Georg Hegel
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
None 5.0 or higher.
Yesterday -
5/9/10 -
7.2 NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
5.5 KEPULAUAN BABAR, INDONESIA
5.0 SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
5.0 OFFSHORE BIO-BIO, CHILE
5.1 OFFSHORE BAJA CALIF. SUR, MEXICO
5/8/10 -
5.5 SULAWESI, INDONESIA
6.0 SUMBAWA REGION, INDONESIA
5.1 KURIL ISLANDS
5.2 TONGA
5.0 SOUTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5/7/20 -
5.0 TIMOR REGION, INDONESIA
5.7 NORTH OF HALMAHERA, INDONESIA
5.2 GUADELOUPE REGION, LEEWARD ISLANDS
5.1 OFF COAST OF OREGON
5.2 MID-INDIAN RIDGE
5.3 GUAM REGION
INDONESIA - Power is out and some homes are damaged after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake rattled Indonesia's North Sumatra province on Sunday. The afternoon quake hit 135 miles southeast of Banda Aceh at a depth of 38 miles. A 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit central Indonesia on Saturday.
VOLCANOES -
ICELAND - Volcanic ash is drifting across areas of France, Spain, Italy and Germany bringing more disruption to European air travel. Another, higher-level ash cloud is still hanging over the Atlantic, delaying flights between Europe and the US as jets divert around it. The ash cloud could disrupt UK airspace over the next few days. Croatia closed the airports of Split and Zadar on the Adriatic coast until further notice. In Portugal, the airport in the northern city of Porto was closed. The Irish Aviation Authority also ordered five airports in the west of the country to close on Sunday afternoon. Weather forecasters predicted the ash cloud would gradually weaken as it spread over southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria by Sunday night.
There was no evidence that the eruption was about to finish, the Icelandic Meteorological Office warned on Sunday. It said that "output from the volcano has been slowly decreasing" but that "further changes in overall activity can be expected...Presently there are no indications that the eruption is about to end." Recent images have shown activity in the volcano increasing and emitting ash up to 20,000ft (6,000m).
The Eyjafjallajökull volcano is starting to bulge out, or experience "significant changes in horizontal movement," according to volcanologists at the Icelandic Meteorological Office . Global positioning satellite stations placed around the volcano have been moving outwards over the last 48 hours [as of Friday.] It's not clear how big the bulge is as well as what it might mean for future eruptions. Between 20 and 30 earthquakes have been picked up beneath the ice cap since last Monday, at between one and 15 miles deep. This increased seismicity "suggests that new material is intruding from deep below Eyjafjallajökull and latest GPS-observations suggest inflation."
The eruption plume reached eight miles high at 4:55 p.m. Wednesday, Iceland time. The villages of Sólheimaheiði, Hjörleifshöfði and Álftaver up to 45 miles away experienced ash and debris falls. People living on farms south of the volcano were troubled during the night by loud noises from the volcano, and there were reports that people heard them up to 125 miles away to the west and northwest. There was less meltwater coming off of the Gígjökull glacier outlet into the Markarfljót river. The volcano's crater continues build up. The lava tongue flowing down the side of the crater is about 650 feet wide. The lava channels that join at the tongue are about 100 to 200 feet wide and getting wider every day.
The eruption has caused extensive damage to the glacier. For example, the glacial tongue Gígjökull has retreated up into the slopes from the lagoon it had extended into . “It is a so-called melt area. More ice is melting than what can be accumulated each year. What has saved the tongue until now is the ice that is being transferred from above. If there is little ice in the collecting area - and it takes a few decades for it to accumulate there - the lower part continues to shrink.” The tail of Gígjökull decreased by up to eight meters per year before the eruption because relocation of ice from the main glacier wasn’t sufficient to make up for the loss. “Now the outlook is even bleaker. When we take the principle, so to speak, it takes the glacier ten to 20 years to recover at an unchanged climate." What saved Eyjafjallajökull after the 1821-1823 eruption was an accumulation of snow during the “Little Ice Age.”
JAPAN - Something is brewing under Japan's Mount Fuji. Using rocks ejected by previous eruptions between 781 AD and 1707, geologists are figuring out what the volcano's internal plumbing looks like. A team has found that over the centuries the magma's silica levels have gradually increased. High silica tends to indicate large explosions, suggesting eruptions have become more violent. Large amounts of basalt rich in aluminium oxide were also found, which can trigger an eruption when it collides with silica. Based on the pressures required to form both materials, they believe the two mineral composites are housed in separate chambers under Fuji: one deep chamber 20 kilometres below the volcano, rich in basaltic magma, and a shallower chamber housing the silica 9 kilometres underground. The deep rumble of low-frequency earthquakes beneath Fuji in 2000 and 2001 suggests movement inside the basaltic magma chamber, and they would not be surprised if Fuji erupts in the very near future. Not everyone agrees. For an eruption, new basaltic magma from deeper underground must intrude into the existing basaltic chamber, pushing it towards the silica, and we simply don't know if that is happening.
TSUNAMI / FREAK WAVES / ABNORMAL TIDES / RISING SEA LEVELS -
INDONESIA - An earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck offshore near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, near Aceh province. The site is very near that of 2004's 9.2 magnitude earthquake in which 220,000 people were killed. The quake struck 214km (133 miles) south of Aceh's capital of Banda Aceh. Some houses were damaged and power lines knocked down. A local tsunami alert was issued and later lifted by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The epicentre of the latest quake was at a depth of 61.4km, about 66km (41 miles) south-west of Meulaboh district. The district, and other parts of Aceh, were devastated in the 26 December 2004 earthquake.
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.
HEAVY RAINS, SEVERE STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
INDIA - A powerful storm has killed at least 54 people in northern and eastern India. The storm packed strong winds that ripped through parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states on Friday. Authorities have confirmed 29 deaths in Uttar Pradesh and 25 in neighboring Bihar. The storm lashed at least 10 districts of Uttar Pradesh. Many of the deaths were blamed on lightning strikes and falling trees.In Bihar, raging winds overturned a bus. "It was like a cyclone." Experts are examining the nature of the storm. Authorities in both states had not yet estimated the damage to homes and infrastructure, but officials in Bihar said they feared it could be extensive in their state. A violent storm last month killed at least 122 people in eastern India along the border with Bangladesh. About 300,000 homes were damaged when a cyclone struck parts of West Bengal and Bihar states April 14.
SPACE WEATHER -
A disturbance in the solar wind - High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on May 11th. That's when a disturbance in the solar wind (a "co-rotating interaction region") is expected to move past our planet and possibly disturb polar magnetic fields. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of geomagnetic activity. (Corotating Interaction Regions are long lasting large-scale plasma structures generated in low and middle latitude regions of the heliosphere by the interaction of a stable fast solar wind stream with the surrounding slow solar wind.)
This weekend, magnetic fields around sunspot 1069 became unstable and erupted -- over and over again. On May 8th alone, the active region produced more than half a dozen flares. Plasma plumes accelerating out of the blast site are filled with magnetized gas hotter than 80,000 K and are big enough to swallow Earth itself. Earth was not, however, in the line of fire, so we will feel no geomagnetic effects from these events. Instigating sunspot 1069 has now rotated over the sun's western horizon, out of sight of Earth. (video)
A pair of impressive eruptions occurred on the Sun on May 5th: one sent a "solar tsunami" rippling through the sun's atmosphere and one propelled a massive magnetic filament off the sun's southwestern limb. Also on May 5th, a pair of solar flares bathed Earth's upper atmosphere in X-rays and caused a double-wave of ionization to sweep over the Americas. This improved the propagation of low-frequency radio signals, which use the ionosphere as a reflector to skip over the horizon.
HEALTH THREATS -
Sporadic global H1N1 activity - The most active areas of pandemic H1N1 flu are parts of West Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. In the Americas, limited data suggest transmission in Guatemala, Cuba, and Peru, with Chile reporting evidence of low-level community H1N1 circulation, including some severe cases. Activity remains sporadic in other Southern Hemisphere regions. Seasonal type B flu was detected sporadically across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
US flu activity remains low - Influenza activity across the United States continues to decline, with the proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza below the epidemic threshold. The proportion of outpatient visits for flu-like illness was 0.7%, below the national baseline of 2.3%. Of the eight influenza A viruses subtyped, all were novel H1N1. One pediatric H1N1 death was reported. Four states had local flu activity, and 30 states or territories reported sporadic activity.
Australian state running low on seasonal vaccine - Supplies of seasonal influenza vaccine, which contains the pandemic strain, are running low in Australia's second most populous state, Victoria. Australia's CSL, which makes most of the country's flu vaccine, rushed new doses to wholesalers to help meet demand, which has remained high even after the country banned use of the vaccine in those under 5 years old after some had adverse events. CSL warned that more shortages may loom.
