Albert Einstein
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.4 OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU
5.2 KERMADEC ISLANDS REGION
Yesterday -
7/27/11 -
5.2 KEP. TANIMBAR REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.9 NORTHERN MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE
5.0 SOUTHEAST OF LOYALTY ISLANDS
5.3 EAST OF THE MARIANA ISLANDS
VOLCANOES -
ICELAND - Katla, one of Iceland's largest volcanoes, is showing increased signs of activity as observers today reported an increase in the strength of tell-tale earth tremors. A swarm of earthquakes struck the 9-mile wide volcano, a week after geophysicists warned of an “imminent danger” of an eruption on the island. The volcano is capable of producing four times the ash of Iceland’s last eruption in May.
Observers believe ‘UNUSUAL’ magma movement deep beneath Katla could signal the early stages of activity that could lead to a huge explosion. The depth of the latest earthquakes, which lasted for 5-and-half hours yesterday, was said to be 3.5km beneath the ground. The earthquake activity around Katla has now been steadily gaining strength over the past five weeks. Katla is known to have erupted 16 times over the past 1,000 years at intervals of 40–80 years. It has not significantly erupted for 92 years, although there may have been small eruptions that did not break the ice cover in 1955 and 1999.
Last year's eruption of Eyjafjallajökull triggered the mass closure of European air space as the resulting ash cloud was thought to pose a danger to aircraft engines. In the past 1,000 years, all three known eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull have triggered subsequent Katla eruptions. Geophysicists first reported Katla stirring in June when measuring devices picked up an increase in tremors. On July 9, the Icelandic authorities started evacuating villages around the volcano after the critical detection of gases – an observation flight over the glacier-topped crater also reported cracks in the ice, suggesting a large meltdown of the glacier on the south-eastern rim of the Katla crater.
CHILE - Ash from Chile's Puyehue volcano grounded flights until at least today at airports in the capitals of Uruguay and Argentina. Located in the Andes Mountains, the Puyehue volcano has been causing air travel nightmares since early June.
TROPICAL STORMS -
-TROPICAL STORM DON IS HEADING TOWARD THE CENTRAL GULF OF MEXICO. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR A LARGE PORTION OF TEXAS COAST.
-TROPICAL STORM NOCK-TEN was approximately 310 nm west-northwest of Manila, Philippines.
-TROPICAL STORM 11w (ELEVEN) was located approximately 455 nm west of Andersen AFB, Guam.
NOCK-TEN - The system will reach peak intensity just before landfall over Hainan Island, will then weaken as it travels over the terrain of the island. The system will re-emerge over the Gulf of Tonkin where it will re-intensify. It will make landfall for the last time over northern Vietnam, south of Hanoi, where it will begin to dissipate.
Five provinces in southern China have been alerted as tropical storm Nock-Ten, which killed at least 25 people in the Philippines, is approaching. Waist-deep flood waters swamped the houses of nearly half of the population of eastern Albay Province after Tropical Storm Nock-ten set off pounding rains in the Philippines beginning Monday.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
SOUTH KOREA - WORST STORM IN A CENTURY - Flash floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain have left 41 people dead and 12 missing in South Korea as of Thursday morning.
