Paradise's Dream

'Uplift' baffles scientists, transforms area beach

Photo by Michael Armstrong: Two men climb an uplift on the beach below Bluff Point on Sunday.

BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
STAFF WRITER

Like a giant fist punching through the earth, a 1,000-foot long section of the beach below Bluff Point rose up 20 feet from the tidelands sometime last Friday or late Thursday, pushing boulders up from the ocean bottom, cracking sandstone slabs and toppling rocks upside down.

Below Bluff Point, a new fissure opened up at the base of the 800-foot high cliff. The uplift could be a re-activation of a landslide that happened perhaps 12,000 years ago.

"There was just beach before," said Ron Hess, who lives on Bluff Road above the new uplift. "Now there are tidal pools."You can see a rock circle," said Marilyn Hess. "All you used to see was one big rock, and now you can see this uplift of rock."Scientists don't know exactly what caused the uplift. It would take an earthquake over magnitude 7 to cause an uplift that high, said Peter Haeussler, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage.

Negative Pressure CME ?

Sun leaves Earth wide open to cosmic rays

The sun protects us from cosmic rays and dust from beyond the solar system by enveloping us in the heliosphere - a bubble of solar wind that extends past Pluto. These cosmic rays would damage the ozone layer, and interstellar dust could dim sunlight and trigger an ice age. However, when the solar system passes through very dense gas and dust clouds, the heliosphere can shrink until its edge is inside Earth's orbit.

Saudi Arabia evacuates 5 villages in volcano scare - 5.6 earthquake

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi authorities evacuated five western villages on Monday after tremors hit a volcanic region in the past weeks raising concerns of possible eruptions.

"There was a large quake, the largest so far," Ahmed al-Attas, vice president of the Saudi Geological Survey (SGS), told Reuters after civil defence officials evacuated the villages near the town of al-Ais.

Attas was referring to a 4.68 earthquake, which hit the region on Sunday. Al-Ais, 150 km (100 miles) northeast of the Yanbu on the Red Sea, is not close to the world's top oil exporter's oil and petrochemicals facilities.

The region lies on a fault line, according to SGS, which declined to comment on current magma levels, but newspapers reported that in the past few days magma levels had risen to 4 km (2.5 miles) below the surface from 8 km.

Fears of an eruption in dormant volcanoes in al-Ais have sent panic stricken residents voluntarily fleeing to the holy city of Medina and Yanbu last week.

The population of al-Ais, an ancient resting place for caravans travelling between the western and southern cities of the Arabian Peninsula and Syria, is estimated at around 60,000 people.

SOHO-LASCO C3 - 01.05.09

MAGIC Telescope - Time Lapse

MAGIC Telescope - Time Lapse from Michael Rissi on Vimeo.

2009-04-10 07:30__3.1_ PORTUGAL

USGS records hybrid seismic event at Kilauea volcano

March 26, 2009 - Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii
VIDEO: USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

USGS video still: robust brown plume associated with a hybrid seismic event at 11:03 am

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii has released video of a robust brown plume associated with a "hybrid seismic event" on the summit of Kilauea at 11:03 am.

The HVO website says brown plumes like this one have appeared occasionally throughout the past year of eruptive activity at the summit, and are often associated with rockfalls.

According to the HVO daily update, Wednesday's activity started with at least two more dusty plumes followed by a larger collapse at 11:03 am and a large, dense, brown plume; there were several more brown plumes over the next two hours before settling to a white plume moving southwest from the crater.

Shock Dynamics

A new geology theory featuring impact-powered rapid
continental drift as an alternative to plate tectonics.

Geologists spot steam plume over Redoubt

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska's Mount Redoubt is again drawing attention because of its potential for an explosive volcano.
Geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say there's a steam plume rising about 1,000 feet above the mountain roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage. No explosive or ash activity such as occurred last Sunday has been identified and the observatory has not raised the warning level for the mountain.

Quake Triggers Pacific Tsunami Alert

A tsunami alert issued after a major 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the Tonga islands region has been cancelled.
Tsunami alert triggered following earthquake and volcano eruption
The quake occured about 130 miles southeast of Nuku'alofa, Tonga, the US National Weather Service's Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.
A tsunami warning was issued for Tonga, Niue, Kermadec Islands, American Samoa and Fiji.
"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated," the centre said in a bulletin.

Another magnetosphere spike - 10th March 2009

3.3 quake in Viana do Alentejo, Portugal (20090309)

What is this object near Ursa Major?

Mr. Teles, from Serra dos Candeeiros (Portugal) send me this photograph taken last monday (2009 - 2rd March).
Near 23:00 PM, at zenital position, this glowing object stays in that position for several minutes. I looked for some nightsky charts from that day and didn't find anything. The Big Dipper (Ursa Major) is under the object. Could be comet Lulin in those coordinates?

Comet Lulin

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice

As permafrost thaws in the Arctic, huge pockets of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- could be released into the atmosphere. Experts are only beginning to understand how disastrous that could be.
Methane (CH4) has at least 20 times the heat-trapping effect of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). As warmer air thaws Arctic soils, as much as 55 billion metric tons of methane could be released from beneath Siberian lakes alone, according to Walter’s research. That would amount to 10 times the amount currently in the atmosphere.
At 32, Walter, an aquatic ecologist, is a rising star among the thousands of scientists who are struggling to map, measure and predict climate change. Parts of her doctoral dissertation on Siberian lakes were published in three prestigious journals in 2007: Science, Nature and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
According to one of her studies, methane emissions from Arctic lakes were a major contributor to a period of global warming more than 11,000 years ago.
"It happened on a large scale in the past, and it could happen on a large scale in the future," says Walter, who refers to potential methane emissions as "a time bomb."

Scientists capture dramatic footage of Arctic glaciers melting in hours

Chill Out

Redoubt ready to blow?: Volcano upgraded to 'orange' status

Mount Redoubt has shaken scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage into initiating a round-the-clock watch and an elevation of the Aviation Color Code to orange.

A report issued by AVO at 4:30 p.m. Sunday warned, "The current activity at Redoubt could be precursory to an eruption, perhaps within hours to days."

"Not to panic people, but this could spin up that quickly, and we want to give people the possibilities," Dave Schneider, a volcanologist with AVO, said Sunday evening.

He reported a decrease in seismic activity through the afternoon Sunday.

"Seismicity has declined compared to this morning, though it is still elevated," he said.

Possible natural explanation found for West Antarctica's warming

South Pole - In 2008, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey reported a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica [the same place the one degree Fahrenheit warming]. The volcano beneath the ice sheet "punched a hole right through" due to its heat and force. This geologic event (a volcano) may prove to be the source of the recent warming seen in West Antarctica in what has otherwise been reported as a 50-year cooling trend seen in East Antarctica.

Dr. David G. Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said, "This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet."

From The New York Times:
"Heat from a volcano could still be melting ice and contributing to the thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island Glacier, which passes nearby, but Dr. Vaughan doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in West Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Dr. Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause."

Heavy snowfall on Ras Al Khaimah's Jebel Jais mountain

Ras Al Khaimah: Snow fell heavily on the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah on Friday night, leaving the Jebel Jais range covered in a thick white blanket of snow.

The extreme cold spell brought the temperature on top of the Jebel Jais mountain cluster, situated at a height of 5,700 feet, to as low as -3 degree Celsius on Friday night, as the snow blanketed an area extending over 5kms.

Major Saeed Rashid Al Yamahi, Manager of the Air Wing of RAK Police, who flew a helicopter to the top of the Jebel Jais mountain, said that the entire area was covered with 10 cm of snow.

Magnetosphere anomaly (full movie)

2 waterspouts in Porto, Portugal / 2008-01-20

in Fórum Meteopt

Sky Diving

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Earth's Magnetic Field Changes Climate

Jan. 13, 2009 -- The Earth's climate has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that is unlikely to challenge the notion that human emissions are largely responsible for global warming.

"Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the Earth's magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics," one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal.

Svensmark's theory, which pitted him against today's mainstream theorists who claim carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for global warming, involved a link between the earth's magnetic field and climate, since that field helps regulate the number of GCR particles that reach the earth's atmosphere.

"The only way we can explain the (geomagnetic-climate) connection is through the exact same physical mechanisms that were present in Henrik Svensmark's theory," Knudsen said.

"If changes in the magnetic field, which occur independently of the Earth's climate, can be linked to changes in precipitation, then it can only be explained through the magnetic field's blocking of the cosmetic rays," he said.

The two scientists acknowledged that CO2 plays an important role in the changing climate, "but the climate is an incredibly complex system, and it is unlikely we have a full overview over which factors play a part and how important each is in a given circumstance," Riisager told Videnskab.

Catastrophic Coincidence: Second Ever Example Of Contemporaneous Meteorite Impact And Flood Volcanism Discovered

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2009) — Scientists have discovered only the second example of a meteorite impact that occurred at the same time as massive volcanic activity, in research published in the Journal of the Geological Society the week of Jan 12. The first time such a coincidence was observed, at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, was the catastrophic event thought to be responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

Did Earth's Twin Cores Spark Plate Tectonics?

Michael Reilly, Discovery News

Jan. 6, 2009 -- It's a classic image from every youngster's science textbook: a cutaway image of Earth's interior. The brown crust is paper-thin; the warm mantle orange, the seething liquid of the outer core yellow, and at the center the core, a ball of solid, red-hot iron.

Now a new theory aims to rewrite it all by proposing the seemingly impossible: Earth has not one but two inner cores.

The idea stems from an ancient, cataclysmic collision that scientists believe occurred when a Mars-sized object hit Earth about 4.45 billion years ago. The young Earth was still so hot that it was mostly molten, and debris flung from the impact is thought to have formed the moon.

Haluk Cetin and Fugen Ozkirim of Murray State University think the core of the Mars-sized object may have been left behind inside Earth, and that it sank down near the original inner core. There the two may still remain, either separate or as conjoined twins, locked in a tight orbit.

Sondagem sobre o concelho de Sintra

Sondagem de estudo sobre a população residente no concelho de Sintra para fins estatísticos de Geografia.
Obrigado

Município de Sintra - inquérito