## ekim68

Meet Asperitas, the Trendiest Addition to the Cloud Atlas



> After years of lobbying, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) granted asperitas formations a spot in the official cloud canon. The change was part of an update to the International Cloud Atlas released for World Meteorological Day on March 23, 2017.


----------



## ekim68

Ozone across northern hemisphere increased over past 20 years



> In a first-ever study using ozone data collected by commercial aircraft, researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder found that levels of the pollutant in the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere have increased across the Northern Hemisphere over the past 20 years. That's even as tighter controls on emissions of ozone precursors have lowered ground-level ozone in some places, including North America and Europe.


----------



## Brigham

We should not forget the ozone higher up is helping to reduce dangerous rays from the sun.


----------



## ekim68

Record melt: Greenland lost 586 billion tons of ice in 2019



> Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water, a new study said.
> 
> After two years when summer ice melt had been minimal, last summer shattered all records with 586 billion tons (532 billion metric tons) of ice melting, according to satellite measurements reported in a study Thursday. That's more than 140 trillion gallons (532 trillion liters) of water.


----------



## ekim68

A fire has been burning since mid-July in the remote wetlands of west-central Brazil, leaving in its wake a vast charred desolation bigger than New York City. 



> This massive fire is one of thousands of blazes sweeping the Brazilian Pantanal - the world's largest wetland - this year in what climate scientists fear could become a new normal, echoing the rise in climate-driven fires from California to Australia.


----------



## valis

well, that isn't good...again...


----------



## ekim68

You know, I'm normally a 'glass half full' person but I don't see good things for the future. I believe we still have time to minimize a number of problems but we have leaders, around the world, who seem either incapable or don't care...


----------



## ekim68

Dismay as huge chunk of Greenland's ice cap breaks off



> An enormous chunk of Greenland's ice cap has broken off in the far northeastern Arctic, a development that scientists say is evidence of rapid climate change.
> The glacier section that broke off is 110 square kilometers (42.3 square miles).


----------



## ekim68

Arctic entering entirely new climate state, concludes new study



> The Arctic is one place that's been hit particularly hard by climate change. Now a new study has shown that the Arctic is beginning to transition into an entirely new climate state, leaving its predominantly frozen state behind.


----------



## ekim68

Emissions Could Add 15 Inches to 2100 Sea Level Rise, NASA-Led Study Finds



> An international effort that brought together more than 60 ice, ocean and atmosphere scientists from three dozen international institutions has generated new estimates of how much of an impact Earth's melting ice sheets could have on global sea levels by 2100. If greenhouse gas emissions continue apace, Greenland and Antarctica's ice sheets could together contribute more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of global sea level rise - and that's beyond the amount that has already been set in motion by Earth's warming climate.


----------



## ekim68

Seas Are Rising. We Must Create Climate-Resilient Infrastructure - Now.



> A new report on melting Antarctic ice sheets has dire implications for communities and infrastructure in the United States and across the world. Even if global warming is contained to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the stated goal of the Paris Climate Accord that President Trump backed the U.S. out of in 2018, loss of Antarctic ice is still projected to cause sea levels to rise about 2.5 meters across the world. Ice loss is imminent even if temperatures fall after rising by 2 degrees Celsius because of an array of feedback loops that permanently destabilize the ice sheets, causing glaciers the size of Florida to fall into the ocean.


----------



## ekim68

The Northern Lights Could Be Visible Over Parts of the Northern U.S. This Week












> You don't need to live north of the Arctic Circle to see the northern lights. On rare occasions, the phenomenon is visible from upper parts of the contiguous U.S. That will be the case this week, when the aurora borealis lights up skies above Maine, Michigan, and other states across the northern border.


----------



## ekim68

Greenland is on track to lose ice faster than in any century over 12,000 years: study



> If human societies don't sharply curb emissions of greenhouse gases, Greenland's rate of ice loss this century is likely to greatly outpace that of any century over the past 12,000 years, a new study concludes.


----------



## ekim68

Melting Antarctic Ice Exposes 800-Year-Old Penguins That Still Look Fresh



> A biologist working off the Ross Sea in Antarctica has stumbled upon an assortment of Adélie penguin remains, some of which appeared to have died only recently. Turns out these dead penguins are actually quite ancient, having been newly exposed by the effects of global warming.


----------



## 2twenty2

*Chilling Report Suggests 1 Out of 5 Countries Could Be Headed For Ecosystem Collapse *
https://www.sciencealert.com/chilli...ohTetwtrnE_LdttW8z-MDGEgNLpOj8wIifK3s7KIO4AaI


----------



## ekim68

Ancient tectonic plate discovered beneath Canada, geologists claim



> It's long been known that in the early Cenozoic Era - around 60 million years ago - there were two major tectonic plates, called Kula and Farallon, in the Pacific Ocean off the western coast of North America. But debate has raged about whether they were joined by a third, oddly named Resurrection, which would have since sunk beneath the surface. And now, the geologists on the new study say they've found this missing plate.


----------



## ekim68

Ice loss likely to continue in Antarctica



> A new international study led by Monash University climate scientists has revealed that ice loss in Antarctica persisted for many centuries after it was initiated and is expected to continue.
> 
> "Our study implies that ice loss unfolding in Antarctica today is likely to continue unbated for a long time-even if climate change is brought under control," said lead study authors Dr. Richard Jones and Dr. Ross Whitmore, from the Monash University School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.


----------



## ekim68

Giant iceberg may be on collision course with island of South Georgia  



> Satellite images indicate that an iceberg 158 km (98 mi) long and 48 km (30 mi) wide is floating towards the island of South Georgia in the southern Atlantic, where it could cause damage to the local wildlife, including penguins and seals, if it runs aground.
> 
> In 2017, a gigantic sheet of ice covering 6,000 km² (2,300 mi²) broke free from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica and drifted out to sea. Originally designated A-68, it later calved off three smaller bergs, after which it was renamed A-68a. This event sparked considerable scientific interest, especially after freeing up a seabed that's been encased in ice for 120,000 years. And now it looks as if the iceberg could have unpleasant consequences as the winds and tides send it toward South Georgia.


----------



## ekim68

Glaciers in China's bleak, rugged Qilian mountains are disappearing at a shocking rate



> Glaciers in China's bleak, rugged Qilian mountains are disappearing at a shocking rate as global warming brings unpredictable change and raises the prospect of crippling, long-term water shortages, scientists say.
> 
> The largest glacier in the 800-km (500-mile) mountain chain on the arid northeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau has retreated about 450 metres since the 1950s, when researchers set up China's first monitoring station to study it.


----------



## ekim68

Clues to Puebloan History Drip Away in Melting Ice Caves



> Researchers have discovered charcoal dating back almost 2,000 years in New Mexican ice caves-providing physical evidence that ancestral Puebloans used the ice deposits for drinking water during droughts.
> 
> Scientists are working fast to sample cores from the deposits, which likely formed thousands of years ago. Rising global temperatures have made it warm enough that the ice is beginning to disappear from the sites at El Malpais National Monument.


----------



## ekim68

Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up



> In the last 10 years, warming in the Arctic has outpaced projections so rapidly that scientists are now suggesting that the poles are warming four times faster than the rest of the globe. This has led to glacier melt and permafrost thaw levels that weren't forecast to happen until 2050 or later. In Siberia and northern Canada, this abrupt thaw has created sunken landforms, known as thermokarst, where the oldest and deepest permafrost is exposed to the warm air for the first time in hundreds or even thousands of years.


----------



## ekim68

The daring plan to save the Arctic ice with glass



> As planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, some have been driven to explore desperate measures. One proposal put forward by the California-based non-profit Arctic Ice Project appears as daring as it is bizarre: to scatter a thin layer of reflective glass powder over parts of the Arctic, in an effort to protect it from the Sun's rays and help ice grow back. "We're trying to break [that] feedback loop and start rebuilding," says engineer Leslie Field, an adjunct lecturer at Stanford University and chief technical officer of the organisation.


----------



## ekim68

2020 tied for warmest year on record, NASA analysis shows



> Earth's global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA.
> 
> Continuing the planet's long-term warming trend, the year's globally averaged temperature was 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit (1.02 degrees Celsius) warmer than the baseline 1951-1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. 2020 edged out 2016 by a very small amount, within the margin of error of the analysis, making the years effectively tied for the warmest year on record.


----------



## ekim68

Earth is losing ice faster today than in the mid-1990s, study suggests



> ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Earth's ice is melting faster today than in the mid-1990s, new research suggests, as climate change nudges global temperatures ever higher.


----------



## ekim68

Sea level will rise faster than previously thought



> There are two main elements to observe when assessing sea level rise. One is the loss of the ice on land, e.g., melting mountain glaciers and inland ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, and the other is that the sea will expand as it gets warmer. The more its temperature increases, the faster the sea will rise. Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen have constructed a new method of quantifying just how fast the sea will react to warming. The level of the sea is monitored meticulously, and we can compare the responsiveness in models with historical data. The comparison shows that former predictions of sea level have been too conservative, so the sea will likely rise more and faster than previously believed.


----------



## ekim68

Giant iceberg misses South Georgia Island and breaks up rapidly



> An environmental disaster may have been averted as images from ESA's Copernicus fleet of satellites show the giant iceberg A-68a turning away from South Georgia Island and starting to break up into smaller bergs.
> 
> One of the largest icebergs ever recorded, A-68a broke away from Antarctica's Larsen-C ice sheet in July 2017. Though it covered a remarkable 2,187 square miles (5,664 sq km) and was on average 761 feet (232 m) thick, it rapidly faded from the public consciousness as it floated north for three years.


----------



## ekim68

Whale songs provide new way to survey the Earth's crust  



> A research team led by John Nabelek, a professor in Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, has shown that it may be possible to use the songs of fin whales to produce seismic images of the Earth's oceanic crust.
> 
> The fin whale is one of the largest creatures ever to have roamed the Earth. Second only to the blue whale in size, it can reach a length of up to 85 feet (25.9 m) and weigh up to 74 tonnes. However, one of the more remarkable characteristics of this cetacean is the long and loud songs the males make that are among the lowest-frequency sounds produced by any creature. These songs are so unusual that when they were first detected, they were thought to be from a secret Soviet sonar system.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient tree tells chaotic tale of Earth's magnetic field reversal



> A perfectly preserved ancient tree fossil has offered scientists a unique peek into a moment 42,000 years ago when the Earth's magnetic field went haywire. The impressive study paints a picture of temporary environmental chaos, potentially influencing everything from an increase in cave paintings to the extinction of the Neanderthals.
> 
> Without the Earth's magnetic field we'd have a pretty hard time living on the planet. Beyond helping us simply navigate around the world with a compass, the Earth's magnetic field is fundamental to the existence of life. It helps deflect harmful solar winds and keeps our protective atmosphere in place.


----------



## ekim68

London-sized iceberg breaks off Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica



> After years of suspense, an iceberg approximately the size of London has broken away from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, only a few miles from the Halley British Antarctic Survey (BAS) ice station. The 490 square mile (1,270 sq km), 490 feet (150 m) thick sheet of ice is not seen as posing a direct threat to the station.
> 
> Though the calving of the giant iceberg was dramatic, it wasn't unexpected. Cracks have been appearing in the Brunt Ice Shelf for years, but the movements of ice is complex and often unpredictable, so the BAS has been keeping a close eye on developments and erring on the side of caution.


----------



## ekim68

Calm down, we have time.... 


Scientists calculate life expectancy of Earth's atmospheric oxygen



> The Earth has an expiry date - in about five billion years, the Sun will expand and swallow up our home world. But it turns out _life_ on Earth could have a much earlier end point. A new study has found that in about a billion years' time, the atmosphere will lose most of its oxygen rapidly, which may have important implications in the search for life on other planets.


----------



## ekim68

NASA Scientists Complete 1st Global Survey of Freshwater Fluctuation



> To investigate humans' impact on freshwater resources, scientists have now conducted the first global accounting of fluctuating water levels in Earth's lakes and reservoirs - including ones previously too small to measure from space.
> 
> The research, published March 3 in the journal Nature, relied on NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2), launched in September 2018.
> 
> ICESat-2 sends 10,000 laser light pulses every second down to Earth. When reflected back to the satellite, those pulses deliver high-precision surface height measurements every 28 inches (70 centimeters) along the satellite's orbit. With these trillions of data points, scientists can distinguish more features of Earth's surface, like small lakes and ponds, and track them over time.


----------



## ekim68

First-ever 'space hurricane' detected over the North Pole



> For the first time, astronomers have detected a powerful, 600-mile-wide (1,000 kilometers) hurricane of plasma in Earth's upper atmosphere - a phenomenon they're calling a "space hurricane."
> 
> The space hurricane raged for nearly 8 hours on Aug. 20, 2014, swirling hundreds of miles above Earth's magnetic North Pole, according to a study published Feb. 22 in the journal Nature Communications.
> 
> Made from a tangled mess of magnetic field lines and fast-flying solar wind, the hurricane was invisible to the naked eye - however, four weather satellites that passed over the North Pole detected a formation not unlike a typical terrestrial hurricane, the study authors wrote.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice



> Scientists found frozen plant fossils, preserved under a mile of ice on Greenland. The discovery helps confirm a new and troubling understanding that the Greenland Ice Sheet has melted entirely during recent warm periods in Earth's history -- like the one we are now creating with human-caused climate change. The new study provides strong evidence that Greenland is more sensitive to climate change than previously understood -- and at risk of irreversibly melting.


----------



## ekim68

Summers could last half the year by the end of this century



> Summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by the year 2100 if global warming continues unchecked, according to a recent study that examined how climate change is affecting the pattern and duration of Earth's seasons.


----------



## ekim68

Paleomagnetism suggests supercontinent cycle began two billion years ago



> Geologists have pieced together an uncertain part of Earth's ancient history. A team in Australia has found new evidence that suggests the cycle of supercontinents forming and breaking up only started about two billion years ago.
> 
> Our current arrangement of continents may look set in stone (pun not intended), but what we're seeing and walking over are the fragments of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea, still drifting apart in a slow motion breakup that's been going on for over 200 million years.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists boost an idea long thought outlandish: Reflecting the sun's rays



> WASHINGTON - The idea of artificially cooling the planet to blunt climate change - in effect, blocking sunlight before it can warm the atmosphere - got a boost on Thursday when an influential scientific body urged the United States government to spend at least $100 million to research the technology.


----------



## ekim68

More than 5,000 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth each year



> Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets and asteroids. These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites. An international program conducted for nearly 20 has determined that 5,200 tons per year of these micrometeorites reach the ground.


----------



## ekim68

Melting ice sheets caused sea levels to rise up to 18 meters



> A team of scientists, led by researchers from Durham University, used geological records of past sea levels to shed light on the ice sheets responsible for a rapid pulse of sea-level rise in Earth's recent past.
> 
> Geological records tell us that, at the end of the last ice age around 14,600 years ago, sea levels rose at ten times the current rate due to Meltwater Pulse 1A (MWP-1A); a 500 year, ~18 meter sea-level rise event.


----------



## ekim68

Mega-iceberg breaks up before reaching South Georgia Island 



> A frosty ecological drama has come to an end with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) declaring the giant iceberg A-68a is no more. The science mission to monitor the berg has now been wound up because A-68a has broken up into disintegrating fragments that are now too small to track.


----------



## ekim68

Climate crisis has shifted the Earth's axis, study shows



> The massive melting of glaciers as a result of global heating has caused marked shifts in the Earth's axis of rotation since the 1990s, research has shown. It demonstrates the profound impact humans are having on the planet, scientists said.


----------



## ekim68

Satellites show world's glaciers melting faster than ever



> Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31 percent more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world's mountain glaciers.
> 
> Scientists blame human-caused climate change.


----------



## ekim68

Lightning and subvisible discharges produce molecules that clean the atmosphere



> Scientists have found that lightning bolts and, surprisingly, subvisible discharges that cannot be seen by cameras or the naked eye produce extreme amounts of the hydroxyl radical and hydroperoxyl radical. The hydroxyl radical is important in the atmosphere because it initiates chemical reactions and breaks down molecules like the greenhouse gas methane.


----------



## ekim68

Forests the size of France regrown since 2000, study suggests



> An area of forest the size of France has regrown naturally across the world in the last 20 years, a study suggests.
> 
> The restored forests have the potential to soak up the equivalent of 5.9 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide - more than the annual emissions of the US, according to conservation groups.


----------



## ekim68

Fiber optics map temperature of Greenland Ice Sheet in unprecedented detail



> Tracking changes in huge masses of ice is key to understanding the effects of climate change on the planet, and researchers in Greenland have developed a new tool that takes the accuracy of such measurements to unprecedented levels. The technology uses a mix of fiber-optic cables and laser pulses to gain precise temperature readings from the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet all the way down to the bottom, offering a clearer picture of the changes taking place in the world's second largest ice sheet.


----------



## ekim68

Antarctica gives birth to world's largest iceberg



> A giant slab of ice bigger than the Spanish island of Majorca has sheared off from the frozen edge of Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg afloat in the world, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.


----------



## ekim68

Surprisingly high mercury levels detected in Greenland glacier meltwater



> The Greenland Ice Sheet is associated with a range of environmental issues, but now researchers have discovered a surprising new problem that hadn't been considered before. Glacial meltwater was found to be unexpectedly high in mercury, which could have consequences for the local fishing industry.
> 
> The researchers didn't specifically set out to study mercury levels - it was just one of many elements they were measuring to determine the quality of the water running off melting glaciers. The team took samples of water from three rivers and two fjords near the ice sheet to study the nutrients being delivered to coastal ecosystems.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient coral reveals world's slowest earthquake lasted 32 years



> Most earthquakes last seconds to minutes, but others will rumble along slowly for days, weeks or even months, at low frequencies that may not be felt at the surface. Now, researchers in Singapore have discovered the slowest earthquake ever found, which lasted 32 years.


----------



## ekim68

Ancient tsunami could have wiped out Scottish cities today, study finds



> Towns and cities across Scotland would be devastated if the country's coastline was hit by a tsunami of the kind that happened 8,200 years ago, according to an academics' study.
> 
> While about 370 miles of Scotland's northern and eastern coastline were affected when the Storegga tsunami struck, the study suggests a modern-day disaster of the same magnitude would have worse consequences.


----------



## ekim68

The last 30 years were the hottest on record for the United States



> The average U.S. temperature for 1991-2020 was 53.3° F, up from 52.8° F during 1981-2010


----------



## ekim68

Giant diamonds may hold the key to superdeep earthquakes 



> Earthquakes shouldn't occur more than 300 kilometers below Earth's surface, according to most geophysical models. Yet they commonly do-a phenomenon that has mystified seismologists for decades. Now, researchers suggest water carried by tectonic plates shoved beneath continents could be triggering these deep temblors. The find may also explain another marvel: why a huge number of fist-size diamonds form at this depth.


----------



## 2twenty2

> National Geographic says there's a fifth ocean on Earth!
> 
> On World Oceans Day, Nat Geo cartographers say the swift current circling Antarctica keeps the waters there distinct and worthy of their own name: the Southern Ocean.


https://nypost.com/2021/06/08/national-geographic-says-theres-a-fifth-ocean-on-earth/


----------



## ekim68

Underwater avalanche continued for two days



> Scientists are reporting what they say is the longest sediment avalanche yet measured in action.





> This colossal flow kept moving for two whole days and ran out for more than 1,100km across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.


----------



## ekim68

Irreversible warming tipping point may have been triggered: Arctic mission chief



> BERLIN (AFP) - The tipping point for irreversible global warming may have already been triggered, the scientist who led the biggest expedition to the Arctic warned Tuesday (June 15).
> 
> "The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we push warming too far," said Dr Markus Rex.


----------



## valis

Yeah...it was passed a few years back IMO. We are now along for the ride. Im mid 50s so it wont be a long ride but man, my son is 16.


----------



## ekim68

Wow 16 already. It will be his generation and the next to deal with this. What a legacy we've, (Politicians), have left for them.


----------



## ekim68

Earth is trapping 'unprecedented' amount of heat, Nasa says



> The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, according to new research, described as an "unprecedented" increase amid the climate crisis.
> 
> Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth's "energy imbalance approximately doubled" from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as "alarming".


----------



## ekim68

Antarctic lake disappears after ice shelf fractures



> An Antarctic lake holding twice the volume of water as San Diego Bay in California has vanished. An international team of scientists used satellite imagery to show that on the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, a lake containing an estimated 600 to 750 million cubic meters (21 to 26 billion cu ft) of water drained through the ice and into the ocean during the 2019 Antarctic winter.


----------



## ekim68

This is what our last few days have been like..


Pacific Northwest bakes under once-in-a-millennium heat dome



> The heat wave baking the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, is of an intensity never recorded by modern humans. By one measure it is more rare than a once in a 1,000 year event - which means that if you could live in this particular spot for 1,000 years, you'd likely only experience a heat dome like this once, if ever.


----------



## valis

Yeah been watching that. Lived in Pdx for a number of years and now on S Texas.....i expect it here but not there....


----------



## ekim68

It's amazing how conditioned we are to our mostly good weather through the year... Yesterday we encountered several blasts of real HEAT while we were out and sheesh..


----------



## ekim68

UN confirms 18.3C record heat in Antarctica



> The United Nations on Thursday recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) made last year.
> 
> The record heat was reached at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said.


----------



## ekim68

Saharan Dust Plume Blows Past Florida Into Texas



> Over the past few weeks, the United States has experienced unprecedented heat, a hurricane and tornadoes. Now, the country is set to see another weather phenomenon as a plume of dust from the Sahara drifts across the Atlantic Ocean, creating hazy sunsets and possibly respiratory issues.
> 
> How does dust from the Sahara make its way across an ocean and into U.S. cities? Blame the wind.


----------



## ekim68

Fossilized "megaripples" record huge tsunami from ancient asteroid impact



> Around 66 million years ago, a gigantic asteroid smashed into the Earth and brought the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs to an end. Now, researchers have discovered direct evidence of this world-changing cataclysm in the form of fossilized "megaripples" from the tsunamis that followed in the immediate aftermath.


----------



## Shellae

ekim68 said:


> Fossilized "megaripples" record huge tsunami from ancient asteroid impact


WOW. Great visuals from reading this.


----------



## ekim68

A 3°C world has no safe place



> The extremes of floods and fires are not going away, but adaptation can lessen their impact


----------



## ekim68

Heatwave causes massive melt of Greenland ice sheet



> Greenland's ice sheet has experienced a "massive melting event" during a heatwave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers.
> 
> Since Wednesday the ice sheet covering the vast Arctic territory, has melted by around eight billion tons a day, twice its normal average rate during summer, reported the Polar Portal website, which is run by Danish researchers.


----------



## ekim68

A Plant That 'Cannot Die' Reveals Its Genetic Secrets



> Events in the genome of Welwitschia have given it the ability to survive in an unforgiving desert for thousands of years.


----------



## ekim68

NASA, International Panel Provide a New Window on Rising Seas



> NASA's Sea Level Change Team has created a sea level projection tool that makes extensive data on future sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) easily accessible to the public - and to everyone with a stake in planning for the changes to come.
> 
> Pull up the tool's layers of maps, click anywhere on the global ocean and coastlines, and pick any decade between 2020 and 2150: The tool, hosted on NASA's Sea Level Portal, will deliver a detailed report for the location based on the projections in the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report, released on Aug. 9, which addresses the most updated physical understanding of the climate system and climate change.


----------



## ekim68

It's official: July was Earth's hottest month on record



> July 2021 has earned the unenviable distinction as the world's hottest month ever recorded, according to new global data released today by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.


----------



## ekim68

Mount Etna is 100 feet taller than it was 6 months ago



> Mount Etna, Europe's tallest and most active volcano, has erupted so much in the past six months, it has grown about 100 feet (30 meters) in height, satellite images reveal.


----------



## ekim68

New island discovered south of Tokyo after submarine volcano erupts



> A new island has been discovered near Iwo Jima located around 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo after a submarine volcano began erupting late last week, the Japan Coast Guard said Monday.
> 
> The new island is C-shaped with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer. It was discovered after the volcano some 50 km south of Iwo Jima, part of the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific Ocean, started erupting on Friday.


----------



## ekim68

6 mysterious structures hidden beneath the Greenland ice sheet



> Nearly 2 miles thick in places, the ice sheet hides a landscape of canyons, mountains, fjords and gem-like lakes.


----------



## 2twenty2

New York City, New York

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1433249158060707840


----------



## ekim68

Mystery of Grand Canyon's missing rocks may finally be solved



> In a new study, researchers led by Peak identify a likely cause for the missing rocks: the breakup of Earth's ancient supercontinent Rodinia approximately 700 million years ago. The upheaval was so violent it likely washed rocks and sediment into the ocean - one billion year's worth, in the case of the Grand Canyon.


----------



## ekim68

Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt



> Ice provides historical records about climate and shows the impact humanity has had. But many glaciers are now melting, prompting renewed urgency among scientists.


----------



## ekim68

Melting of polar ice shifting Earth itself, not just sea levels



> The melting of polar ice is not only shifting the levels of our oceans, it is changing the planet Earth itself. Newly minted Ph.D. Sophie Coulson and her colleagues explained in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that, as glacial ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic Islands melts, Earth's crust beneath these land masses warps, an impact that can be measured hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles away.


----------



## ekim68

New study shows that drought could shut down the biggest US Hydro Plants in the next few years



> According to newly-released projections from the US Bureau of Reclamations, there's a significant chance that both Lake Powell and Lake Mead - the largest hydroelectric power sources in the country - will stop working in the next few years.


----------



## ekim68

South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, a surprise in a warming world



> While the rest of the world sizzled, the South Pole shivered with an average temperature of minus-78 degrees over the past six months.


----------



## ekim68

Video finally reveals what's at the bottom of Yemen's Well of Hell



> In eastern Yemen there is a hole in the ground known as the Well of Barhout, aka the "Well of Hell." Located in the Hadhramaut region, the hole is 30 meters wide and 112 meters deep. According to local reports, the Well of Hell is a prison for demons as indicated by the horrible stench emanating from it. Recently, explorers descended to the bottom of the hole for the first time. Unsurprisingly, the demons hid from the interlopers.


----------



## ekim68

Cloth sheet helps protect Swedish glacier from global warming



> STOCKHOLM, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A cloth sheet used to shield part of the Helags glacier in northern Sweden over the summer saved at least 3.5 metres in height from melting, according to organisers of the private initiative, the first of its kind in Scandinavia.


----------



## ekim68

Earth Is Getting Dimmer



> The study takes a look at earthshine, or the light reflected from the planet that casts a faint light on the surface of the Moon. It's also known as the Da Vinci Glow, because Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to formally write about it. Research has advanced quite a bit since da Vinci's writing 500 years ago, and the new findings use two decades of earthshine data collected at Big Bear Solar Observatory using a special type of telescope to view the Moon.


----------



## ekim68

Video... 


20 Cool Facts About the Ice Age


----------



## ekim68

Inside the Massive and Costly Fight to Contain the Dixie Fire



> SUSANVILLE, Calif. - One grew to a size larger than Rhode Island and leveled a Gold Rush-era town. Another swelled to a quarter million acres as it came within a few miles of Lake Tahoe. Another burned down 900 buildings and was the first ever to reach a million acres.
> 
> In the past two years, California has found itself under siege from more large-scale fires burning with greater intensity than at any time on record.


----------



## 2twenty2

As Earth Warms, Old Mayhem and Secrets Emerge From the Ice

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/science/climate-change-archaeology.html


----------



## ekim68

Increased frequency of extreme ice melting in Greenland raises global flood risk



> Global warming has caused extreme ice melting events in Greenland to become more frequent and more intense over the past 40 years according to new research, raising sea levels and flood risk worldwide.
> 
> Over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice has melted from the surface of the island and flowed downhill into the ocean.


----------



## Tildy

A little humour on the subject


----------



## ekim68

9 cities that could be underwater by 2030



> With sea levels rising worldwide, several major metropolises are at risk of being submerged


----------



## ekim68

Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged



> SYDNEY, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Tuvalu is looking at legal ways to keep its ownership of its maritime zones and recognition as a state even if the Pacific island nation is completely submerged due to climate change, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
> 
> "We're actually imagining a worst-case scenario where we are forced to relocate or our lands are submerged," the minister, Simon Kofe, told Reuters in an interview.


----------



## ekim68

Diamond hauled from deep inside Earth holds never-before-seen mineral



> Within a diamond hauled from deep beneath Earth's surface, scientists have discovered the first example of a never-before-seen mineral.
> Named davemaoite after prominent geophysicist Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao, the mineral is the first example of a high-pressure calcium silicate perovskite (CaSiO3) found on Earth. Another form of CaSiO3, known as wollastonite, is commonly found across the globe, but davemaoite has a crystalline structure that forms only under high pressure and high temperatures in Earth's mantle, the mainly solid layer of Earth trapped between the outer core and the crust.


----------



## ekim68

'There is nothing alive on that tree': Inside a giant sequoia grove scorched by the KNP Complex fire 



> It looked like a bomb had gone off in the vast stand of giant sequoias on a mountain ridge in the southern Sierra.


*








*


----------



## ekim68

Scientists figure out what happens to Earth's disappearing crust



> Like a giant broken-up cookie whose pieces float atop a sea of scalding milk, Earth's outer shell is made of (less-tasty) rocky rafts that constantly bump into and dive beneath each other in a process called plate tectonics.
> 
> So what happens to those hunks of disappearing crust as they dive into Earth's milky interior?
> 
> It turns out that they get weak and bendy, like a slinky snake toy, but they don't disintegrate completely, new modeling shows. The models also suggested that plate tectonics, at least in its modern form, likely only got going in the past billion years.


----------



## ekim68

Campaign to drill for the oldest continuous Antarctic ice core begins



> To learn more about the Earth's climate and environmental history, a research team has begun an €11-million (US$12.9-million) project with the hopes of collecting the oldest continuous ice core in Antarctica, providing a record of the climate spanning some 1.5 million years.


----------



## ekim68

Hawaii under blizzard warning as 12 inches of snow and winds up to 100 mph expected



> The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning until Sunday morning on the Big Island of Hawaii.
> 
> The warning remains in effect from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Sunday as up to 12 inches or more of snow is expected on the island. NWS also warns residents to stay indoors as forecasters predict winds gusting over 100 mph.


----------



## valis

ekim68 said:


> Hawaii under blizzard warning as 12 inches of snow and winds up to 100 mph expected


Yeah....got a buddy of mine from Colorado out there now. He is NOT pleased. Wanted to golf on the second honeymoon....


----------



## ekim68

Wildfires are erasing Western forests. Climate change is making it permanent.



> Now that the winter has cooled the 2021 fire season, scientists are looking at the big burn scars across the West with the grim understanding that, in some places, the pine and Douglas fir forests will not return.
> 
> The driving force here is that the rising global temperature is wiping out seedlings.


----------



## ekim68

Earth is getting a black box to record events that lead to the downfall of civilization



> An indestructible "black box" is set to be built upon a granite plain on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia, in early 2022. Its mission: Record "every step we take" toward climate catastrophe, providing a record for future civilizations to understand what caused our demise, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.


----------



## ekim68

Crucial Antarctic ice shelf could fail within five years, scientists say



> Scientists have discovered a series of worrying weaknesses in the ice shelf holding back one of Antarctica's most dangerous glaciers, suggesting that this important buttress against sea level rise could shatter within the next three to five years.
> 
> Until recently, the ice shelf was seen as the most stable part of Thwaites Glacier, a Florida-sized frozen expanse that already contributes about 4 percent of annual global sea level rise. Because of this brace, the eastern portion of Thwaites flowed more slowly than the rest of the notorious "doomsday glacier."


----------



## ekim68

Newfound type of storm is a 1,000-km-wide puddle in the sky



> A new type of storm has been discovered in the skies over the Indian Ocean. Named "atmospheric lakes," these events are slow-moving pools of concentrated water vapor that can last for days.


----------



## ekim68

Study shows magnetic fields can act as early warning signs for tsunamis



> Every minute matters in the event of a tsunami, and over the years we have seen a number of interesting ideas around how these giant waves might be better predicted ahead of time. These include monitoring underwater sound waves triggered by earthquakes, and using submarine cables as giant seismic networks. Scientists are now throwing another possibility into the mix, showing how the magnetic fields generated by tsunamis can be detected before the massive, devastating waves make it to shore.


----------



## ekim68

These photos of the Northern Lights are considered the best of 2021.


----------



## ekim68

Future hurricanes will roam over more of the Earth, study predicts



> A new, Yale-led study suggests the 21st century will see an expansion of hurricanes and typhoons into mid-latitude regions, which includes major cities such as New York, Boston, Beijing, and Tokyo.


----------



## ekim68

'The Fuse Has Been Blown,' and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All 



> One thing that's hard to grasp about the climate crisis is that big changes can happen fast. In 2019, I was aboard the _Nathaniel B. Palmer_, a 308-foot-long scientific research vessel, cruising in front of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. One day, we were sailing in clear seas in front of the glacier. The next day, we were surrounded by icebergs the size of aircraft carriers.
> 
> As we later learned from satellite images, in a matter of 48 hours or so, a mélange of ice about 21 miles wide and 15 miles deep had cracked up and scattered into the sea.


----------



## ekim68

World's largest fish breeding grounds found under the Antarctic ice 



> At 60 million nests, icefish colony stretches for 245 square kilometers.


----------



## PeterOz

Fishing boats on route to Antarctica


----------



## ekim68

A68: 'Megaberg' dumped huge volume of fresh water



> The monster iceberg A68 was dumping more than 1.5 billion tonnes of fresh water into the ocean every single day at the height of its melting.
> 
> To put that in context, it's about 150 times the amount of water used daily by all UK citizens.
> A68 was, for a short period, the world's biggest iceberg.
> 
> It covered an area of nearly 6,000 sq km (2,300 sq miles) when it broke free from Antarctica in 2017. But by early 2021, it had vanished.


----------



## ekim68

A nuclear-test monitor calls Tonga volcano blast 'biggest thing that we've ever seen'



> The explosive volcanic eruption in Tonga on Saturday appears to dwarf the largest nuclear detonations ever conducted, according to a global group that monitors for atomic testing.


----------



## ekim68

Longest lightning strike on record stretches 477 miles over 3 US states



> A lightning strike that lit up the sky across three US states has been confirmed as the longest on record, with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today certifying the 768-km (477-mile) length of the flash that occurred back in April 2020. The event smashes the previous length record for a lightning strike, and is accompanied by another newly confirmed record for a longest duration single-flash event.


----------



## ekim68

Satellite images show biggest methane leaks come from Russia and US



> About a tenth of the global oil and gas industry's methane emissions have been found to come from a group of "ultra-emitter" sites located mostly in Turkmenistan, Russia and the US. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that governments recently agreed to slash by 2030.


----------



## ekim68

Study finds Western megadrought is the worst in 1,200 years



> Shrunk reservoirs. Depleted aquifers. Low rivers. Raging wildfires. It's no secret that the Western U.S. is in a severe drought. New research published Monday shows just how extreme the situation has become.


----------



## ekim68

Basal meltwater is thawing the Greenland Ice Sheet from the bottom up



> For the past seven years, a science team led by Professor Poul Christoffersen from the University of Cambridge has been studying meltwater lakes pooled atop the Greenland Ice Sheet, seeking to better understanding the role they play in the behavior of the massive body of ice as a whole. The group's latest findings reveal that meltwater is falling to the base through cracks in the surface with such force, the power produced is comparable to that generated by the world's largest hydroelectric power station, creating a melting effect at the bottom that is "completely unprecedented."


----------



## ekim68

Sea Ice Around Antarctica Reaches a Record Low



> Sea ice around Antarctica has reached a record low in four decades of observations, a new analysis of satellite images shows.
> 
> As of Tuesday, ice covered 750,000 square miles around the Antarctic coast, below the previous record low of 815,000 square miles in early March 2017, according to the analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.


----------



## ekim68

Amazon rainforest reaching tipping point, researchers say



> A study suggests the world's largest rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from damage caused by droughts, fires and deforestation.
> 
> Large swathes could become sparsely forested savannah, which is much less efficient than tropical forest at sucking carbon dioxide from the air.


----------



## ekim68

Video 


Aurora Timelapse Compilation, Feb-March, 2022, Fort Yukon, Alaska


----------



## ekim68

It's 70 degrees warmer than normal in eastern Antarctica. Scientists are flabbergasted.



> The coldest location on the planet has experienced an episode of warm weather this week unlike any ever observed, with temperatures over the eastern Antarctic ice sheet soaring 50 to 90 degrees above normal. The warmth has smashed records and shocked scientists.


----------



## ekim68

The ozone layer was damaged by Australia's Black Summer megafires



> Australia's record-breaking wildfires of 2019 and 2020 blasted smoke so high that even the ozone layer in the stratosphere was damaged, a new analysis shows.
> 
> The Black Summer bushfires, which raged along Australia's east coast from November 2019 to January 2020, caused unprecedented destruction.


----------



## ekim68

Video:


Climate Spiral



> This visualization shows monthly global temperature anomalies (changes from an average) between the years 1880 and 2021.


----------



## ekim68

Ice shelf collapses in previously stable East Antarctica






> An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday.


----------



## ekim68

Sinkholes as big as a skyscraper and as wide as a city street open up in the Arctic seafloor



> Giant "sinkholes" - one of which could devour an entire city block holding six-story buildings - are appearing along the Arctic seafloor, as submerged permafrost thaws and disturbs the area, scientists have discovered.
> 
> But even though human-caused climate change is increasing the average temperatures in the Arctic, the thawing permafrost that's creating these sinkholes seems to have a different culprit - heated, slowly moving groundwater systems.


----------



## ekim68

'Black carbon' threat to Arctic as sea routes open up with global heating



> In February last year, a Russian gas tanker, Christophe de Margerie, made history by navigating the icy waters of the northern sea route in mid-winter. The pioneering voyage, from Jiangsu in China to a remote Arctic port in Siberia, was heralded as the start of a new era that could reshape global shipping routes - cutting travel times between Europe and Asia by more than a third.
> 
> It has been made possible by the climate crisis. Shrinking polar ice has allowed shipping traffic in the Arctic to rise 25% between 2013 and 2019 and the growth is expected to continue.


----------



## ekim68

What Is the Deepest Lake in the World?



> Any natural body of inland water that feels bigger than a pond can constitute a lake. The lakes of the world vary greatly, with some sites closely resembling seas in many ways. This applies to Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia. The Unesco World Heritage Site is the deepest lake on Earth, measuring 5387 feet at its maximum depth.


----------



## ekim68

Lake Mead at 35% capacity - marking an all-time low



> A persistent drought in the American Southwest forced the Anasazi to abandon their towns a thousand years ago. Eventually, the precipitation returned. Hoover Dam in Nevada was built in 1931, "during an especially wet period for the West." But today Lake Mead, which powers Hoover Dam's generators, is at an all-time low after a drought of 22 years with no end in sight.


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## ekim68

Giant sinkhole with a forest inside found in China



> A team of Chinese scientists has discovered a giant new sinkhole with a forest at its bottom.
> 
> The sinkhole is 630 feet (192 meters) deep, according to the Xinhua news agency, deep enough to just swallow St. Louis' Gateway Arch. A team of speleologists and spelunkers rappelled into the sinkhole on Friday (May 6), discovering that there are three cave entrances in the chasm, as well as ancient trees 131 feet (40 m) tall, stretching their branches toward the sunlight that filters through the sinkhole entrance.


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## renegade600

ekim68 said:


> Giant sinkhole with a forest inside found in China


Maybe the hollow earth theory is true


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## RT

renegade600 said:


> Maybe the hollow earth theory is true


And the other side comes out onto Skin Walker Ranch?


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## ekim68

The air conditioning paradox



> The world is now 1.1 degrees Celsius - 2 degrees Fahrenheit - warmer on average than it was at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. But baked into that seemingly small change in the average is a big increase in dangerous extreme temperatures. That's made cooling, particularly air conditioning, vital for the survival of billions of people.


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## ekim68

World's largest plant: 112-mile-long seagrass found off Australian coast



> Researchers have discovered what seems to be the largest plant in the world - a meadow of seagrass off the coast of Western Australia that covers a total of 200 km2 (77 miles2). The entire expanse has grown from just one seedling, spreading by cloning itself.


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## ekim68

Great timing, supercomputer upgrade lead to successful forecast of volcanic eruption



> CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In the fall of 2017, geology professor Patricia Gregg and her team had just set up a new volcanic forecasting modeling program on the Blue Waters and iForge supercomputers. Simultaneously, another team was monitoring activity at the Sierra Negra volcano in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. One of the scientists on the Ecuador project, Dennis Geist of Colgate University, contacted Gregg, and what happened next was the fortuitous forecast of the June 2018 Sierra Negra eruption five months before it occurred.


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## ekim68

Heat waves could soon have names



> There's a growing effort to name and categorize heat waves the way we do hurricanes - to call attention to their significance, alert people to dangerous temperatures and prod public officials into action.


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## ekim68

Google tool shows what's on the surface of the Earth in real time



> A new dataset from Google shows the features on the surface of the Earth in near real time, the company announced Thursday. The tool, called Dynamic World, uses deep learning and satellite imagery to develop a high-resolution land cover map that shows which bits of land have features like trees, crops, or water.


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## ekim68

New map reveals deepest spot in Southern Ocean around Antarctica 



> An international team of scientists and cartographers has released the most detailed map ever of the seafloor of the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. It covers 48 million km² (19 million miles²) and includes the deepest spot yet found in the region.


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## ekim68

Rising beaches suggest Antarctic glaciers are melting faster than ever



> The study was conducted by scientists from the University of Maine and the British Antarctic Survey.
> 
> It involved the radiocarbon-dating of seashells and penguin bones found in what were at one time beaches near the present-day Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers. Given the rate at which the two glaciers are presently melting, it is hypothesized that global sea levels could rise by as much as 3.4 meters (11.2 ft) over the next few centuries.


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## ekim68

Nepal to move Everest base camp from melting glacier



> Nepal is preparing to move its Everest base camp because global warming and human activity are making it unsafe.
> 
> The camp, used by up to 1,500 people in the spring climbing season, is situated on the rapidly thinning Khumbu glacier.
> 
> A new site is to be found at a lower altitude, where there is no year-round ice, an official told the BBC.


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## ekim68

This could be the coolest summer of the rest of your life



> Summer started with an oppressive heat wave. Get used to it.


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## ekim68

(Video)


Amazing footage of an avalanche in Kyrgyzstan



> This avalanche poured through the Tian Shen Mountains on July 10th, 2022. The force of nature here is amazing, while the vertical camera is unfortunate.


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## ekim68

Australia's environment in 'shocking' decline, report finds



> The 2,000-page State of the Environment report, commissioned by the government, found or reiterated:
> 
> 
> Nineteen ecosystems are on the brink of collapse
> There are now more non-native plant species in Australia than native ones
> Australia has lost more species to extinction than any other continent
> All bar one category of environment examined has deteriorated since 2016, and more than half are now in a "poor" state.


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## ekim68

Reaching Closer to Earth's Core, One Lava Scoop at a Time



> Some scientists wanted to know what was going on underneath the surface, miles deep, where light does not reach. There, the flowing rock works in ways that experts still cannot describe. So on the first day of the eruption, a helicopter flew out to the site and scooped up a bit of lava. Some samples were distributed to labs, which, after testing, sent back unexpected results: The lava was full of crystals.


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## ekim68

For the first time in four decades, the Rio Grande through Albuquerque is dry



> For the first time in ~40 years (? - see below) New Mexico's Rio Grande has "broken" - is no longer flowing - in what we call "the Albuquerque reach".
> 
> The river dries not with a bang, but with a muddy whimper and the dawn serenade of awakening birds.


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## ekim68

Ancient Lava Caves in Hawai'i Are Teeming With Mysterious Life Forms



> Microbes are the smallest known living organisms on Earth and can be found just about everywhere, even in the cold, Mars-like conditions of lava caves.
> 
> On the island of Hawai'i, scientists recently found a marvelous assortment of novel microbes thriving in geothermal caves, lava tubes, and volcanic vents.
> 
> These underground structures were formed 65 and 800 years ago and receive little to no sunlight. They can also harbor toxic minerals and gases. Yet microbial mats are a common feature of Hawai'ian lava caves.


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## ekim68

Heeding the heat: Desert regions may better inform the future of global temperate zones driven by climate change



> When it comes to the world's climate, in the past decade, Earth keeps sending us its summer siren's call.
> 
> Annually, it's mostly been a case of heeding the heat, and repeat. According to NASA, nineteen of the hottest years have occurred since 2000, with 2016 and 2020 tied for the hottest ever on record.


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## ekim68

Voyage to the Ridge 2022



> Spanning the north-south length of the Atlantic Ocean and stretching an impressive 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles), the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) is the longest mountain range in the world and one of the most prominent geological features on Earth. The majority of it sits underwater and thus much of it remains largely unexplored. With active tectonic spreading, the MAR is the site of frequent earthquakes. Spectacular hydrothermal vents may form where magma provides heat as it rises to the seafloor. These vents are known to support diverse chemosynthetic communities. However, little is known about life at these sites once vents go extinct, or what life lies beyond the vents, further away from the rift zone.
> 
> Voyage to the Ridge 2022 will seek to close some of these gaps and increase our understanding of the region's geological context and past and future geohazards, the diversity and distribution of coral and sponge communities, and how populations of deep-sea species are related across this region and throughout the deepwater Atlantic basin.


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## ekim68

Massive undersea eruption filled atmosphere with water



> On 15 January, Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted under the sea, rocking the South Pacific nation and sending tsunamis racing around the world. The eruption was the most powerful ever recorded, causing an atmospheric shock wave that circled the globe four times, and sending a plume of debris more than 50 kilometers into the atmosphere. But it didn't stop there.
> 
> The ash and gasses punching into the sky also shot billions of kilograms of water into the atmosphere, a new study concludes. That water will likely remain there for years, where it could eat away at the ozone layer and perhaps even warm Earth.


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## ekim68

Amateurs excel in the 2022 David Malin astrophotography awards


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## ekim68

"Gigantic jet" lightning blasts record-breaking bolt upwards into space



> While a thunderstorm can put on quite a show for spectators on the ground, the best bits often happen above the clouds. Scientists have now described in detail the most powerful "gigantic jet" of lightning ever observed, which blasted energy equivalent to 60 regular lightning bolts upwards into space.


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## ekim68

World's oldest ice core could stretch back 5 million years



> To learn about the future of Earth's climate we can look to the past, and one of the best ways to do that is with samples drilled from deep ice cores. Now, scientists have dated what may be the world's oldest ice core, with some sections potentially preserving samples as old as 5 million years.


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## ekim68

Striking study finds Arctic Circle warming at 4 times the global rate



> Scientists understand the area in and around the North Pole to be warming disproportionately to the rest of the planet, a phenomenon known as "Arctic amplification." A new study, however, argues that this effect has been vastly underestimated, concluding that the rate of warming occurring in the Arctic Circle is happening around four times faster than the global average.


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## ekim68

Antarctica's Doomsday Glacier "hanging on by its fingernails" 



> Scientists have deployed an advanced robotic submarine to gain a new perspective on the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, with the groundbreaking seafloor imagery highlighting its precarious state in concerning new detail. The research reveals the glacier has undergone spurts of rapid retreat in the past that scientists now expect to see again in the future, which could have important ramifications for global sea levels.
> 
> Around the size of Florida, the Thwaites Glacier is known as the "Doomsday Glacier" owing to its status as one of the most unstable glaciers in Antarctica. Its melt rate is accelerating, with its outflow speed doubling in the last 30 years, and some studies suggesting it could be just years away from a complete collapse. Were that to happen, the amount of water released from the giant ice stream would be enough to drive up global sea levels by several meters.


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## ekim68

"Relatively low cost" plan would cool the Earth's poles by 2 °C



> New research suggests that cooling the poles by 2 °C (3.6 °F), and re-freezing the Arctic and Antarctic, is "feasible at relatively low cost with conventional technologies," using Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) of heat-reflective particles focused on the poles. The side effects could be nasty, and the politics near-impossible, but the plan offers a way to slow, or reverse the catastrophic sea level rise projected as polar ice collapses.


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## ekim68

Hunga Tonga eruption put over 50B kilograms of water into the stratosphere



> In January this year, an undersea volcano in Tonga produced a massive eruption, the largest so far this century. The mixing of hot volcanic material and cool ocean water created an explosion that sent an atmospheric shockwave across the planet and triggered a tsunami that devastated local communities and reached as far as Japan. The only part of the crater's rim that extended above water was reduced in size and separated into two islands. A plume of material was blasted straight through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere, over 50 km above the Earth's surface.


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## ekim68

Climate change is turning trees into gluttons



> Trees have long been known to buffer humans from the worst effects of climate change by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now new research shows just how much forests have been bulking up on that excess carbon.
> 
> The study, recently published in the Journal _Nature Communications_, finds that elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased wood volume—or the biomass—of forests in the United States.


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## ekim68

Modeling predicts supercontinent Amasia will form in 300 million years



> New modeling from researchers at Curtin University has simulated 300 million years of tectonic plate movement to predict the formation of a supercontinent called Amasia. The modeling estimates the Pacific Ocean closing and America colliding with Asia.


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## ekim68

Greenland ice sheet may be more vulnerable to climate change, study finds



> The study found rising air temperatures amplify the effects of melting caused by ocean warming, leading to greater ice loss from the world’s second largest ice sheet.
> 
> Experts liken the effect to how ice cubes melt more quickly if they are in a drink that is being stirred – the combination of warmer liquid and movement accelerates the melting process.


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## ekim68

460-km-long river discovered snaking though base of Antarctic ice sheet 



> Among the many mechanisms shaping the Antarctic ice sheet are the processes playing out in its lower layers, and a newly discovered sub-glacial river suggests it may drain away faster than we thought. Scientists say the 460-km-long (285-mile) river shows the base of the ice sheet features more flowing water than we realized, which may accelerate its melting as the planet continues to warm.


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## ekim68

Highest volcano plume ever recorded penetrates the mesosphere



> New analysis of a volcanic eruption off the coast of Tonga earlier this year has revealed the true extent of the massive explosion, and established its plume as the highest on record. It is also the first one to be seen stretching through lower layers of the atmosphere to enter the mesosphere, which begins at an altitude of some 50 km (31 miles).


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## ekim68

The Last 8 Years Have Been the Warmest on Record 



> As world leaders have come together in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss policy measures addressing the global challenge of climate change at COP27, an unseasonably warm October in large parts of the Northern hemisphere has served as a timely reminder of the problem at hand.


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## ekim68

10 best northern lights photos of 2022


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