November 28, 2013 – TURKEY – The Sea of Marmara was shaken by two moderate earthquakes on Wednesday morning. According to a statement made by the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD), an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude
November 27, 2013 – JAPAN – Explosive activity has resumed at the remote volcano in the Tokara Island chain. VAAC Tokyo reported explosions yesterday and this morning, with ash plumes rising to 4,000-6,000 ft (1.2-1.8 km) altitude.
November 27, 2013 – BOSNIA - Just outside the village, children fished in a tranquil pond bobbing with green algae and lined with willow trees, as cattle grazed nearby. Now, Rezak Motanic gazes in disbelief down a gigantic crater where the pond used to be. It’s like something from a science fiction movie: a sinkhole swallowed the water, the fish and even nearby trees. “I sat here only a day before it happened, sipping plum brandy,” Cemal Hasan said. “And then, there was panic. Fish were jumping out, and a big plum tree was pulled down like someone yanked it with a hook.” Residents of this remote north-western Bosnian village have been in shock since the pond vanished two weeks ago. The pond was about 20 meters in diameter and about eight meters deep. Now, the “abyss,” as the villagers have dubbed the crater, is some 50 meters wide and 30 meters deep – and growing. Scientists say it is not uncommon that ponds and small lakes suddenly disappear.
They say it could be caused by drying underground water currents, or changes in soil drainage due to irrigation. Sanica villagers, however, are having none of the scientific explanations. “It could have been a giant cave that opened its doors,” offered Milanko Skrbic. “Or a volcano.” Another popular theory – one that experts dismiss along with the others proposed by townsfolk – is that fish could have triggered the explosion of one of several world war two German bombs believed to have been thrown into the pond by an old woman after the war. “She herself died when one of the bombs exploded in her arms,” Cemal Hasan said as he stood on the edge of the “abyss.” Another spooky explanation: the owner of the pond took it with him when he died about a month ago. “Only days before Hasan passed away he said: ‘I’ll take everything with me when I die.’ And that’s what he did,” Motanic said. “His daughter saw him walk on the lake the night he died.” Husein Nanic said it could be a sign that the end is nigh. “All sort of miracles happen before the doomsday,” he said. –Guardian
November 26, 2013 – KUWAIT – The national seismic network at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) said on Tuesday that it had detected seismic waves in some of the network’s stations, at 10:06 a.m.
November 25, 2013 – SOUTH ATLANTIC – A magnitude-7.0 earthquake has struck in the South Atlantic, southeast of the disputed Falkland Islands, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
November 25, 2013 – JAPAN – After a short phase of weaker activity, the volcano began to erupt more violently yesterday with a series of powerful explosions that sent ash plumes up to 15,000 ft (4.5 km).
November 25, 2013 – GEOLOGY - The series of volcanic eruptions has again raised speculations about another Doomsday scenario. Saturday, Nov 23, was an explosive day on earth as seven volcanoes erupted hours apart from each other on the same day. In Japan, a volcano on Nishino-Shima Island erupted for the first time in 40 years. The eruption resulted in a new island in the Pacific. The Japanese Navy reported that the eruption caused boiling lava to meet sea water that gave rise to plumes of steam and ash. Some 7,000 miles from Japan. Mexico’s Colima Volcano created a steam and ash cloud that reached two miles into the sky. In Guatemala, Fire Mountain lived up to its name and created a moderate ash could that blanketed the nearby towns with ash fall. But the eruption and shock waves caused by the eruption was felt by Guatemalans as far as 6 miles away from the volcano. While it caused doors and windows to rattle, early reports said there was no damage so far. In Vanuatu in the Pacific, the Yasur Volcano had some weak explosions and the resultant ash fall is affecting farm lands. In Italy, Mount Etna created a spectacular lights display show anew, causing flights cancellations. The lava flow damaged the town of Zafferana. Black ash fall filled across the Strait of Messina from Sicily to the mainland, covering the streets and vehicles. The ashes were about 2 cm in size. Although there were no evacuations, a highway was shuttered from 30 minutes and it closed four air corridors servicing the Catania Airport in Sicily. In Indonesia, the country’s Mount Sinabung spewed ash cloud four miles high, causing the evacuation of 6,000 people, while scientists predict a major eruption forthcoming. The series of volcanic eruptions has again raised speculations about another Doomsday scenario. -IBT
November 25, 2013 – ITALY – An Italian photographer has filmed a town being blanketed in stone and ash as it fell from the sky like hail stones after Mt Etna erupted again on Saturday.
November 24, 2013 – INDONESIA – Indonesian authorities raised the alert status for one of the country’s most active volcanoes to the highest level Sunday after the mountain repeatedly sent hot clouds of gas down its slope
November 23, 2013 – ICELAND – A small swarm of earthquakes has occurred today under the eastern caldera rim. Another minor swarm took place yesterday under Þórðarhyrna volcano 20 km to the NE. The volcano last erupted in 1961. –Volcano
November 23, 2013 – FIJI – The U.S. Geological Survey reports an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 has been recorded in the south Pacific.
November 22, 2013 – PAPUA, NG – RVO reported that Rabaul caldera’s Tavurvur cone was quiet during 1-12 November. At 0516 on 13 November a moderate explosion generated a dense billowing ash cloud that rose 1 km above the crater
November 21, 2013 – JAPAN – A new island was born today in the Pacific Ocean in Japan’s Izu (or Volcano) island chain.
November 20, 2013 – MEXICO – On Monday night and Tuesday morning, the Colima volcano showed two strong exhalations; ejecting lava down its slopes and ash skyward, that has reached several villages.
November 20, 2013 – GUATEMALA – Two lava flows are active on the upper slopes of the volcano at the moment, to the Taniluya (south) and Ceniza canyon (SE).
November 20, 2013 – SICILY, ITALY – Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe, put on a spectacular show Saturday night and into Sunday. A massive eruption from Etna lit up the night sky over the island of Sicily.
November 20, 2013 – INDONESIA – The 8-kilometre-high ash cloud from Mount Sinabung dwarfs this villager in the north of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, on Monday. The volcano rumbled back to life in 2010 after lying dormant for hundreds of years.
November 19, 2013 – SARDINIA, Italy – A storm has killed at least 16 people on the Italian island of Sardinia, with two people unaccounted for and fears the death toll will rise, officials say.
November 19, 2013 – INDONESIA – A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off eastern Indonesia on Tuesday, the USGS reported, but there were no immediate reports of damage and local officials ruled out any threat of a tsunami
November 19, 2013 – CROTIA – Four earthquakes were recorded in only a few hours in Croatia and in neighboring Greece and Romania in the past 48 hours.
November 19, 2013 – LOUISIANA - Scientists are now saying they will need to monitor for decades an enormous — and growing — Louisiana sinkhole that has already forced hundreds to evacuate, contaminated an aquifer and has been registering increased seismic activity, including mini-earthquakes. What is known as the Bayou Corne sinkhole in southern Louisiana is now reportedly 25 or so acres in size and 350 feet deep, having opened in August 2012 when the wall of a subterranean salt mine collapsed and the ground above it was seemingly swallowed by the earth. It has since filled with water. “While it was a manmade action that started this; it’s geology and natural forces that are making everything happen,” Patrick Courreges, a policy analyst for the Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources, told TheVerge.com. “And geology happens slow.” When it occurred, Assumption Parish reportedly ordered the 300-or-so nearby residents to evacuate their homes. Hundreds have done so, although more than a few have remained behind, regardless of the danger.
According to TheVerge.com, recent studies show a good deal more methane gas than the initial estimate of 45 million cubic feet have leaked into a nearby aquifer and, “the fear is that the highly combustible gas will collect in a crevice or enclosed space and then ignite.” Meanwhile, a YouTube video garnering nearly 7 million views since its posting in August shows the sinkhole, which is expected to at least double in size over time, swallowing numerous trees. The video was reportedly shot by John Boudreaux, a local official coordinating efforts to hamstring the sinkhole’s growth, in hopes of attracting a measure of national attention to the affected residents’ plight. –Bayou Buzz
November 19, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA – Scotia Sea earthquakes on the move. On the heels of a 5.0 magnitude quake along the Scotia tectonic plates, a 7.8 M quake shook things up further.
November 18, 2013 – INDONESIA – Two volcanoes erupted Monday in Indonesia, prompting warnings for flights and evacuation preparations, official said. Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra province unleashed volcanic ash as high as 8,000 meters
November 18, 2013 – ANTARCTICA – A volcano may be stirring more than a half-mile beneath a major ice sheet in Antarctica, raising the possibility of faster base melting that could ultimately affect climate.
November 18, 2013 – ILLINOIS – A fast-moving storm system triggered multiple tornadoes on Sunday, killing at least six people, injuring about 40 and flattening large parts of the city of Washington, Illinois as it tore across the Midwest, officials said. The storm also forced the Chicago Bears to halt their game against the Baltimore Ravens and encourage fans at Soldier Field to seek shelter as menacing clouds rolled in. Chicago’s two major airports also briefly stopped traffic with the metropolitan area was under a tornado watch. The city of Washington, Illinois, was hit especially hard by what the National Weather Service called a ‘large and extremely dangerous tornado.
November 17, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA – A powerful 7.8 magnitude undersea earthquake struck in the Scotia Sea, a remote region in the far south Atlantic near Antarctica, US earthquake monitors reported Sunday.
November 16, 2013 – SPACE – Sun is set to “flip upside down” within weeks as its magnetic field reverses polarity in an event that will send ripple effects throughout the solar system.
November 16, 2013 – TOKYO, JAPAN – A 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Japan on Saturday. Tremors were felt from inside Tokyo skyscrapers, and the city’s high-speed train service was halted as a precaution. The earthquake struck at 8:44 p.m
November 16, 2013 – SOUTH AMERICA - A strong 6.8 magnitude undersea earthquake struck in a remote area known as Scotia Sea, between the furthest tip of South America and Antarctica, U.S. monitors said late Friday. There is a low likelihood that the quake, which struck at 0334 GMT Saturday, will cause casualties or damage because of its remote location, said the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes worldwide. –The News
November 16, 2013 – INDONESIA – Indonesian farmers continued to harvest their crops Thursday even as a volcano erupted less than two and a half miles away, coating their fields in ash. Up to 4,300 residents have been evacuated from five villages in North Sumatra due to the eruptions of Mount Sinabung, according to Getty Images. The volcano has been spewing ash and lava 2.5 miles into the sky. The Jakarta Globe reported that tens of thousands of hectares of farmland had been affected, with losses to farmers expected to amount to millions of dollars. –NBC
November 15, 2013 – FLORIDA – Michael Dupre, his wife and his daughter made it out of their Dunedin, Florida, house after noticing its screened-in room plunging into a pit in the ground. His wedding ring did not. As the family stood outside early Thursday, a firefighter buckled herself up, smashed a window, then snatched the ring from a desk in Dupre’s office. “And a few minutes later, the whole thing collapsed back down there,” he said. Sinkholes like this one in Dunedin, a city of about 35,000 people just north of Clearwater, are hardly rarities in Florida. Hundreds pop up in the Sunshine State each year, like the one in August that gobbled a condo building in the town of Clermont. Dupre not only knew of the dangers, but he also was doing something about them. After spotting “a few little hairline cracks,” he contacted his insurance company and, after a lot of back-and-forth about what to do, had workers come to his western Florida house over the last few days to start stabilizing the ground.
November 14, 2013 – INDONESIA - A small eruption occurred this morning (9 am local time), producing an ash plume that rose about 350 m according to local news. Marapi has been showing increased activity since August 2011. VSI keeps the volcano at level 2 alert (out of 4) and recommends not to approach the summit within a radius of 3 km, as stronger eruptions could occur any time. –Volcano Discovery
November 14, 2013 – ALASKA - Far out in the Andreanof Islands, nearly 100 miles southwest of the Aleutian Islands town of Adak, a big earthquake of a 6.0 magnitude was recorded early Wednesday morning. The shallow quake was centered at a depth of 2 miles and was recorded at 6:57 a.m. Although residents of Adak felt the quake, there were no reports of damage in the lightly population region. The quake was later downgraded to a 5.8 by the USGS. –Alaska Dispatch
November 12, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - Soldiers were forced to hold back thousands of desperate Filipinos as they rushed to board to military planes that could only evacuate a few hundred people from the typhoon-ravaged region. About 3,000 Tacloban residents walked for miles to queue for help at the airport but just two planes arrived to take survivors to Manila, the capital of Philippines. There were scenes of chaos and devastation as families, many of whom containing young children or elderly people, were held back by soldiers. When the two Philippine Air Force C-130s arrived, people surged forward past a broken iron fence, witnesses said. But only a few hundred made it aboard and the rest were left to wait in the rain, with few supplies.
November 12, 2013 – PHILIPPINES - A 4.8 magnitude earthquake has hit the Philippines island of Bohol just days after a powerful typhoon left thousands dead in the Pacific nation. The quake’s epicenter was in the San Isidro municipality of the island province, according to a USGS report. It is located some 45 km from Tagbilaran, the provincial capital that has almost 100,000 residents. The tremor hit at the depth of about 70 km, according to early USGS estimates. The Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology put the depth of the quake much less deep, at just 9 km. It said it was an aftershock of the 7.2 magnitude quake that hit the island on October 15. No immediate casualty or damage report is available. The authorities did not issue a tsunami alert following the quake. Last month’s quake killed 22 people and displaced tens of thousands. It also caused damage to more than 73,000 structures. Bohol Island is located just south of the path of devastation left behind by the powerful Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Typhoon Yolanda. The typhoon, which was the strongest to hit the country in decades, left an estimated 10,000 people killed and leveled thousands of homes. Philippines declared a state of national calamity as search and rescue operations continue. –RT
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November 12, 2013 – INDONESIA - As many as 4,300 residents in five villages in Karo regency, North Sumatra, were evacuated following increasing threats of volcanic ash, pyroclastic flows and molten lava, caused by Mount Sinabung’s strong eruptions on Monday. The recent evacuation was carried out on Monday when a joint team comprising personnel from the police, the Indonesian Military (TNI), and the local administration evacuated 2,500 residents in Gurukinayan village. Karo regency administration spokesman Jhonson Tarigan said residents in Gurukinayan were evacuated because the village, located around 4 kilometers from the volcano, was already covered in volcanic ash. Jhonson added that the government refused to risk allowing residents to remain in their homes as volcanic ash emitted by the volcano had reached the village. “Mount Sinabung again erupted strongly [on Monday] and discharged volcanic ash, pyroclastic flows and molten lava. The eruption threatened residents living in Gurukinayan, so we have evacuated them,” Jhonson told The Jakarta Post. He said the volcano erupted twice on Monday morning, the first at 6:14 a.m. and the second at 7 a.m. He added the first eruption was more powerful, spewing volcanic ash as high as 4,000 meters, followed by pyroclastic clouds and molten lava that flowed down the slopes of the mountain between 500 and 1,000 meters from the crater. Jhonson said during the first eruption, volcanic ash reached Gurukinayan village and caused panic among residents. The village, he added, was not included in the danger zone as it is located beyond the 3-kilometer radius.
November 12, 2013 – KAMCHATKA – A 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula on Tuesday. No one was injured in the quake, which struck at about 7 p.m. local time (11 a.m. Moscow time), the region’s Emergencies Ministry said, but emergency workers are surveying buildings in the area to check for damage. The earthquake shook the ground on the peninsula up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the epicenter, according to the local geophysical center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but did not cause a tsunami. Earthquake severity in most former Soviet states is measured on the Richter magnitude scale, which quantifies the amount of seismic energy released by the tremors. Earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.0 to 6.9 are considered strong, potentially causing damage in populated areas within a 160-kilometer (100-mile) radius. -RIA
November 11, 2013 – SPACE – Something is up with the sun. Scientists say that solar activity is stranger than in a century or more, with the sun producing barely half the number of sunspots as expected and its magnetic poles oddly out of sync. The sun generates immense magnetic fields as it spins. Sunspots—often broader in diameter than Earth—mark areas of intense magnetic force that brew disruptive solar storms. These storms may abruptly lash their charged particles across millions of miles of space toward Earth, where they can short-circuit satellites, smother cellular signals or damage electrical systems. Based on historical records, astronomers say the sun this fall ought to be nearing the explosive climax of its approximate 11-year cycle of activity—the so-called solar maximum. But this peak is “a total punk,” said Jonathan Cirtain, who works at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as project scientist for the Japanese satellite Hinode, which maps solar magnetic fields. “I would say it is the weakest in 200 years,” said David Hathaway, head of the solar physics group at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Researchers are puzzled. They can’t tell if the lull is temporary or the onset of a decades-long decline, which might ease global warming a bit by altering the sun’s brightness or the wavelengths of its light.
November 11, 2013 – VIETNAM - Typhoon Haiyan continued on its destructive path into Vietnam and China Monday, although it had weakened slightly and was later downgraded to a tropical storm. At least 14 people were killed and 81 injured in Vietnam according to the Voice of Vietnam, the country’s national radio broadcaster. Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said at least nine people had died and seven were missing in Hainan and Guangxi provinces. Gusts of up to 74 mph also left thousands without power, uprooted trees and ripped billboards from their stands after the storm slammed into Vietnam at around 3 a.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) the station reported. The storm may be the most violent to ever make landfall. Power is out and both water and food are in short supply. NBC’s Angus Walker reports. The storm made landfall near the city of Cam Pha in Vietnam, a small city about 100 miles east of Hanoi according to Kevin Noth, a lead meteorologist at The Weather Channel, who called Haiyan the most powerful tropical cyclone of the year.
November 11, 2013 – CENTRAL AMERICA – Hundreds of sea turtles are washing up dead on the beaches of Central America and scientists don’t know why. One hypothesis is that the killer is a potent neurotoxin that can be produced by algae during red tides, which are large accumulations of algae that turn sea water red or brown. The puzzling thing, though, is that red tides have come and gone before without taking such a deadly toll on turtles. Making things worse, some o f the turtles dying are from endangered species. In El Salvador, for instance, from late September to the middle of October, 114 sea turtles were discovered dead on Pacific coast beaches, according to the environment ministry. They were black turtles (Chelonia agassizii), Olive Ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) and ones that are a cross between the two. Scientists throughout Central America are alarmed, and the only laboratory that specializes in these creatures is taking tissue and organ samples to figure out what is going on. The death toll in other countries is just as ugly — 115 so far this year in Guatemala, 280 in Costa Rica and an undisclosed number in Nicaragua. Another 200 died in late 2012 in Panama. And in Nicaragua there is yet another problem: turtles showed up weeks late, at the end of September, to crawl up onto the beach and lay their eggs.
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