Mother Nature

[Christina]

New Oddity 3D CROP CIRCLES-------------------------------------------Crop circles have started appearing again in the English countryside, but this time in a new permutation.A crop circle in a complicated three-dimensional design was discovered in the first week of July near Ashbury, Oxfordshire. The exaggerated perspective of the formation, which is approximately 360 feet in diameter, suggests a bird's-eye view of a group of skyscrapers, as though the viewer was looking down on a city center from directly overhead.The new circle is located near the famous Uffington White Horse and a Neolithic burial chamber called Wayland's Smithy, which dates back to 3700 B.C.The formation was originally spotted by the pilot of a microlight aircraft. When Steve Alexander heard about it, he immediately hired a helicopter to get a better view. The 34-year-old crop circle researcher, who is the co-author with Karen Alexander of a series of crop circle yearbooks, was stunned by the unique pattern in the wheat field. more;http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,71513-0.html

 

[Christina]

Study: Earth changed after Sumatra quakeCOLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've determined Earth's gravity changed as a result of the giant 2004 Sumatran earthquake. The discovery marked the first time scientists have used satellite data to detect changes in the Earth's surface caused by a massive earthquake. The discovery signifies a new use for data from NASA satellites and offers a possible new approach to understanding how earthquakes work. The 9.1-magnitude December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in the Indian Ocean produced a tsunami that killed approximately 230,000 people, while displacing more than 1 million others. The event followed the slipping of two continental plates under the seafloor that raised ocean bed in the region by several feet for thousands of square miles. "The earthquake changed the gravity in that part of the world in two ways that we were able to detect," said Shin-Chan Han, a research scientist at Ohio State University. He and colleagues determined the quake triggered the massive uplift of the seafloor, changing the geometry of the region and altering previous global positioning satellite measurements of the area. And the density of the rock beneath the seafloor shifted, producing detectable gravity changes

 

[Christina]

Snow fell on South Africa's biggest city Johannesburg for the first time in 25 years as icy temperatures gripped vast swathes of the country, the weather office said."It (the snow) is by no means freakish but I would certainly classify it as rare," said Kevin Rae, assistant manager of forecasting at the South African Weather Service in Pretoria.Forecasters said snow was reported in the southern Johannesburg township of Soweto and the posh northern suburb of Sandton, as well as the nearby towns of Carletonville and Westonaria.Johannesburg last had snow on September 11, 1981."Sleet has been recorded occasionally since then, but never snow," added climatologist Tracey Gill.Bloemfontein, the capital of the central Free State province, got its first snow in 12 years, receiving 13 centimetres (5.2 inches).Comparable widespread snow across the country had been recorded only twice in the past 20 years, in 1981 and 1988, said Rae.Some welcomed the colder weather, however.At the Tiffindell ski resort in the southern Drakensberg mountains of the Eastern Cape province, guests were elated."They are very excited," said the resort's chief snow-maker, Johan Smuts. "It is not every day that you get to see snow fall in Africa."

 

[Christina]

EL PASO (AP) — About 1,000 residents of this rain-soaked city were in an emergency shelter Friday, a police spokeswoman said, after officials ordered evacuations amid worries that an eroding earthen dam in Mexico could falter.Threatened downtown neighborhoods were evacuated after an Army Corps of Engineers estimate that a break in the aging dam, holding water from the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, could send up to 6 million gallons rushing across the border into El Paso."We're talking like a tidal wave hitting El Paso," Mayor John Cook said after receiving he estimate late Thursday.El Paso spokeswoman Juliet Lozano said crews in Mexico spent much of the night pumping water out of the area and that American engineers were headed to the dam Friday. But the dam was badly eroded and water was seeping out.City buses took people to the convention center, which had held Katrina evacuees, Thursday night. Lozano said it was unclear when the approximately 1,500 to 2,000 affected residents would be allowed to return.Those who refused to leave were not forcibly removed, and about half of the people in the evacuation zones decided to stay, said Detective Elizabeth Molina of the El Paso Police Department. She said the dam posed the only direct flooding threat Friday.

 

[Christina]

Texas Sky lights upThe Channel 8 switchboard was bombarded with calls overnight from viewers who said they saw a strange, bright light in the North Texas sky after 11 p.m. Tuesday. Callers described it as a bright orange oval with a blue lightning coming from it. "I was out moving my trash cans and noted a flash in the sky similar to someone taking my picture with a flash camera," said John Harwood of Plano. "Around 11:04 p.m. there was a large blue streak that lit up a portion of the dark sky," said Tom Wilson from Colleyville. "I had never seen anything like it before, but I soon came to realize that I had just witnessed my first meteorite sighting. It was beautiful." (see video)http://www.local6.com/news/9628604/detail.htmlFort Worth police dispatchers reported similar calls from concerned citizens. Air traffic controllers at Dallas Love Field confirmed that they spotted a meteor at 11:30 p.m. The McDonald Observatory says the Delta Aquarid meteor shower is near its peak, and observations are helped by an early-setting moon. Other reports of meteor sightings are appearing in online publications in Western India.

 

[Christina]

Philippines Eruption ImminentOfficials in the Philippines have ordered the evacuation of about 20,000 people living near the Mayon volcano, fearing an imminent eruption.

 

[servant_of_the_end]

Kriss,This is only the beginning of sorrows being the birth pangs of the appearing of the son of perdition - the betrayer of the Lord- and then the appearing of the King of the Ages who will come to rule with an Iron Scepter to the nations that rise throught the millenium reign.

 

[Christina]

(servant_of_the_end;2173)
Kriss,This is only the beginning of sorrows being the birth pangs of the appearing of the son of perdition - the betrayer of the Lord- and then the appearing of the King of the Ages who will come to rule with an Iron Scepter to the nations that rise throught the millenium reign.
I could not agree with you more Servant_of_the _end thats why I started this thread ,God uses Mother Nature to Warn us and to chastise us.That is not to say that all things that happen in nature are punishment or warnings from God.

 

[Christina]

There is a dip down of the Van Ellen radiation belt..that normally hovers about 1200 to 1300 km above the earth.......However...above Brazil..and South america...it is dipping down to about 250 -300 kms..above the earth...The Van Ellen radiation belts...allign with the magnetic field of the earth...Usually a dip down...is normal....of around 2 - 800 kms on one side of the earth..while the other is higher..But, this Brazil, South America thing....is not normal..that is why it is called an anomaly. It is down much too low...( Scientists are trying to investigate why )Satellites and other spacecraft..if they go through it....can have their communications harmed, etc.....by being zapped by 10,000,000 electron volts ! Much shielding is required.

 

[Christina]

A powerful magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck the Pacific islands nation of Vanuatu early Tuesday, but caused no injuries or damage, officials said. The temblor struck about 220 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Vila, at 9:18 a.m. local time (2218 GMT) and was centered 149 kilometers (93 miles) below the earth's surface, the US Geological Survey said. Job Esau, the director of Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office, said there were reports of injury or damage at Port Vila or any of the country's outlying islands. "There's nothing happening there," Esau told The Associated Press by telephone from the capital. "This happened in the middle of the ocean, between the islands, so no damage was done to the buildings ... nothing." Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at Ewa Beach, Hawaii, said the earthquake was too deep to pose any major tsunami risk.------------------------------------------------------------------------Could't help but notice the directors name

 

[Christina]

Nuclear Event - North-AmericaEvent summary GLIDE Number NC-20060820-7232-USA Event type Nuclear Event Date / time 20/08/2006 - 08:02:04 (Military Time, UTC) Country USA Area San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant County / State California City San Diego Cause of event Unknow Log date 20/08/2006 - 08:02:04 (Military Time, UTC) Damage level Heavy Time left - Latitude: N 33° 22.129 Longitude: W 117° 33.305 Number of deaths: Not or Not data Number of injured persons: Not or Not data Evacuated: - Infected - - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------DESCRIPTION A radioactive leak from the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant has shut down a San Clemente water well. The plant says several thousand gallons of radioactive water have leaked from an old reactor. The water contains materials that are known to cause cancer. San Clemente has shut down one of its water wells as a precaution. But the power plant says chances are the water is safe. "Where this water is, is within a few hundred yards of the beach, where the drinking water wells are, are two miles up hill and water would never be able to migrate up hill two miles,” spokesperson Ray Golden said. The water well will remain closed until test results are in.

 

[Christina]

Ecuador Volcano Poised to Erupt AgainVillagers in Ecuador Defy Government Evacuation Order, Warnings That Volcano May Erupt AgainBy EDISON LOPEZThe ***ociated PressBILBAO, Ecuador - In normal times, Luis Egas would have risen before dawn to tend livestock or fields of potatoes and onions. But as the sun rose Saturday, all he could do was survey his village, laid waste by a volcanic eruption that spewed showers of ash, rock and molten lava. "We never thought Tungurahua would awake like this," Egas said of the volcano whose name means "throat of fire" in the local Quichua language.Authorities said Saturday that three people had died from the 19-hour eruption, which ended Thursday before dawn, and that two others were feared dead. Another 30 people who had been listed as missing have been located alive.Egas and a few others remain in Bilbao, defying a standing government evacuation order to leave the "red zone," and warnings from experts that, though eerily calm, the Tungurahua volcano could be poised to erupt again."We feared a big eruption, but not of this magnitude," said Egas, looking at meter-deep (3-foot-deep) drifts of volcanic ash that caved in rooftops, and the still hot pyroclastic flows superheated material that shoots down the sides of volcanos like a fiery avalanche at up to 190 mph (300 kph).About 80 percent of Bilbao's adobe brick homes were destroyed.Nearly all of its 500 inhabitants fled to makeshift shelters in churches and schools in villages farther from the volcano, like Cotalo, 10 kilometers (six miles) to the northwest."We are afraid, but we cannot leave our belongings, what little we have," said Egas, who remained in Bilbao with his parents. A few meters (yards) away, volcanic steam rose off an ash-contaminated creek that had supplied the community's irrigation water.The eruption disrupted the lives of about 30,000 people, many of them poor Quichua-speaking Indians, in three highland provinces, officials said.Police Capt. Jorge Ubidia said Saturday in Cotalo that he believed everyone should clear off the volcano's slopes."The problem is that people don't want to leave, and we don't know if we should take them out by force," he told The ***ociated Press, peering up toward the volcano, shrouded in clouds. "We're very frightened."Jose Grijalva, director of Ecuador's Civil Defense, said 3,000 people were evacuated under an emergency order immediately before and during the eruption, but many of them have returned.Bilbao is one five areas, mostly on the volcano's western slope, where people are forbidden to enter, he said. People in other areas along the slopes farther north had been advised to evacuate voluntarily, and Banos the popular tourist city of 18,000 at the northeast foot of the volcano is on alert.Grijalva confirmed two fatalities, and said that 30 other people listed as missing had been located in the homes of relatives or in shelters. Seven people remained hospitalized Saturday for injuries and burns.Meanwhile, Juan Salazar, village mayor of Penipe, said the body of a man had been recovered Saturday outside the village.The 85-year-old had been washed away by a flood of water caused by volcanic ash damming up the Puela river, and he was found by his family."We never thought Tungurahua would do this to us. I am not going to live here anymore," said Maria Hidalgo, the dead man's niece, in Palictahua, a hamlet near Penipe, where the eruption destroyed all 15 homes.Authorities were searching for two more people from the hamlet believed crushed under fallen debris.Ecuador's Geophysics Institute urged residents and tourists to stay away from the 16,575-foot (5,023-meter) volcano, located some 135 kilometers (85 miles) south of the capital of Quito.The volcano remained in an apparent state of calm Saturday, said institute volcanologist Patricia Mothes from an observation post near Tungurahua. But she warned that energy was building up inside."We have had 72 hours go by and after several days of accumulating energy, many times there is an abrupt change, but when that will be, nobody knows," she said in a telephone interview.Ash from the eruption covers about 20,000 hectares (nearly 500,000 acres) of pasture land and corn, potato and other crops, said Patricio Donoso, president of Ecuador's Chamber of Agriculture.Some 350 cows, pigs and other livestock have died, he added, and thousands of other head of livestock are "suffering digestive and respiratory problems" from volcanic contamination of gr*** and water.The eruption Thursday was the 14th time Tungurahua has sent hot lava and ash onto villages on its flanks since its first recorded eruption in the Spanish colonial era in 1534. After remaining dormant for eight decades, Tungurahua rumbled back to life in 1999 and has been active ever since

 

[Christina]

Mon 21 Aug 2006 Spectacular shower of meteors sparked fear of air crashMURDO MACLEAN COASTGUARDS were inundated with frantic phone calls at the weekend after a bright fireball was seen plunging from the sky over the Hebrides, prompting fears of a plane crash. Seven shore rescue teams were scrambled from the Butt to Barra in a search of the islands' coastline. A large-scale disaster was initially expected following the 999 calls. But the emergency response was called off before any lifeboats were launched after an unusually spectacular meteor shower was deemed responsible for the fireworks in the sky. A coastguard spokesman said: "We received numerous 999 calls with around 40 alone on Friday night. "People were reporting seeing something like a plane going down with a trail of smoke behind it. "It would have been a shooting star from the meteor activity. We discussed the situation with RAF Kinloss and other sources and concluded it was meteor activity. "We got calls from all over such as Stoer on Skye and from Barra to Barvas." The incident coincided with the Kappa Cygnid meteor stream which peaked at the weekend and continues for another fortnight. Every seven years it may emit a series of bright fireballs. Meteor showers can be caused by comets passing through space, leaving a trail of dust and ice. If the Earth crosses this trail the comet fragments burn up in the atmosphere. They appear from the ground as jets of bright light shooting across the sky

 

[Christina]

IMPACT MOON: In only 30 hours of observing, astronomers at the Marshall Space Flight Center have recently photographed seven explosions of light on the Moon. Each one, they believe, was caused by a meteoroid falling from the sky and hitting the ground. (continued below) Above: Candidate meteoroid impact sites. [details] The flashes seen by the Marshall group ranged in brightness from 7th to 9th magnitude, which means they were invisible to the human eye, but easy targets for backyard telescopes. Amateur astronomers are thus invited to join the hunt. FAQ: The moon has no oxygen to support fires or explosions. So what causes these flashes of light? Answer: The source of the light is not combustion, which would require oxygen, but rather the simple heating of rocks and soil at the impact site. Even small meteoroids carry a lot of kinetic energy because they travel so fast, some in excess of 100,000 mph. When they hit the ground, all that kinetic energy gets converted into thermal energy. Rocks and soil are heated to such high temperatures that they glow--hence the flash of light

 

[Christina]

PHOENIX, AZ -- Residents who saw a ball of fire in the sky late Sunday evening near Saguaro Lake witnessed a giant meteor, officials said.Phoenix and Scottsdale police and Rural/Metro Fire Department dispatchers received calls from residents reporting a plane going down in "a ball of fire." Another caller reported seeing a meteor."It was a large ball of flame," Rural/Metro Fire Department spokeswoman Alison Cooper said. "It was very large. It was seen as far as Washington state." Kip and Valerie Wachter saw the fireball pass over their heads about 10:15 Sunday evening as they walked north of Pinetop. "The colors were a bright green, red, white. The size was about three times wider than its length. It seemed to emanate a low, soft swishing sound as it passed overhead," the Wachters wrote in an e-mail to The Republic. Steve Kates, a Chandler resident and science journalist known as "Dr. Sky," said that description, particularly the noise, was consistent with meteoric activity.Most meteors visible on earth occur high in the atmosphere and these "shooting stars" are about the size of a grain of dust, said Jeffrey Hall, associate director at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. "The great majority are these tiny particles moving through the atmosphere at a high rate of speed," Hall said. "Larger ones tend to be moving more slowly and produce a much larger trail through the sky."

 

[Christina]

October 4, 2006By John RichardsonPortland Press Herald A series of earthquakes near Bar Harbor in the past two weeks has shaken Maine's solid-as-a-rock reputation for geological stability.Four quakes measuring above a magnitude of 2 have rattled Mount Desert Island since Sept. 22, culminating Monday evening with Maine's strongest quake in 12 years. During the same period, instruments have measured about 20 additional quakes in the area that were too small to be noticed, said Henry "Spike" Berry of the Maine Geological Survey.It's clearly unusual to have so many quakes in one spot within such a short period of time. But scientists say the events are still within the range of earthquake probability, even for a seismic backwater like Maine.Maine gets an average of one magnitude 3 earthquake a year, though it's not unheard of to have as many as three. In one three-week period starting on Christmas Eve 1999, there were three magnitude 3 quakes across central Maine.The preliminary magnitude of Monday's quake was 3.9, the strongest since another 3.9 quake in Springfield in September 1994. It hit at 8:07 p.m. and startled residents, rattled windows, overturned coffee cups and started rock slides that closed roads and trails in Acadia National Park. There were no reports of serious property damage or injuries, which some attributed to the timing."Some of the slabs that came down were pretty big," said Al Moyer, a dispatcher at Acadia. "I think we can thank our lucky stars it didn't happen on a Sunday at 2 in the afternoon" when visitors fill the park's roads and trails.The vibrations reportedly were felt as far away as Jackman, 170 miles to the northwest near the Canadian border, according to emergency management officials."Our house shook for about 30 seconds like crazy. It felt like just a huge freight train coming through it," said Linda Dalessio, who lives in Dedham, about 20 miles inland from her art gallery in Bar Harbor."I was on the phone with my mother-in-law in New Jersey and I said, 'I think we're having an earthquake.' And she said, 'I don't think so. You don't have them there.' And I said, 'We are.'"In Bar Harbor, the quake shook paintings out of place and shattered some glass dinnerware at the Pretty Marsh Gallery, Dalessio said.Employees of The Jackson Laboratory found the buildings on its Bar Harbor campus structurally sound, but items such as coffee mugs, CDs, wall clocks and a light fixture were knocked to the floor.Below ground, meanwhile, the shifting and cracking of bedrock caused groundwater levels to drop dramatically in a federal monitoring well in Acadia National Park. "Right when the earthquake hit it dropped, and it dropped 2.5 feet in the last 14 hours, and it's still dropping," Gregory Stewart, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said Tuesday afternoon. Other wells in the area were stable.Scientists say there is no way to predict when there will be earthquakes. But the seismic activity around Bar Harbor has been unusual, they say, and any more shaking there right now would be even more surprising. Earthquake activity in Maine tends to be scattered around the state because there are no active fault lines or breaks in the Earth's crust here."Just seeing one (quake) was kind of newsworthy because we don't get a lot of earthquakes in this place," said Mark Swanson, a professor of geology at the University of Southern Maine. "A whole string of them in just about the same area is quite surprising."The series of small quakes in the same spot may have been a narrow miss by a single larger one. "The interesting thing is that the stress wasn't all released at once," Berry said.Scientists also say they can't be sure what caused the quakes, except that pressure had built up underground and found some weakness or seam in the Earth's crust about three miles beneath the east side of Mount Desert. "Stress gradually increases over time until there's some place in the state where it gives way, and this just happened to be the place where it gave way this time," Berry said.Pressure beneath the ground could be caused by a number of factors, according to experts.One factor may be that the Earth's crust is still rebounding after being compressed by mile-thick ice during the last ice age. Some geologists believe sediment flowing into the Gulf of Maine and settling near the edge of the continental crust could be a factor in quakes.Another possible contributor is the continuing spread of the sea floor beneath the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."The whole continental plate of the North Atlantic is gradually moving westward," Berry said.The process of the plate sliding across the Earth's mantle creates stress in the Earth here, but primarily leads to earthquakes in California, where the Pacific plate is pushing back.Scientists also only have theories about why Bar Harbor has been the hot spot this summer. A leading theory is that the ancient granite there runs deep, intruding into the crust and creating a seem between two different types of rock and an ideal release point.While Maine's relatively stable and solid rock foundation makes for fewer quakes, it also makes a 3.9 magnitude earthquake here feel more dramatic than it would feel in California or Japan, where the fractured ground dampens the vibrations, according to scientists. Here, the vibration carries straight through the cold, solid bedrock."We felt a big bang. It was a very big boom," said Sherry Rasmussen of Bar Harbor, who has lived through earthquakes in Japan. "I've never heard that before."The strongest earthquake recorded in Maine occurred in 1904 in the Eastport area. With a magnitude estimated at 5.7 to 5.9, it damaged chimneys and brick walls and could be felt in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to scientists. A 5.5 magnitude quake would be expected to occur in Maine every 138 years.h

 

[Christina]

4.5 earthquake 7 miles east of Mt Rainer in Washington state tonight largest to hit the area in 30 years hope it doesnt mean she is waking up this is a dangerous volcano because of the population around it

 

[Christina]

World Fisheries Risk Collapse by 2048, Scientists Say (Update1) By Alex MoralesNov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- World fisheries risk collapsing completely by 2048 if humans continue to erode species diversity by causing regional extinctions, scientists said in a study. The rate at which ocean fisheries collapse, or fall below 10 percent of the maximum recorded annual catch, has accelerated over time, the scientists led by Boris Worm of Canada's Dalhousie University said today in a study in the journal Science. By 2003, 29 percent of species were below that threshold, they said. ``If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime -- by 2048,'' Worm said in an accompanying statement. ``It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating.'' The scientists found that the risk of a species dying out increases when it shares an ecosystem with fewer other creatures. As a result, species declines accelerate as marine environments become less diverse. The loss of wildlife also affects the quality of the water, which becomes more polluted, they said. ``The elimination of locally adapted populations and species not only impairs the ability of marine ecosystems to feed a growing human population but also sabotages their stability and recovery potential,'' the scientists said. ``Business as usual would foreshadow serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem stability.'' Regional Extinctions Examples of regional extinctions that have taken place include the loss of the bluefin tuna in the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic sturgeon in Chesapeake Bay, and of the gray whale, Atlantic Salmon and European oyster in the Wadden Sea off the Netherlands. The decline in fisheries can be stopped by the establishment of protected marine reserves, the scientists found after studying 44 such areas. Closing fisheries and making reserves led to a 23- percent average increase in species diversity, they said. At the same time, catching fish around the reserves became easier, with a fourfold increase in the catch per unit of effort, they said. ``We can turn this around,'' Worm said. ``We won't see complete recovery in one year, but in many cases species come back more quickly than people anticipated -- in three to five to ten years. And where this has been done we see immediate economic benefits.'' Aside from foodstuff, ``services'' provided by marine creatures include the filtration and detoxification of water by organisms, and the processing of carbon dioxide into food and oxygen. Coastal habitats such as mangroves and marshland also provide a defense against flooding. The scientists over a period of four years conducted experiments, examined coastal areas and analyzed fisheries data from all of the world's main ocean fishing sites to gauge the effect species diversity -- the number of different species in an ecosystem -- has on the ability of other species to survive.

 

[Christina]

November 3, 2006Richmond Times-DispatchA minor earthquake struck southwest Virginia yesterday.The U.S. Geological Survey says the 3.2 magnitude (upgraded to 4.3 by USGS) quake occurred at 12:53 p.m., nearly seven miles underground in Tazewell County near the West Virginia border.The temblor was centered about seven miles north-northwest of Raven and about eight miles northwest of Richlands.Local authorities said there were no immediate reports of damage.The earthquake struck two weeks after a cluster of shallow micro-quakes rattled the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area.The largest earthquake recorded in Virginia was the 1897 temblor in Giles County. That five-point-eight magnitude earthquake was felt in 12 states.

 

[Christina]

November 3, 2006MyFox WGHP - High Point, NC(AP) OCOTILLO, Calif. A small earthquake rattled southern Imperial County on Friday but no injuries or damage were reported.A magnitude-4.5 temblor struck at 7:56 a.m. and was centered five miles southwest of Ocotillo, according to a preliminary report from the California Integrated Seismic Network. It was followed by a magnitude-3.6 aftershock at 8:12 a.m.There were no reports of injuries or damage, a dispatcher at the Imperial County Sheriff's Department said.The same area was struck by a magnitude-4.0 temblor on Sept. 13.The area is about 90 miles east of San Diego, near the Mexican border.