Geology News - Earth Science Current Events

Image by USGS

A very large sinkhole collapsed suddenly in Guatemala City, taking several homes and vehicles with it. Three people have been reported missing. Photos of the collapse published at ordena.com show an amazing circular cavity that appears to be about 80 feet across. Local reports say that it is over 300 feet deep. The collapse is thought to have been triggered by recent rains and a ruptured sewage main, but with a hole this size it is obvious that the area is underlain by massive caverns. Some residents reported hearing noises and feeling vibrations in the area for about a month. Over 1000 homes have been evacuated in the area over fears of additional subsidence. For location reference see our Map of Guatemala.

Labels: Subsidence

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Publication Cover

The Actuarial Foundation and the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes have published: If Disaster Strikes - Will You Be Covered? They call it "A homeowner's insurance guide to natural disasters".

This publication starts with the basics and provides background information on earthquake, flood, hail, hurricane, lightning, power outage, tornado, wildfire and winter freeze hazards. Other subjects covered include: details on the types of insurance available, sources of insurance, what is covered by the typical policy, how much insurance is enough, discounts, deductibles, premium reduction strategies, how to file an insurance claim, record keeping, understanding your policy and more.

Most importantly, the publication contains a large amount of information on hazard mitigation.

Copies of the publication are free and available online at the flash.org website. It is a large .pdf file and may require a short wait during download.
http://flash.org/pdf/7-13-06FLASH_Insurance_Guide.pdf

Labels: Books-Publications

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Image by USGS

The US Geological Survey has released a series of Orthorectified Landsat 7 images of all 50 states. These images are high resolution .tiff files that are suitable for plotting at poster size. File sizes range from 14 to 75 megabytes.

A low resolution image for Arizona can be seen at right. The images are colorful state cut-outs on a black background with county boundaries, state flag, scale and latitude/longitude grid.

Acquisition dates for the image data is 2000 (+/- one year) - all Landsat scenes were acquired between 1999 and 2001. The images are terrain corrected and rendered in a Universal Transverse Mercator projection.

Information about how to obtain the image files can be obtained at the Earth Resources Observation and Science area of the USGS website.

Related information on Geology.com - State Satellite Images, World Country Satellite Images and US City Satellite Images

Labels: Geography, Satellite-Images

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Round-up of Earth Science News from Other Websites (The links below will take you to those sites.)

California's Levees Vulnerable to Breach:   An article by Steve Inskeep on the NPR website points to levee deterioration, subsidence and flooding problems in the Sacramento, California area. Also see a previous story Levee Hazards in Central and Northern California on Geology.com.

Science, Catastrophe Risk Models and Insurance:   Commentary by Richard Murnane on how geoscience information can play an important role in the insurance industry.

Large Lakes Detected Beneath Antarctic Ice:   An article by Deborah Zabarenko at Yahoo News tells about large lakes of liquid water beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

USGS says no hush orders given:   Some people are saying that USGS is being censored by the Bush Administration on important earth science topics. This short article has quotes from several who disagree.

Climate report points finger at fossil fuels:   A "Web Extra" at the Geotimes website with a focus on the new report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Avalanches kill 5 in MT, UT and ID:   Three weekend avalanches killed four snowmobilers and one climber in Montana, Utah and Idaho.

Japan's New Disaster Alert System for Earthquake and Tsunami Events:   Japan started using a new satellite based communication system to send out alerts of earthquake and tsunami events. These alerts automatically activate alarms and broadcast systems, bypassing the need for local human actions.

Peru's Last Glaciers are Disappearing:   Peru has lost over 20% of its glacial cover since 1970.

Natural Gas Boom in North-Central Alabama:   The "Big Canoe Creek Field" beneath St. Clair County is thought to contain billions of cubic feet of natural gas.

Ancient Supervolcano Rocked Washington State:   A National Geographic article about a major volcanic eruption that happened in the Cascades area about 3.7 million years ago.

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One of the best learning documents for global climate change is available at the Manchester Metropolitan University website. Their Global Climate Change Student Guide provides a comprehensive overview of this important subject. The contents of their guide consist of...

• Introduction
• Climate System
• Causes of Climate Change
• Empirical Study of Climate
• Climate Modeling
• Palaeoclimatic Change
• Contemporary Climate Change
• Epilogue

(From Chapter 1) The overall state of the of the global climate is determined by the balance of solar and terrestrial radiation budgets. How this energy balance is regulated depends upon the fluxes of energy, moisture, mass and momentum within global climate system, made up of its 5 components, the atmosphere, the oceans, the cryosphere, the biosphere and the geosphere.

Arguably there is a sixth component, an anthropogenic system, mankind. In the last 200 years, through increased utilization of the world's resources, humans have begun to influence the global climate system, primarily by increasing the Earth's natural greenhouse effect.

(From Chapter 6) If climate model projections prove to be even moderately accurate, global temperatures by the end of the next century will be higher than at any time during the last 120,000 years.... Failure to introduce some form of global greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy will merely extend the time frame of anthropogenic global warming that humanity may already be witnessing.

I believe that this document is worth the attention of anyone interested in learning more about global climate change. As shown in the quote above it addresses the many causes of global climate change and provides a projection for the future. Read the Global Climate Change Student Guide at the Manchester Metropolitan University website.

Labels: Global-Warming, Meteorology, Oceanography

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NASA Climate Change Animation - click image to view.

NASA reports that 2006 was the fifth warmest year on record and 2007 will likely be even warmer - possibly the warmest year in the history of instrumental measurements. Over the past 30 years Earth has warmed by about 0.6 degrees Centigrade or 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit.

NASA has documented this increase with an animation. The first and last frames of their climate change animation can be seen in the image at right. It shows the increase in annual mean temperature in one year increments between 1880 and 2006.

When watching the animation you will see that temperatures have warmed at nearly all locations worldwide and that the greatest temperature changes have occurred in very high latitudes. Since the largest changes have occurred in areas where there are very few people this suggests that the warming is not due to local effects of heat pollution by people, but is instead a global climate change. A graph of global-mean surface temperature change for the same time period is shown in the graph below.

"Climate Change" Graph - Image by NASA

Labels: Arctic-Antarctic, Global-Warming

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Eric Calais (Purdue University), Ming Wang (Institute for Geology and Earthquake Science, China) and Zenghang Shen (IGES) are using GPS data to record the movement of surface locations in the area where the Indian and Eurasian plates are in collision. Some of their data is shown in the map below.

Map illustrating horizontal surface motions of sites in Asia, determined with the use of global positioning systems, in response to collisions of the underlying tectonic plates.

The movement patterns in this data alone are interesting but Calais, Wang and Shen are using them to learn if lithospheric plates behave in a strong and rigid manner or in a weak and viscous manner. The answer is surprising and you can read more at the Purdue Website.

Labels: GPS-GIS, Plate-Tectonics

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Image by lanl.gov

The warm weather experienced in the eastern United States early this winter had many people talking about climate change. Here is an interesting quote on that subject from the USGS website...

Let’s set the record straight! Record warm temperatures are being set in the eastern United States. The mild weather conditions for much of the country this winter have some pointing a finger at climate change. However, weather and climate are not the same. Weather is the state of the atmosphere (i.e. temperature, precipitation, wind) for a particular time and place. Climate is the average weather conditions for a place over a longer period of time.

The Earth's climate patterns are constantly changing. Anyone who has heard of "The Great Ice Age" knows that. And our climate has warmed enough within the past two decades that the National Arbor Day Foundation has updated their Hardiness zone map - shifting major portions of the US one zone warmer and some areas two zones.


Hardiness Map by arborday.org - (Creative Commons Image)
Although the warm temperatures of early winter in the east are really a result of the "weather", we are living in a time when the average global temperature is increasing - and that increase will cause major problems for society if it continues. It doesn't matter if the driving force of this increase is natural or human. The actions of people have kicked it up a notch mainly through their extensive use of fossil fuels.

Reducing our consumption of these fuels will make that resource last longer and reduce our impact of the global temperature rise. It's a no-brainer.

Labels: Global-Warming

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Report Cover

The Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research have published Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2007. This publication highlights recent and planned research conducted by a number of federal agencies. Summaries for each of the following categories (and others) are included:

• Atmospheric Composition
• Climate Variability and Change
• Global Water Cycle
• Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
• Global Carbon Cycle
• Ecosystems
• Observing and Monitoring the Climate System

This is a large .pdf document of over 200 pages. Copies of Our Changing Planet can be downloaded at the US Global Change Research Program website.

Labels: Global-Warming

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