Continuing large aftershocks in Japan, plus new quake locations -
5.2 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.0 LUZON, PHILIPPINES
5.1 TONGA
5.0 CATAMARCA, ARGENTINA
5.8 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
6.4 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Rising food prices could spark riots in the UK, senior economist warns. She has warned of civil unrest in Britain if food prices continue to soar. The UK is not immune to the kind of "food riots" seen in other countries around the world. "Even in the developed world I think we have very, very low wage growth, so people aren't getting more in their pay packet to compensate them for food and energy, and I think we could see social unrest certainly in parts of the developed world and the UK as well."
She went on to highlight the link between high food prices and the escalating cost of crude oil. "More and more we are seeing that some of these foodstuffs are actually substitutes for energy itself, particularly biofuels. So I think the energy markets are a significant contributor to these food price gain." The comments came as the United Nations warned the COST OF FOOD IS NOW AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL FOR 21 YEARS and SET TO RISE FURTHER. Food costs have gone up for eight months in a row, with the UK's National Farmers Union forecasting the trend will continue for the rest of 2011. The cost of basic foodstuffs has been caused by increasing demand and extreme weather destroying crops - and has been partly to blame for the unrest sweeping the Arab world, which in turn is putting pressure on oil prices.
Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe.
We are survivors.”
Robert Fulghum
LARGEST QUAKES -
Today -
5.2 NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA REGION
5.0 LUZON, PHILIPPINES
5.1 TONGA
5.0 CATAMARCA, ARGENTINA
5.8 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
6.4 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.2 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.6 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.7 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.3 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.5 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.7 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
7.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Yesterday -
3/8/11 -
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.1 OFF EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA
5.0 KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
5.1 OFF COAST OF OREGON
JAPAN - A major 7.2-magnitude offshore earthquake rattled Japan on Wednesday, swaying Tokyo buildings, triggering a small tsunami and reminding the nation of the ever-present threat of seismic disaster. Police reported no casualties or property damage, and operators of nuclear power plants and Shinkansen bullet trains quickly gave the all-clear, while the wave hitting the Pacific coast measured just 60 centimetres (24 inches).
The tremor struck in the late morning about 160 kilometres (100 miles) offshore and 430 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres below the Pacific seafloor. In greater Tokyo -- the world's most populous urban area with more than 30 million people -- the earthquake and a succession of tremors that quickly followed were uncomfortably felt as they shook buildings. Television channels immediately cancelled their programming to transmit information on the quake and a coastal tsunami advisory.
It soon became clear the quake had left Japan unscathed, but it was yet another uncomfortable reminder that the threat of "the Big One" is a reality of daily life. Japan, is located on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and dotted with volcanoes, and Tokyo is situated in one of its most dangerous areas. The mega-city sits on the intersection of three continental plates -- the Eurasian, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates -- which are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure. The government's Earthquake Research Committee warns of a 70 percent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The last time a "Big One" hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city. More recently, the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more then 6,400 people. Families are urged to keep quake survival kits at home, quake alerts can be sent via mobile phones and parks and schools are sign-posted as quake shelters. Nuclear power plants and bullet trains are designed to automatically shut down when the earth rumbles and many buildings have been quake-proofed with steel and ferro-concrete at great cost in recent decades.
TROPICAL STORMS -
No current tropical cyclones.
EXTREME HEAT & DROUGHT / WILDFIRES / CLIMATE CHANGE -
Polar ice melt accelerating rapidly. The pace at which the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting is "accelerating rapidly" and raising the global sea level, according to findings of a study financed by NASA. The findings suggest that the ice sheets - more so than ice loss from Earth's mountain glaciers and ice caps - have become "the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, MUCH SOONER than model forecasts have predicted".
This study, published yesterday, combined two decades of monthly satellite measurements with regional atmospheric climate model data to study changes in mass. "That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising - they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers. What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening." Under the current trends, sea level is likely to be "significantly higher" than levels projected by the United Nations climate change panel in 2007.
The ice sheets lose mass by melting or by breaking apart in blocks of ice, which float into the ocean. "It's related to the warming of the planet but that was not the point of the paper. We just observed the changes. It's losing mass - much more than was expected many years ago." The study showed that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for loss from mountain glaciers and ice caps are available, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost enough mass to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3mm per year. The year-on-year acceleration rate of loss on mountain glaciers and ice caps was three times smaller than that of the ice sheets.
"The authors conclude that, if current ice sheet melting rates continue for the next four decades, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15cm by 2050. When this is added to the predicted sea level contribution of 8cm from glacial ice caps and 9cm from ocean thermal expansion, total sea level rise could reach 12.6 inches (32 centimetres).
STRANGE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR -
CALIFORNIA - Dead fish, perhaps millions of them, collect in King Harbor. Redondo Beach's King Harbor is inundated with dead fish. Experts believe the sardines sought safe harbor from a storm, but consumed the oxygen in their small refuge.
SPACE WEATHER -
FAST CORONAL MASS EJECTION: A coronal mass ejection (CME) exploded from the vicinity of sunspot 1164 during the late hours of March 7th. It leapt away from the sun traveling ~2200 km/s, making it THE FASTEST CME SINCE Sept. 2005. A movie of the cloud prepared by the Naval Research Lab shows a POSSIBLY SUBSTANTIAL EARTH-DIRECTED component. This CME and at least one other could brush against Earth's magnetic field on March 9th or 10th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
