Earth news

Big, Bad Summer Thunderstorms Caused By Volcanoes

August 10, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

This has been an extraordinary summer for frequent, heavy downpours here in New York. Not to mention, many other places in the temperate zones including Siberia and Alaska. I have been monitoring the rain an the average rainfall has been half an inch to 3 inches per hour. The raindrops have been huge! These storms have lots of hail, too. It nearly flattened my poor garden this week and it killed my bees. Time to talk about volcanoes and wet, cool summers or extremely snowy winters.

First, pictures from last week's huge storm that dumped several inches in less than an hour:

Like all the storms this summer, the worst came in the late afternoon. Fed by the sun, these afternoon blasts of rain feature a great deal of lightning, too. A number of people this summer have been killed by lightning in the Northeast. Normally, we have far fewer such deaths here. Well, the numbers of people killed is astonishing when we consider how few outdoors activities have been running this summer thanks to these storms! The race track in Saratoga had to be closed due to the rain washing out the tracks this last week.

Amtrak, the poor US train service, some of the worst on earth, got even worse thanks to the tracks being washed out. My apricot tree's fruits burst with juices from the excess rain. The tomato plants become very heavy with big fruits and then were smashed in a storm two days ago that features half an inch of rain in less than 15 minutes! I couldn't believe it! We know of the floods in the Midwest this summer but few people know that Fairbanks, Alaska, just for example, had a flood. My brother-in-law there told us this summer has been extremely dark and cloudy and wet.

This storm came from the west. We can see the waves of rain beginning to obscure the Renssalaer Plateau.

I poked the camera out of the side door to snap this picture showing the heart of the storm as it roared in on that August 2nd afternoon. It was extremely dark.

None of these storms are very long. But they are all very nasty. They washed out my road as well as many main roads not once but repeatedly.

We have had a number of rainbows! Sometimes, several a day.

And this is the sunset: yet another storm approaching. Day and night, we have had them. In an hour, another one approaches today, as I post this story as fast as I can! The question is, why these storms this summer? What is possibly triggering them?

Chaitén Volcano

On Friday, May 2, 2008, Chaitén Volcano in southeastern Chile erupted for the first time since about 7400 BC. Its initial eruption produced a plume of volcanic ash and steam that rose nearly 17 kilometers high. Winds carried the plume east, over the Andes Mountains and into Argentina. The plume then drifted out over the over the Atlantic Ocean. It was visible on satellite images for hundreds of kilometers over the Atlantic. The volcano shows continued activity and produced additional ash plumes.

Below is a spectacular picture showing the interaction of lightning and volcanic eruptions:

Here is the satellite photo showing the huge plume:

It could be the scene from a movie: huge plumes of ash and gas rising during a ferocious volcanic eruption, sparking off a dazzling lightning storm; lightning bolts thundering to life inside and out of the hot cloud. However, this is the reality down on the ground for the people living near the Chaiten Volcano, southern Chile, who have been evacuated since the volcano erupted on Friday. Activity continues to increase, producing these terrifying, yet mesmerizing scenes…

All my childhood, my parents raised all of us kids to spot volcanic ash and gases in the high stratosphere. It is pretty simple: you look straight up at the zenith at sunset. If it is lit up with a very faint but obvious purple/red hazy glow that is UNIFORM across the entire sky, this means the high stratosphere is lit up by the presence of particulate matter. Also, on a moonless night, the stars are obscured uniformly across the entire sky when the wind is blowing from the north so there is no lower atmospheric interference like fog or low clouds.

The other day, as I was rushing to repair the road at sunset, as several storms passed nearby and disappeared like great sailing ships, golden, pink sails towering over the mountains, I looked straight up as darkness fell. And there it was: the typical highlights in the heavens from volcanic dust! A number of astronomers and climatologists now understand the connection between volcanic activity that is very 'dirty' and weather conditions.

Not all volcanoes affect the high stratosphere or create lots of rain. Indeed, some volcanoes that were not all that famous created tremendous havoc due to the extremely dirty nature of the eruptions. For example, the French Revolution was triggered by the failure of many crops in France and indeed, all of Europe due to a very dirty and extremely dangerous volcano in Iceland. It dropped poisons in the form of heavy rain. This was eaten by the sheep and cows and passed along the food chain. It also destroyed the fruitfulness of crops. Dangerous, poisonous rust viruses hit wheat and rye crops very hard.

While looking for information, I found this very recent news story in a geology magazine:

Novarupta
The Most Powerful Volcanic Eruption of the 20th Century

June 6th, 1912

The morning of June 6th arrived on the Alaska peninsula to find the area which is now Katmai National Monument being shaken by numerous strong, shallow earthquakes. The most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th Century was about to begin – but very few people knew about it. The Alaska peninsula has a low population density today but it 1912 it was even lower. Beyond the land shaken by the earthquake activity the beginnings of this event were almost unnoticed.

The volcano wasn't noticed but farmers soon noticed something was very, very wrong. Here is a British community site talking about that summer. No one understood, this was due to a volcanic eruption:

From an European weather forum:

Continental winds in summer usually mean heatwaves but here is an example of a freak event... Here is a cold continental flow on 3rd August 1912.

This brought one of the coldest CET daily means on record for August.
******************************************************

The 3rd August 1912 recorded a daily CET mean of only 10.5C.

This was due to a very cool daily CET maximum of 15.7C on the 3rd August 1912 offset by a very cool daily CET minimum of 5.2C on the 3rd August 1912

It was very apt indeed that August 1912 was the coldest on record in the CET zone with a CET of only 12.9C.
*****************************************************

Yes, a surprising cold day. My guess is that cold Arctic air must have stabililsed over Europe, meaning that a south-easterly would have to be very deep in order for it not to suck up cold air. August 1986 was similar- frequent northerly winds bringing cold air into the near Continent.

Most of the rest of August 1912, though, wasn't dominated by a continental flow, but rather frequent westerly and northerly winds with deep lows regularly tracking over central areas bringing very dull cold wet weather.

1912 in Durham was ridiculous for its lack of sunshine. The year didn't even make 1000 hours of sunshine (the long-term average is 1300-1400 hours), the summer had half the average sunshine, and August, with 57 hours, barely one-third of the average. Putting it into perspective, the entire of 2003 failed to produce a month with a lower sunshine total!

******************************************************
A couple of reports

Lampeter on the 2nd of August: Severe frost blackened all dahlias and delicate flowers
Instow: An exposed thermometer registered 4 degrees of frost
Shrewsbury on the 3rd: Frost on grass

The heavy rains we are seeing today could possibly be from the moisture in the atmosphere gathering around these fluffy pieces of volcanic ash and coming crashing down in extremely large rain drops. Since the volcano is still pumping away, I am preparing for a very, very snowy winter. When the volcano in the Philippines blew up in the early 1990's, we had epic snow here. My tent was totally buried in snow. My son would take his sled on top and slide down again. We had to dig a tunnel from the front door upwards to the snow banks that were overhead. My son's school had a record number of snow days.

This year could end up the same way. This is, on the other hand, taking off pressure from the Atlantic hurricane cycle. If there was no volcanic action this year, we would have an epic hurricane summer. Instead, I think we will have a blizzard-winter. I take no chances. I must prepare for this!

Click here to see the amazing video!

Well, this is just about the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It's a lightning bolt that's shooting down from the sky, shot in slow motion. I'm not sure exactly how fast this camera is, but it's got to be shooting at a speed faster than the Casio EX-F1 can shoot at, at least at a resolution this high. Whatever, who cares? Just watch this and prepare to be blown away.

I have been hit directly several times. Each time, it is as if reality suddenly is in super-slow motion. I have actually seen the 'weave' within a lightning bolt close up, like in my hands or going into my chest. It is very colorful: pink, yellow, blue and translucent white. Very much like the inside of a sea shell. This might be less than a blink of an eye but from my point of view, it is nearly eternity.

When we see photos or films of lightning bolts, the flash overwhelms everything and you can't see the fine filagree of the bolt's inner body. This slow-mo shot of a huge bolt is great because it confirms to me that I actually 'see' lightning bolts that are about to hit me. Note how the bolt sends out a fine net of littler strands across the landscape? Then, one of the strands becomes the 'anchor' and the flash between it and the clouds is like the filament of a lightbuld suddenly brightening. This is the 'flash'. It is SIMULTANEOUS.

I was stunned by the when I was a child and was hit. For I was convinced that the oak tree, the clouds and I first made 'contact' which was more like we were all united in this one system and I could FEEL it! Then, to my horror, the differentials between my electronic situation, the tree's root system in the wet ground coupled with the branches of the tree itself which echoed the beginning 'search' of the bolt, spread outwards, all this got concentrated in ONE LINE that terminated in me and connected me to the Heavens.

Then, when it actually was activated, it was not this brilliant flash but rather, like the Norns weaving their web of Fate. And I was pitched into the Outer Darkness. Frankly, it is a relief to me to see in action what I have experienced directly. For it is hard to grope with words to describe this business. Survivors of lightning strikes often report a religious or mental change that often releases great creativity or energetic changes in one's likes and dislikes. I have very little idea of what I was like before the strike hit. I do know that my ability to appreciate, understand and analyze music, art and dance shot upwards. Alas, I am not a great artist or dancer or musician. But it was fun, doing these things in the past.

Today, in the news, the NYT talks about a drought that seems to disturb the Zionists who have made a huge thing about how god loves them because they made the desert bloom as they plant totally inappropriate crops for that region. Now, this drought is making the scheme to grow Northern European crops. All over Israel, they are chopping down ancient olive groves and planting as if this is Germany or the Russian Steppes or California.

Can Israel Find the Water It Needs?

A SOUVENIR in the corner of Doron Ovits’s office attests to the challenges of farming in Israel.

It’s a mangled piece of metal, and Mr. Ovits says it came from a rocket that landed in a field recently, lobbed from the nearby Gaza Strip.

But Mr. Ovits may have a bigger long-term problem than rockets.

Israel is running short of water. A growing population and rising incomes have increased demand for fresh water, while a four-year drought has created what Shalom Simhon, the agriculture minister, calls “a deep water crisis.”

This long article doesn't mention the poor Palestinians who lived in harmony with the natural forces of available rain and well water for centuries. They are cut out of the water stream as much as possible and are allowed to use a fraction of the water the Jews bequeath to themselves. This reminds me of Darfur, actually. Very, very similar. Funny, the NYT and the other Zionist media outlets are outraged about Darfur when it is an exact mirror of Palestine.

Here is an older story about the outrageous benefits the Jews give themselves vis a vis their neighbors, who they hate with a passion and wish dead:

18 August 1999—For more than 50 years, water has been a source of conflict between Israel and its neighbors, especially the Palestinians. Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are in the midst of an acute water crisis brought about not simply by the area’s naturally arid conditions or the current drought, but primarily by the maldistribution of water imposed by Israel, which controls Palestinian water resources.

Currently, Israel consumes more than 80 percent of Palestinian ground water and denies Palestinians their rightful utilization of the Jordan River. Israel allocates Palestinians 93 million cubic meters (mcm) per year for industrial use, and 153 mcm per year for agricultural use, leaving per capita consumption for domestic use at less than 30 cubic meters per year. Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories are consuming Palestinian water at the rate of more than 75 mcm per year. On an annual, per capita basis, Israelis consume more than four times as much water as Palestinians.

In the entire world, as global warming was drying up large tracts of land like much of Australia or Northern Mexico and the US Southeast, worries about droughts grew. But I have said in the past, all it takes is one very dirty volcanic eruption anywhere on earth and voila! Droughts are fewer and rain comes down, massively and in ways we don't like all that much.

And this reminds me of something else: volcanic eruptions that are very dirty trigger many wars and revolutions. Just like the one in 1912.

NEW STORY:

From 13 WHAM News website in Rochester,NY:

13WHAM Chief Meteorologist Glenn Johnson says it is highly unusual for waterspouts to develop this early in the year. Waterspouts do not normally occur over Lake Ontario, however, until October or November when the air temperature is cooler.

“Waterspouts take place when cool air crosses over warm water. The air temperature is near freezing about 8,000 or 9,000 feet up, which is not very high. When this cold air moves over 70-degree Lake Ontario water, the warm water will want to rise. The atmosphere becomes unstable and then we find lift,” says Johnson.

Note that this is yet more proof that the volcanic dust is cooling off the temperate belt across the planet. Just like the blizzard in the Alps last month where all those runners died. The Global Warming debate gets all messed up over volcanic eruptions jiggering the data. People who hope we can pollute with impunity are very anxious to ignore pollution's role in shaping our climate.

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Dr. Abbott's TV Show About LA Earthquakes

July 30, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Here is an excellent TV show about the possible outcomes of various earthquakes in California. It is extremely informative. Professor Abbott mentions water, gas and power that runs across several very major earthquake fault zones including the biggest water/energy/travel systems criss cross the San Andreas. All Californian residents must learn from the past. One of my sisters would have died in the Northridge quake because her apartment building pancaked. But she was sleeping elsewhere that fateful night.

Here is a CNN screen shot showing the epicenter of today's quake. Note the suburban houses and the golf course that are right on top of this pressure point shoving things upwards! The professor in the video talks about all this.

Through live-action demonstrations and vivid animations, Dr. Pat Abbott explains how earthquakes have shaped the scenery and the character of the greater Los Angeles area. Dr. Abbott shows how faults capable of large earthquakes lie beneath most of the area, posing great risk to the millions of people living in earthquake country. Animations illustrate how and why earthquakes happen, how mountains and valleys have formed as a result, how the ground will shake in large earthquakes, and why this shaking is so destructive to buildings. Dr. Abbott also shows how to evaluate your home for earthquake safety and explains how to reduce the devastating effects of earthquakes. This video is part of Dr. Abbott's "Written in Stone" series.

The earthquake expert, Dr. Lucy Stone, is playing one of my favorite instruments, the Viola De Gamba.

In today's CNN news, a mother recorded how a huge TV screen nearly fell on her and her baby. Securing it with straps would have prevented a potential tragedy.

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Whittier Earthquake Shakes LA Basin

July 29, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

For the last three months, up and down the entire West coast from Panama to Alaska, there have been an increasingly violent series of earthquakes. This is mostly due to the havoc created by the fastest moving continent on earth: Australia. Must be those kangaroos who are at fault, eh? There have been quite a few very violent mass quake events like the recent collapse of part of the lithosphere in Sichuan, China. The Great Boxing Day Quake in Indonesia is perhaps the opening shot in a major planetary rearranging of the tectonic furniture. Today, Los Angeles was shaken up with a medium sized earthquake in one of the hardest to detect or examine upthrust/folds, the Whittier area upthrust region. This all has to do with the basin geology of Los Angeles.

IRIS, the official government geologist system:

The greater Los Angeles area earthquake of 29 July 2008, 11:42 PDT (18:42 UTC), was centered in the hills south of Diamond Bar and Chino Hills. An early analysis of the earthquake's focal mechanism implies that the shock originated as the result of oblique-reverse faulting, in which a block of crust is thrust up and over the crust on the opposite side of the fault and also moves sideways with respect to the crust on the opposite side of the fault. This style of faulting is intermediate between pure reverse faulting and pure strike-slip faulting. The epicenter is in a region of the greater Los Angeles area in which both significant reverse faulting (the Puente Hills thrust) and right-lateral strike-slip faulting (the Whittier fault) have been documented. The early focal-mechanism is thus consistent with the shock having occurred as the result of stresses similar to those which produced previously mapped faults in the earthquake region. At present, however, the shock has not been associated with a specific geologically mapped fault.

The 29 July 2008 was situated about 30 km east-southeast of the Whittier Narrows earthquake of 1 October 1987, which had a magnitude of 6 and which produced over $358 million in damages. The Whittier Narrows earthquake occurred as the result of thrust-faulting (reverse-faulting on a shallowly dipping plane) on the Puente Hills thrust.

USGS:

The last six months, the southern half of California has been having many multiple low-level earthquakes. The middle sector of the San Andreas complex system has been totally still. Not so much as the slightest detectible tremor. Like a virgin in a chastity belt, the middle of California is like Sleeping Beauty only when this Princess wakens, she is Kali, the Destroyer. For the last month, the cluster of earthquakes off of Oregon have been rising in velocity and power. A goodly series of violent shakes just this last week is a sign, the Pacific Plate is pushing very hard and something is rather stuck. Instead of a big quake and then smaller and smaller ones, we are seeing bigger and bigger ones. Each session is greater in violence than the earlier sessions. Volcanos, for example, work this way. And most emphatically, Oregon and Washington are both very active volcanic states!

Back to Southern California:

Looking at this chart of today's first quake and the after shakes, one might suggest this is more like a toothpaste tube being squeezed hard. The major forces at work are the Pacific Plate and the North American continent itself. California has a much more unstable geology than say, Japan. The complex slip-faults, folds, tears, collapsed sections, as well as volcanoes and uplift granite mountains, volcanic rifts: California has it all. Japan is being formed by Australia and India which are on one giant plate, shoving very hard on all of Asia, slowly wrapping around Asia. This is causing strings of volcanoes to grow and form archipelagos. The US West Coast is where several non-North American plates are being squeezed like crazy by the huge Pacific Plate and the North American continent. The battle of these behemoths means there are many violent restructuring of the landscape at regular intervals.

Of all places on earth, California is the worst for putting up very, very expensive houses and very, very large cities. The vast expense of this vast expanse means the US is constantly teetering on the edge of financial doom. We saw how Sichuan, China, suffered. The vast landslides as well as the shaking killed many thousands of people and rendered many communities uninhabitable. Sichuan, China is also very interesting because it is a huge basin like the Central Valley of California and the Los Angeles Basin. I notice that where there is huge, constant uplift mountain building, right smack dab in the center there is often these mysterious basins and depressions, some of them quite gigantic. Like the Tibetan Plateau. It is a depression right next to the world's tallest mountain ranges!

Some geologists think that when continental collisions like the one of India slamming into China, cause the lithosphere to get these radiational cracks that go straight down. So perhaps, as the squeeze pushes up a ring of mountains, the center does the exact opposite. It breaks and falls. This is why the foothills surrounding the LA Basin are rising more and more, a detectable rise while the basin itself continues to subside! One very spectacular example of a basin/sink area is the Hudson Bay in Canada. It is nearly totally circular in shape. I suppose this is due to the lack of recent mountain building that can deform it by 'squeezing' it like the Central Valley in Chile and the Central Valley in the US.

Here is a map from Cliffshade of Colorado which I heavily edited:

Note how some of these big basins are nearly circular. Eventually, Japan will encroach on the edges of the Sea of Japan basin and cut it off from the Pacific Ocean. It will become first like that huge basin we call the Mediterranean Sea or the somewhat smaller Black Sea. Periodically in geological history, the Mediterranean Sea has dried up and it becomes a huge Death Valley like...Death Valley or the Dead Sea. If Japan does cut off the ocean from the Japan Sea Basin, it too, would dry up and become very similar to Death Valley. Note how Death Valley, by the way, it sinking and eventually will become part of the Gulf of California. Less than 60 million years ago, there was no Gulf of California! Eventually, all of the Central Valley will be part of the Gulf of California as it continues to subside.

The Puente Hills Blind Thrust:
L.A.'s latest earthquake hazard find

ABS Consulting estimates that a Mw » 7 earthquake on the Puente Hills Thrust would cause in excess of $100 billion in damage. This is over double the damage in the 1994 Northridge (Mw 6.7) earthquake. Such an event, if credible, should not be ignored, especially if it can occur every 250 to 2000 years as postulated by Shaw and Shearer.
*snip*
Given the evidence presented by Shaw and Shearer, the Puente Hills Thrust clearly exists. However, the authors have to make many assumptions to postulate its downward extent and its potential "seismogenic" (earthquake-producing) capability. The fault is only defined to a depth of about 5 to 7 kilometers in the seismic profiles. At this point, the fault is confined to upper Tertiary-age sediments that are not believed to be seismogenic based on past earthquakes. They must extrapolate this fault to the depth of the Whittier Narrows earthquake to project it into harder rock which is believed to be capable of generating a significant earthquake. Furthermore, only part of the Sante Fe Springs segment is defined to this depth, making the projection of the other segments to seismogenic depth even more speculative. Given such a limited seismogenic rupture surface, the potential magnitude that this fault system could generate, even if extrapolated to the depth of the Whittier Narrows earthquake, would be smaller than the authors indicate.

The quantification of earthquake risk requires that the frequency as well as the size of a potential earthquake be known. If a fault generates an earthquake once every 100,000 years, then it does not pose much of a risk. The recurrence intervals suggested by Shaw and Shearer for the Puente Hills Thrust of 250 to 2000 years are short enough to make the fault a significant risk. However, these estimates are based on fault slip rates that are inferred from crustal deformations observed on the surface and could be quite inaccurate. Given the still speculative extent and seismogenic potential of the Puente Hills Thrust, ABS Consulting scientists believe that it would be irresponsible to include it in its earthquake risk model at this time. However, we will carefully monitor the developing information on this fault and will include it in our model as soon as the scientific community has reached a consensus on its geographic extent, seismogenic potential, and recurrence frequency.

It is always a gamble, insuring housing in California. That state has an amazing talent for trouble. Fire, water, earth and air: all seem to switch from friendly and happy to super-nasty and in a flash, too. There seems to not be some slow build up to a disaster like say, with a hurricane. Instead, these freakish, violent alterations in reality come often with little warning. We just know they come, they must come and they will come.

Insurance companies bet that they can make a big profit in between these many disasters. The problem with this philosophy is, California can have epic fires, massive floods AND a massive earthquake all in one year! It is all up to Mother Nature to decide. Indeed, the concept of a massive fire, water problems and earthquakes coinciding is not only possible but very likely. As we saw in the Great San Francisco Quake 100 years ago.

Scientists Predict $200B in Damage from Southern California Earthquake

May 22, 2008

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Geological Survey (CGS) have jointly published a report detailing a hypothetical scenario the impact a 7.8 magnitude earthquake — similar to the recent earthquake in China — would have in the Southern California region.

Scientists said an earthquake of that magnitude would cause loss of lives and massive damage to infrastructure, including critical transportation, power and water systems. They predicted the earthquake would kill 1,800 people, injure 50,000, cause $200 billion in damage, and have long-lasting social and economic consequences. Although imaginary, the Shakeout Scenario is based on USGS' and CGS' best predictions of what would actually occur during and after a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, the organizations said.

Among their predictions:

•The strongest shaking and greatest damage would occur near the stretch of the San Andreas Fault that extends through the fastest growing areas of Southern California, including the Coachella Valley, Inland Empire and Antelope Valley.

•At least 10 million people will be exposed to heavy shaking. California's efforts at mitigation have concentrated on life safety and have been largely successful. Thus, in spite of the large numbers of people in highly shaken areas, deaths are estimated at only 1,800.

More than that number died in Hurricane Katrina. The quake predictions for the San Andreas is totally false. The Whittier quakes might be this great, but if the middle of the San Andreas blows, it hasn't moved in several hundred years and is under extreme tension! That quake has a very good chance of being a +9 mag event. This is much, much, much more powerful than a mere 7.8 event. In China, much of the problem was due to whole mountainsides suddenly shifting from above to down into any and all valleys. In California, the hills surrounding LA are very steep, very unstable, very loose which is why it was so easy to build houses one above the other there and....guess what?

It just has to rain slightly too much in an El Nino winter and these stupid, ill-anchored houses go crashing down the hillsides! No earthquakes needed! IF we have earthquakes as violent as the recent group of quakes in China, whole sectors of suburbia will be jumbled under a mountain of dirt down on top of highways, malls and other houses! If this were to happen, and since LA is a basin exactly like Sichuan, China, the chances of this killing many, many, many people is VERY HIGH. Not low! My family has lived in California since the Gold Rush. I have climbed all over the place in my childhood.

Those hillsides and mountains covered with houses to day were, even in my youth, naked. My grandfather used to shake his head in dismay as he watched houses climb these steep canyons. 'They are all doomed,' he would inform me. Geeze, guess why I sound so doom-saying all the time! Heh.

The center of LA is right smack dab in the center of this basin that is falling. If the Big One blows out the middle of the state, I would not be very surprised if there are side quakes in this basin region. After all, Sichuan saw a series of +6 mag quakes run like a zipper northwards in a series of very violent sub-quakes!

California can't plan for just mere 7.8 quakes, they must be realistic about a +9 quake. The people who have been lured there should know the consequences. The real estate industry is totally and completely against this just like they refuse to follow fault line maps to avoid building directly on fault lines! I once lived in Berkeley and traced many of these major fault lines in the San Francisco BASIN...ah! It is like the LA Basin only it fell so far, it became part of the ocean, didn't it?

In Oakland, Berkeley, and further south: zillions of businesses, highways and houses are right smack dab on top of a major, very destructive fault line! This is PAINFULLY OBVIOUS. One fault line ends at the End Zone of the University of California's football stadium! Ye gads! 99% of the campus has been built since the last major blowout of this particular fault line. Everyone hopes Mother Nature won't come in, shrieking, ripping all these lovely buildings apart.

By the way, the West dearly loves to make fun of the Chinese all the time. 'Why, look at those schools that fell!' we taunt them. Well, a number of grade schools, high schools and a major university is just as vulnerable as any Chinese school! We should condemn all buildings built on major fault lines. I would love to see this and we will NEVER see this. Mother Nature gets to do all the demolition, with everyone inside, of course.

April 4, 2003: New Study Reveals the Behavior of the Puente Hills Thrust Fault

The good news, Dolan explained in interviews with local media, is that these findings show that it is several thousand years between devastating earthquakes on the Puente Hills fault. As just one of a few dozen major faults in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area, it doesn't add much to the overall seismic hazard of Los Angeles. The findings of Dolan's group will, however, help refine the seismic hazard assessment for the area; knowing the threat is the first step in managing it. Another plus: the methods developed during this research may be applied to other, similar areas of seismic hazard that are difficult to study using more conventional methods.
*snip*
The bad news, Dolan continued, is that when the Puente Hills thrust fault ruptures in an earthquake, it tends to do so in a very big way. Evidence from the new study, the first ever to probe the behavior of the Puente Hills fault, indicates that the four past earthquakes discovered along the fault had magnitudes between MW7.2 and 7.5 -- 10 to 15 times larger than the 1994 Northridge earthquake (MW6.7), the costliest earthquake disaster in U.S. history. In a magnitude 7 earthquake, not only would more energy be released, causing a larger area to experience damaging levels of shaking, but the shaking would last longer and more of the lower frequency seismic waves that affect tall buildings and other large structures would be generated.

"So, obviously, very large earthquakes this close to the high-rise district are of concern," Dolan said.

Worrisome, too, are the changes that would result from ground uplift during such an earthquake. According to Dolan, in a single magnitude 7 earthquake along the Puente Hills thrust fault, "USC would go up a meter or two relative to the area just south of the Los Angeles Coliseum. Downtown, and everything north of USC, would also be lifted by a meter or two." Adding to the bad news is the fact that the Puente Hills fault extends through the Los Angeles basin, a highly populated area made up of soft sediments that amplify shaking.

"This fault is in one of the worst places you could think of to put a fault of this size and geometry," Dolan said.

Some of these sediments, however, were the key to the study released this week. The Puente Hills thrust fault is "blind" because it never breaks through at the surface, instead producing folds in the rocks above it, which may sometimes be expressed as chain of low hills, raised up by successive earthquakes along the fault below. Each year, the Los Angeles basin is squeezed a few millimeters from north to south as tectonic plates of the Earth's crust carrying North America and part of the Pacific Ocean floor converge. This squeezing is accommodated by the many faults in and around the basin, which shift to release the energy of this compression as earthquakes.

Um, if the University of Southern California shoots upwards by three feet, I would strongly suggest the dirt on the surface will do what things do when they are jerked upwards faster than a speeding bullet: they have avalanches of dirt, houses, schools and cars. And trees. Everything slides downhill. This is because the earth doesn't move three feet like in a slow heave like in the most dangerous volcanic caldera on earth, Yellowstone as it snorts and snores itching to waken and devour several states.

No, this moves like the crack of a bullet from a gun: one second, you are listening to a boring lecture and texting your friends about what to eat at lunch, the next minute the ceiling is falling, the building is buckling as it slides towards the center of LA and glass windows of all the towers in LA are flying down onto the streets below, killing anyone caught out in the open or running out of violently shaking buildings...I have been in earthquakes. They certainly startle everyone and in general, people freeze in place. If they try to run, it is very difficult. In a major shake where say, USC jumps three feet, everyone will be falling down, not jumping along.

Recognition of Paleoearthquakes on the Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault, California

Borehole data from young sediments folded above the Puente Hills blind thrust fault beneath Los Angeles reveal that the folding extends to the surface as a discrete zone (145 meters wide). Buried fold scarps within an upward- narrowing zone of deformation, which extends from the upward termination of the thrust ramp at 3 kilometers depth to the surface, document the occurrence of at least four large (moment-magnitude 7.2 to 7.5) earthquakes on this fault during the past 11,000 years. Future events of this type pose a seismic hazard to metropolitan Los Angeles. Moreover, the methods developed in this study can be used to refine seismic hazard assessments of blind thrusts in other metropolitan regions.

Since LA is a classic basin caused by vast mountain building activity where two or more plates grind against each other, worse, since it is part of a multi-junction of plates not just pushing but sliding against each other, I would figure there are a host of unknown upthrust situations throughout this basin and one way to discover them is for there to be some major blow out event whereby a section of the San Andreas suddenly moves forwards, northwards, by over 30 feet in one split second. That would be on par with the Great Boxing Day quake that saw an even greater shift of the planetary surface.

The Tectonic Evolution of the Gulf of California

The major boundary zone between the Pacific and North America plates continues southward from the San Andreas fault system into the Gulf of California. Across this boundary, extension and strike-slip faulting is causing the Baja California peninsula to separate away from mainland Mexico, thereby opening the Gulf of California. This is one example of how a small fragment of crust (Baja California) may get transferred from one plate (North America) to another plate (Pacific), a process that has happened many other times in geologic history.

Our research has focused on trying to understand the early history of this rift system, using a variety of approaches: 1) geological field study of faults within the Gulf Extensional Province (surrounding the Gulf of California) to document geometries, timing, and amounts of fault motion within this region; 2) volcanic stratigraphy of the Puertecitos Volcanic Province, a major Miocene-Pliocene rhyolite field that was dismembered by phases of extensional and strike-slip faulting related to the evolution of the Gulf of California; 3) argon geochronology to establish ages of the various volcanic units; 4) paleomagnetic work, to establish magnetic reversal stratigraphy of both volcanic sequences and marine sequences, and to look for tectonic rotation, about vertical axes, during the faulting; 5) processing of Landsat-TM data , to distinguish the main volcanic packages based on their reflectivities, and to identify active faults in the region. Results of this work so far indicate that the westernmost fault systems have been active more than 6 million years, that is, before the time that is commonly assumed that major plate motion in the Gulf really began. The eastern fault systems have evolved through time, with high percentages of early (between 6 Ma and 3 Ma) extension, and rather low percentages of post-3 Ma extension. We have identified a major discontinuity called the "Matomi Accommodation Zone" south of which the deformation may be younger (Pliocene), due to a jump of the Gulf spreading centers. We have found new tie points in Miocene and Pliocene rocks on both sides of the Gulf of California (Upper Delfin Basin segment) which allow us to constrain the total amount of slip in this segment of the Gulf since late Miocene time.

Interesting: the Gulf of California is very, very new, geologically speaking. And there was this 'jump' within the centers which were spreading the Gulf which back then, was a Central Valley. The ocean came flooding in.

The nature of all this is obvious: the Sea of Japan will, over the eons, turn into a Death Valley. Death Valley will turn into the Gulf of California. Quite a few basins have turned into watery zones, often great places to find oil, naturally. And other basins, if they are too far from water, turn into super-hot deserts. The uplift in Asia caused by India has raised the Tibetan basin to a very high altitude. But who knows? It may continue to fall relative to the mountains being built and reach sea level? This unstable earth is most interesting.

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Oregon Earthquakes Intensify

July 20, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

A big breakthrough in the dark art of trying to predict exactly when an earthquake might hit. The triple junction of intersecting plates off of the coast of Oregon had a series of medium-large shakes today. This is a danger signal. The stresses along all of the West Coast are very great now, it has been a long time since the last major rearrangement of the landscape where all these plates grind against each other. And the deterioration of the North Pole continues, the great flip of north and south polar orientation is near at hand. And there is yet another theory about plate tectonics and how this operates.

From IRIS:

Over the years, I have noticed that the biggest zone for rearranging the landscape where there is plate subduction or cross-tension points usually are at the 10 km level. All of the quakes this last three months where the Juan de Fuca/North American and Pacific plates slam into each other, the Juan de Fucas plate being the biggest loser, are not slowing down but increasing in violence. Here is my article from just 4 months ago, concerning this clash of the Titans:

Here is the April, 28, 2008 story about this same point off the Oregon coast:

Several things jump out from this chart: the massive number of earthquakes in the tri-focal point off the Oregon coast is moving relentlessly southwards towards the dangerous San Andreas fault system on land. Also, two 4 mag earthquakes occured in Nevada which is offset to the east, and Baja California where the San Andreas continues. Both of these were at only 5 km deep which is very shallow. Not as shallow as the 4 mags that hit Canada and the most geologically dangerous place on earth, Yellowstone Park. This mighty caldera is matched only by the super giants in Sumatra.

There now have been over 20 4+ magnitude quakes along the Pacific/Juan de Fuca/North American subduction zone juncture. This is very significant activity. Before the Great Boxing Day Quake, we saw a series of such 4 mag quakes along that subduction zone. The fact that these events are happening along a long line is very, very troubling. It means this is not a local adjustment and then all is well. It means that the entire length is under tremendous stress. The fact that these quakes are fairly uniform and at the same level is a sign that this sector will suddenly move. The quakes are NOT moving anything right now, this is like when we shove something until it snags on a rough spot on the ground so we redouble our pushing and it suddenly shoots forwards.

Several months ago, scientists were amazed and frankly, worried when they saw an amazing 'swarm' of earthquakes in this particular battleground. Then nothing seemed to happen. So everyone goes about their business. I remember Mt. St. Helens: the mountain quaked and shook for months and as the months passed, people became less and less afraid. The government even decided to take down the road blocks and let the tourists back in. People became so used to the mountain shaking, they discounted it. Soon, it became 'normal'. The, suddenly, with some very significant shudders over a very short time frame, the volcano disintegrated and killed a number of visitors and people living nearby.

This is similar also to the series of small-to mag 5 quakes in Indonesia before the Great Boxing Day Quake. By then, I was checking the IRIS website every few hours, expecting the worst. So it is here: since we are seeing lots of activity in a very important subduction zone that has been very quiet for a long time, this means we are seeing something big brewing. This whole subduction zone area is also home to the some of the bigger, still active volcanoes in the lower 50 states. Alaska and Hawaii are alway quite active. But the periodic actions of the Pacific Northwest is much nearer to huge population centers as well as being able to affect distant geological and population centers.

I am certain that whatever is going on there, it isn't something that will be resolved quietly. The tremendous forces acting on this small triangle is immense. We saw with the Boxing Day Quake, how a big section of the plate shot forwards very suddenly, with catastrophic effects. The recent Sichuan quake is not a subduction plate event but the opposite: the collapse of a section of the lithosphere which causes a 'tear' along a section that is surrounded by mountain building activity. More about that later.

Here is my May, 2006 story about plankton blooms before major subduction earthquakes at sea like the ones we are seeing develop off the shores of Oregon and Washington:

Scientists have connected plankton blooms that occur in subduction plate zones with earthquake events. This is another clue for predicting earthquakes. Just like before a thunderstorm, many creatures can also sense an impending earthquake's manifestations.

Unlike many dangerous geological or celestial events, earthquakes strike literally with no warning. We can see that a part of the planet is being disturbed greatly yet when the Big Quakes happen, they always come suddenly. For putting a time frame on all this is impossible so far. For example, the chance that the middle section of the San Andreas will blow out, big time, is rising each year. We know it will happen. We know it will be very bad. But giving it a date due is impossible.

Palace appeals for calm on eve of supposed magnitude 8 quake

MANILA, Philippines - On the eve of a supposed magnitude-8 quake "predicted" by a Brazilian psychic, Malacañang reiterated its appeal to the public Thursday to remain calm saying such occurrence cannot be scientifically predicted.

In a radio interview, National Disaster Coordinating Council deputy administrator and deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez Jr said at this time, no scientific instrument can be used to predict an earthquake.

Earlier, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) director Renato Solidum Jr had dismissed the prediction saying there is no scientific basis for the prediction that a magnitude-8 quake will occur this Friday.

"Wala tayong makinarya para ma-predict ang lindol (We have no machinery that can predict when and where a quake will strike)," Golez said in an interview on dzXL radio.

This is an example of scaremongering. There is NO way any human can accurately call a quake. If we all throw out various dates, one or another might make a match. But there is no accuracy or science here. This 'psychic' was irresponsible as well as deluded. The Philippines is hammered by earthquakes and volcanoes as the mighty Australian Plate madly shifts northwards faster than any plate on earth. It is, geologically speaking, flying northwards, wrapping around Southeast Asia as India, a part of this massive plate, already is digging deep into Asia with tremendous force, raising the biggest mountains on earth.

From India all the way across the Pacific regions and most of Asia including Japan, everyone experiences catastrophic geological events of the worst sort thanks to the dynamism of Australia. Because of this movement, the Pacific plate is shoved violently into North America which is why the sector facing all this violence is the most geologically active part of North America. We have no idea why Australia is many times more active than any other plate. All we know is, this activity has a tremendous impact for thousands of miles north of this plate that was once part of the Antarctic plate.

Early Warning System For Earthquakes: Seismic 'Stress Meter' Warned Of Earthquake 10 Hours In Advance

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2008) — Using remarkably sensitive new instruments, seismologists have detected minute geological changes that preceded small earthquakes along California's famed San Andreas Fault by as much as 10 hours. If follow-up tests show that the preseismic signal is pervasive, researchers say the method could form the basis of a robust early warning system for impending quakes.

"We're working with colleagues in China and Japan on follow-up studies to determine whether this physical response can be measured in other seismically active regions," said Rice University seismologist Fenglin Niu, the study's lead author. "Provided the effect is pervasive, we still need to learn more about the timing of the signals if we are to reliably use them to warn of impending quakes."

As probes become deeper and more sophisticated, as geologists assemble more and more data, they see more things that were once hidden. Geologists are the ultimate planetary masters just as astronomers are the celestial masters. The knowledge they painstakingly assemble is amazing and important. Not only do we exploit the geology of this planet to a huge degree, we can't survive for more thousands of years if we don't figure out how the planet operates. Geologists are not nearly rewarded enough for their toil which sometimes can be deadly when studying volcanoes, just for example. We should all honor and respect them.

This latest probing of the earth and the discovery that there are changes before massive earth-resets, using this possible information means geologists can set up stations at places they know there will be massive earthquakes like the middle sector of the San Andreas or this quaking triangle off the coast of Oregon. Even 20 minutes of warning is 20 minutes to clear out of dangerous places. We have air raid sirens warning us of tornadoes or WWIII nuclear attacks. We can use this same system if there is a way to see if there is an earthquake brewing.

Of course, a problem is panic. People may want to do irresponsible things rather than simply go outside and away from buildings or into doorways or under stout tables, etc. I have been in earthquakes. In one, I was frying eggs and flipping them. When the quake hit, I flipped the egg onto the floor. Only then, did I realize I was in danger.

Pac-Man supercontinent ate itself to pieces

The reason you are sitting where you are right now may be because Pangaea, the most recent supercontinent to gather together all the world's landmasses together, ate itself nearly 300 million years ago.

Convection in the Earth's mantle shifts the floating continental plates around, eventually driving them together into supercontinents every few hundred million years. We know supercontinents eventually break up again, but it is not clear how they do this.
*anip*
The new theory has it that, as Pangaea's southern coast moved northward, the ocean began to close up. Eventually, the continent's southern continental shelf was subducted beneath the northern coast.
*snip*
The theory predicts that the land in Pangaea's centre would have compressed, explaining the Iberian-Armorican Arc, a twisted mountain range that is known to have stretched from modern-day Turkey up to the UK and then down to Spain.

Meanwhile, the rest of the pie would have stretched to breaking point, allowing surrounding oceanic plates to move into the gaps. This explains why a number of ancient rifts, including ones that can be visited today in Norway and Madagascar, were once arranged radially like the spokes of a bicycle.

This is rather interesting. I have written about the nature of depressions that are surrounded by mountains which are raised by either subduction events or clashes of two continents. The idea that the lithosphere can collapse is a fairly recent one. It probably explains why so many of the earth's depressions like Sichuan, the Central Valleys of Chile and California exist, for example.

The Lithosphere Has Collapsed In Huge Areas

The continents are actually quite prone to falling apart because the base upon which they rest can suddenly collapse.

The discovery that a segment of the ocean floor, not just the lithosphere but the whole thing, fell away suddenly into the depths of the mantle, is an eye-opener indeed. This event happened where the earth's plates are moving apart but I suspect this is the wrong imagery. Perhaps the better idea is to think of the split that runs the entire planet from the Artic to the Antarctic plate is a serious crack in the earth.

If we visualize this crack, it opened approximately 200 million years ago. The ground began to fall and a rift valley opened up and this was no ordinary rift valley. Many of these open up all the time all over the earth. This one was very long and very deep. The rift in Siberia at this time opened up and out poured the greatest lava flow that we know of. Because of this, Siberia grew thicker and bigger.

But North America, South America and Africa began to split apart and instead of lava flowing in huge amounts, a teeming rift valley was born. And when the oxygen levels collapsed, causing the greatest extinction on earth at the end of the Permian, many of the survivors lived in this epic rift valley. What tremendous changes in the climate and earthquakes, tsunamis and other events happened when this mighty rift valley deepened and deepened until a line of linked lakes fed by water pouring off the sides of the ever-higher cliffs and then one day, the ocean came roaring into this rift, totally severing these three continents?

Since then, material from the mantle has been flowing out of this gigantic crack. The continents aren't gliding along, they are not floating, they are being pushed apart by the epic forces of the inner energy of the planet. Perhaps the weight of the oceans are pushing down and thus, like a toothpaste tube, forcing lava upwards.

But this collapse of the whole seabed is interesting because there are obviously some very powerful forces at work and I think this is happening all over the planet, not just underwater!

Here is another old article about why parts of the lithosphere collapse:

Geologists Contradict Each Other About Tibetan Plateau

One thing about wanting pet theories to work is to look at one or another aspect. Then the puzzle seems to 'fit'. But always, when arranging a theory, one has to look at all possible similar situations and see if they match in any way. The fact of this matter is, definitely something is at work with the Tibetan plateau, the fact that the center of the Tibetan highlands is an awful lot like so many other centers of massive mountainbuilding/continental collisions means there is something rather common about all these situations. Namely, they are all operating on the same principles.

I used a box of Jiffy mix yellow cake and baked it at 400 degrees. Then I let it cool rapidly and it collapsed very neatly. A fun experiment if you don't mind a cake raw in the center and over-baked on the edges.

In this case, I would suggest that when plates, both oceanic and continental, collide and one begins to climb over the other, it is like baking a cake, literally, since this friction and compression 'cooks' everything, the whole beings to rise until a critical point is reached and then the center collapses, leaving a classic ring of mountains around a depressed center.

Perhaps the mantle, after a lot of landmass piles up on top of it and it is compressed more and more, a section in the center breaks off and begins to sink. As this slips lower, the mountains around the developing sinkhole rise, sort of like if you press down on a pillow, the edges rise.

Today's article about Tibet is supposing all of Tibet rose very high and then the center collapsed, of course, the pillow pictures here were pressed down, not collapsed, but it does illustrate more clearly than the cake pictures, what a depression looks like, certainly, the action of infalling does displace material to the outside edges.

When writing about nature or science, we often look for descriptions and analogies that are easily visualized. Just like plate tectonics used the image of jigsaw puzzles to explain the interactions of continents and ocean beds.

And another article I wrote about rotating continents and their shapes:

The Continents Could Have Rotated A Lot Over The Last Billion Years

I love to mess around in my kitchen so I ran there and began seeking things I could use as models representing continents floating on the surface of the earth. Digging around in one of the drawers, I found some plastic cookie cutters I used for many years, baking sugar cookies for the kids. To my immense joy, they make perfect continents!
*snip*
I happen to agree with Professor Johnson on this matter: the continents all rotated due to the way convection works. Their queer shapes are often more like the galaxies we see around us. The shape of South America and Africa can be easily explained if one is looking at them as organic entities, spinning in the morass of the upper mantle. Europe and Asia have been warped by crashing into each other so we can't deduce much from their present shape. I would bet India was shaped like Africa or South America before crashing into Asia.

I am betting Australia will gain a more spiral shape as it rotates into Asia. Some geologists think it will move to Alaska but that presumes a straight line and I think Mother Nature hates straight lines, she prefers curves, being female (ahem). The convection that roils underfoot is less potent than a billion years ago, of course. We can see from the recent discovery of deep sea vents, the cracks in the earth's crust lead straight down to some extremely hot and very active zones.

I was a child when geologists first began to accept the concept of tectonic plate movements. This field of study has traveled very far, very rapidly since then. When all the continents somehow moved towards each other due to the high level of convection in the younger earth, the effects were gigantic just as the effects of the mad-cap, high-speed Australian plate is creating massive effects across half of the planet.

Now off to another favorite topic here: the magnetic poles will do a sudden switch on us and we have absolutely no idea how this will impact modern technology. I would suggest, it will have a huge impact. The polarity of things is important! Never has this happened with so many creatures on this planet using electricity and all sorts of computer systems, etc. I shudder to think about the possible bad effects. But scientists can already see disturbances!

Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says

Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says.

"What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.

The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said.

The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet's magnetic field.
*snip*
The decline in the magnetic field also is opening Earth's upper atmosphere to intense charged particle radiation, scientists say.
*snip*
"It is in this region that the shielding effect of the magnetic field is severely reduced, thus allowing high energy particles of the hard radiation belt to penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere to altitudes below a hundred kilometers (62 miles)," Mandea said.

This radiation does not influence temperatures on Earth. The particles, however, do affect technical and radio equipment and can damage electronic equipment on satellites and airplanes, Olsen of the Danish space center said.

I remember the panic over the Year 2000 due to careless computer coding. This is not a coding problem but a hardware problem that will possibly impact coding on every level. We know that computers are very sensitive to magnets, for example. Well, the entire earth is one big magnet. Will this affect the sun? Or is it running in tandem with the sun? We know so little about these things, our ability to see and understand all this is very recent, very recent!

Seeing how incapable people at the top are with coping with simple banking problems due to the abuse of the number 'zero', we fear that even with smart scientists telling us important things, they will probably be ignored. After all, plenty of people ignore geologists.

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Oreg

Journey To 10,000 BC

July 18, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The History Channel occasionally sends me DVDs to review. Today's show is called 'Journey To 10,000 BC' and it talks about some of the more recent geological studies concerning comets hitting the earth as well as other extinction theories. I find all of this very interesting and since the story about the comet strike is fairly recent coming in just this last year, it is gratifying that the cable TV show covers this issue. I do have several bones to gnaw on, though. I hope the History Channel's organizers read this carefully and apply it in the future. Namely, early humans had two wonderful tools: domesticated dogs and combs.

Click here to buy the DVD:

JOURNEY TO 10,000 BC and experience the suspense and heart-pounding action of a woolly mammoth hunt. A single kill could feed the tribe for weeks. As the winters grow curiously colder and longer, this vital source of nourishment becomes even more critical.

THE HISTORY CHANNEL® has pulled out all the stops to dramatize on a human scale the changes on Earth twelve thousand years ago. Experience the land where giant ground sloths, great saber-toothed cats, and camels roamed. Witness their extinctions and live through the cataclysms that we are only now beginning to understand.

These are the kind of TV shows I love to watch. They illuminate seemingly dull history stories and it is good to see the actual sites news paper articles or scientific journals are discussing. I love doing historical recreations and watching others doing historical recreations. Because this is a fun thing, I do it a lot and therefore, watch these shows with a very critical eye.

This History Channel show is one hour long and certainly is a useful addition to one's DVD library. The modern humans who animated this show or used human actors to imitate past hunters certainly tried their best to recreate the past. BUT THEY FAILED. And they failed not due to diligence or ineptitude. They failed because everyone involved is trapped in the modern arrogant belief system which is: all earlier tribes and people were stupid and didn't know how to do simple things like comb their hair.

I see this ALL OVER THE PLACE. Movies showing medieval fighters in Scotland show them with uncombed tangles of hair. Movies about cave men going back to 1900 silent films always show the cave men and cave women with uncombed, tangled hair! Movies showing people living in the American Plains, even today, will show nearly everyone with...tangled, dry, uncombed hair! It doesn't matter what time period we are watching, universally, if the object is to show fighting males and compliant females, all of them always have tangled hair that is never combed or oiled.

This really enrages me. First of all, ask any hunter, and I hunt, to try doing this with tangled, dry, untied hair! It is IMPOSSIBLE. The wind blows the hair in the way. You can't see! Gorillas and chimps don't have combs or style their hair because their hair is short. But humans evolved with long hair. I would suggest that the length of hair evolved along with the invention of and use of the lowly comb.

This is such an interesting topic, I should write a much longer piece about it. We know from carvings and paintings done since 30,000 BC, the humans are depicted with braided or dreadlocked hair. Or the hair is combed and tied back. Universally, all meat eating tribal people use animal fats to thicken and make the hair sleeker and smoother so it can be styled into various shapes. Even in the Western civilizations of the 18th-20th centuries, including in my own childhood, men greased their hair to keep it shiny and slick. The hippie revolution was for hair to be loose, free and no oil. This, I suspect, was due to watching many movies showing primitive people with tangled, loose, dry hair.

History of the comb:

[[Combs]] have been on the scene ever since humans had hair on his head. Which is quite sometime? The date perhaps goes beyond the time of the Old Stone Age. Man being man and not a lion would not be content to let his mane run wild and free. So he had to find some ways to tame it. First on the list of combing operations must have been the use of fingers. So in a way the fingers are the first combs of history.

A comb is a solid tool, usually flat and always with teeth. It is used for caring for human hair and cleaning other fluffy stuff like fiber. The etymology goes back to ancient Greece and Sanskrit meaning tooth or to bite. Among tools perhaps it is the oldest. Exquisite combs have been found digging up the ancient Persian Empire going back about 5000 years and at the time of the first Indo-European migrations. Many of the historical combs can be seen in museums. In the Hermitage Museum there is an exquisitely carved comb belonging to the Scythian period ca 400 BC termed the Salokha comb. On the head are depicted three human figures, one being on horseback, about to kill an animal.

Combs were not always used for cosmetic purpose. It was used to comb out hair parasites like lice that took shelter in human hair. The fact is that as yet, no traditional civilization has yet been found that did not use combs! If you share combs then you have to share parasites also. Parasites love traveling from scalp to scalp via the comb route. Parasites travel in groups with families and eggs. Thus a comb is extremely popular with lice, fleas, mites and fungus. Sometimes the matter becomes serious because the comb is said to have been a carrier for the Black Plague, that finished off nearly one third of Europe in the Middle Ages.

The desire to eliminate lose dry hair is so strong, some tribes like in Australia, would use mud or clay to shape their hairstyles. After all, modern 'civilized' women have created massive, bizarre hair styles using hair spray that makes everything very stiff, thus, stopping the annoyance of hair getting in the eyes when in windy places! When I go out to farm or do construction work, I tie my hair back. This is because, if one bends down, the hair falls forwards and gets in the way. With the invention of fire, humans had to be particularly careful about the hair so I assume they tied it back.

The other thing often left out of shows about humans that existed since 14,000 BC is the first domesticated animal: dogs. More about that later.

This show does talk intelligently about climate change, sudden geological or celestial events and mass extinctions. The riddle of what happened so suddenly to not only all the mega-flora and fauna of the Western Hemisphere but also why it destroyed the Clovis Point Hunters who lived alongside these creatures and plants. This extinction event was, like so many others, extremely fast. This leads researchers to suspect powerful, rather singular events such as meteorite strikes.

Sergey Zimov's Pleistocene Park is unlike any preserve on the planet.

The park's primary purpose is to reveal what role various animals had on the ancient ecosystem and whether humans are to blame for the mammoth's extinction. The giant mammals, related to elephants, once roamed many parts of the planet, including North America. Their last holdout was on an island off the coast of Alaska about 8,000 years ago.
*snip*
The Pleistocene era ran from about 1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago, when the last ice age ended. Like about half the land area of the planet at the time, northeastern Siberia was covered in arid grasslands.

"There, vast dust-covered plains and valleys dominated the landscape," Zimov writes. "Mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, horses, reindeer, musk-oxen, elk, moose, saiga, and yaks grazed on grasslands under the predatory gaze of cave lions and wolves."

About 10,000 years ago, the ecosystem disappeared. Mosses and forests, their growth fueled by increased humidity, replaced the dry tundra that had been the mammoth's home. The planet warmed, and the mammoths disappeared.

Scientists for decades have debated why they died off, however.

I know that the History Channel has limited time and resources but if they could do a show about Mr. Zimov's Pleistocene Park, I would happily watch it. Just to see the ice age ponies gallop about merrily would be a lot of fun. The Russians are the only ones who have found intact, frozen mastodons and mammoths. I hope they succeed in resurrecting these extinct animals.

The links below are all from Culture of Life News:

Civilizations rise and fall due to climate change:

Mass migrations are also probably due to climatic change. From the very beginning, humans began to move about the planet, seeking new lands due to the fact we hate each other and try to avoid each other even as we are also attracted to each other which is why we evolved wars and complex marriage/clan rules. The Mayan and Tang cultures were able to sweep away (kill) or submerge all other clans thanks usually to some sort of war/agricultural innovation.

My own theory is, when humans in Siberia first domesticated dogs which were our very first domestication process, this altered not only hunting tactics but also tribal relations. The dogs prevented sudden raids on the encampments, for example. Humans that were surrounded by dogs is like having a barbed-wire fence around the camp. Anyone or anything such as a predator, trying to enter will be attacked by the dogs! The History Channel shows a child wandering off in the evening and being nearly eaten by a saber tooth tiger. But this never happened.

The tribes that came flowing into the New World were protected by their dogs. Without the dogs, their foray into dangerous, new lands would have been much more difficult. Here is a cartoon I did about the first encounters of human/dog hunters with the New World megafauna:

http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/05/20/many_catastrophies.jpg
Megafauna extinctions have many causes but what is common to all is the 'Perfect Storm' effect of all things happening at once.

It is hard for people to accept that sudden climate changes and extinctions can have multiple causes, these periodic 'Perfect Storms' can lead to mass exterminations. This week, some scientists suggest that the US and parts of Europe were affected by a meteorite with a high carbon content exploding and causing vast fires that lead to the extermination of 40% of the large and some smaller species 12,900 years ago. They hypothosize this also caused the sudden Younger Dryas cold phase event. I look at other geological and celestial events from that same time frame.

The sudden collapse of the large mammals in North America in particular can't be pin pointed to one cause, easily. There were several changes that were sudden and unique. One was, the sudden appearance of the Clovis hunters who seemed to be very good at this art. Unlike the game living in Africa, the large mammals in the Americas were naive about humans. Humans evolved alongside African animals so they were aquainted with our tendency to kill everything in sight. This is why animals, when they spot humans, run away.

One would suppose, when the larger animals in the Americas first met humans and their dogs, they thought nothing of it until it was too late. And humans had a hunting tool we keep forgetting: fire. In Africa, humans have been using fire for many generations, at least 200,000 years. The landscape of Africa has been reshaped by fires lit by humans. We see today how, in America, humans love to set fires and dry seasons are very dangerous in many places because we are pyromaniacs.

Even if there were really big fires, this wouldn't change the climate for more than a few years. This is because burning forests and fields can't send their particulate matter above the Jet Stream. The only things that can do this trick are volcanoes. And full-impact metoerite strikes. I would seriously doubt this hypothesis was the sole cause of the Younger Dryas and the extinctions. But then, if we look at all the odd geological events that happened within the 12,000-11,000 years ago time frame, we see some interesting things that could have created the Perfect Fire and Dust Storm: a comet possibly hitting the Carolinas and some very violent volcanic events in Europe and Indonesia.

The last survivors of our ancestors, our nearer relatives, they all died at this same time. The Neanderthals, the Hobbits, anyone living in China, whoever. This was another terrible key-hole event in evolutionary history. The one-time event of a meteorite explosion couldn't cause such tremendous changes but what if its passage through the earth's atmoshpere and its demise triggered a series of violent earthquakes which woke up a host of nasty volcanoes and thus, caused considerable geological havoc leading to destabilizing the climate?

What happened back then and why did it not affect the vast herds of elephants and lions gazelles and whatever in Africa? Well, humans figured out how to hunt not only with spears but with DOGS. Sparky broke out of his pasture today. So my dogs got to work, barking at him. Wooo woo woo. They snapped at his hocks and he kicked them. Woo woo woo. Out comes the human. "Sparky, get back into your pasture," she yells. Sparky snorts and goes into his pasture.

Now, if I wanted to eat Sparky, I would have chucked my spear into him and he would have fed the dogs who know deep in their brains Sparky=food. This is why they bark at strangers, too. Strangers=food.

The deadly combo of dog and man is what destroyed many fauna. We ate everything in our path and when the larger game was killed, trees could finally grow again.

Scientists think the domestication of dogs happened first in the great plains of Eurasia and spread rapidly. This is simple to explain. When humans without dogs met ones with dogs the dog owners won. Ancient chroniclers point this out. Egypt, when becoming an empire, used dogs in battle, for example. The city builders in the Euphrates valley fought with massive mastiff style dogs. They made many carvings and paintings showing how these dogs fought. One victory parade in Egypt had 500 fighting mastiffs marching in it.

Fire is another subject that gets people all steamed up. Fire is so common, we take its power for granted. But evidently the first fire users were rather reckless with it and set great plains fires or even forest fires just like we do today. Indeed, we have to have strict laws to prevent people from merrily setting everything and anything on fire. We know that children love to watch fires and if there is a house on fire, it attracts huge crowds of people who get quite close to it. Only humans and our domesticated animals are attracted to fires. Oh, and moths.

Dogs, our first friends, love fires. If you light a fire where there are wild dogs, they will creep closer and closer for they want to be near the flames. Wolves run off. As do all wild animals who fear and hate fires. The first humans nearly annihilated many mammals because of this. We drove them off of cliffs or terrorized them with our fires. We drove huge, dangerous cave bears out of their homes by the simple action of lighting a fire! No bear wants to be near flames even today.

When I light the fires at home here, my cats and dogs all run to it and lay as close as they dare. This is what makes them domestic. My sheep, when I would go out in a storm, seeking lambs lost in the pastures, if they saw my flaming latern, they would bleet for me and struggle to come to my side. Wild animals shy away.

I believe that the sudden outwards surge of humans after 16,000 BC was due partially to the human/dog alliance. The dog users attacked non-dog users and the non-dog people had a terrible disadvantage since they couldn't easily sneak in and retaliate. The dog people become very bold when hunting or in battle. I know that my dogs will happily attack anyone who I yell, 'Go git them!' because I want the dogs to attack! This great alliance must have terrorized all other tribes including the poor Neanderthals.

Scientists now say there might be almost no overlap of humans living with Neanderthals. They believe the Neanderthals simply dematerialized. I suggest we and our dogs not only hunted and ate them but the dogs left few bones behind.

Here are five other stories I wrote about sudden climate changes and extinctions:

The Ecocene Hyper-warming event:

Once again, scientists would like to find just one cause of some great geological/evolutionary/climate event, this time the incredible Ecocene warming that came 10 million years after the end of the dinosaurs. The truth of the matter is, many things contribute to these epic periods: the sun's energy, interstellar objects, volcanic activity caused by plate tectonics and of course plants and animals interacting with each other and the oceans, changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and the waters of this planet.

"

The Sudden Freeze 8,000 years ago:

8,000 years ago, camels and giant sloths ran around in Arizona which wasn't so arid back then. They all went extinct very suddenly when something odd happened back then. The whole world underwent some pretty sudden and violent see-saws back then and this has bearing on today since the forces at work were varied but human were the keystone, we are the domesticators and the destructors for this is the same period we figured out how to domesticate many plants and animals.

Another big Asteroid Strike Found In California 250 Million Years Ago:

Today, geologists find yet another major meteorite/asteroid strike. We can see from the moon and other planets that these events happen all the time. I will suggest all the sudden evolutionary changes that punctuate the fossil record may all be caused by celestial objects suddenly changing the ecosystem too fast for many creatures to easily evolve to accomodate these changes.

Meteorite Strike On Antarctica Revealed:

Earth's Wobble Causes Many Extinctions:

(Xinhuanet) -- Wobbles or variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt are associated with extinctions of rodent and mammalian species, Dutch scientists said on Wednesday in a study published in the journal Nature.

Life forms on this uncertain planet can easily survive any single event but when events are in clusters, we get great extinctions. We can see from repeated past extinctions, often a celestial event like a comet or meteorite strike will trigger earthquakes, great volcanic eruptions, rift valleys opening up suddenly with lava flows that cover whole continents, etc. The sun is usually disrupted too. We know that whenever any comet circles the sun, as it passes close by, the sun erupts in fury and lashes at the offending comet. So we get X-ray surges and other solar events right alongside these celestial visits. All of this disrupts the planetary surface here on earth and increased plate tectonics as well as sudden surges in the ocean or ice melts. Not to mention, vast fires and changes in the oxygen supply as plants die or plankton perish.

This is why we have to figure out the riddle of why these events happen. And how we interface with them or make them worse. For we are in the middle of a great SPECIES extinction but NOT a life form extinction. We are not leaving any empty ecological niches, we are filling them with our domesticated plants and animals. Especially ourselves, we are filling all ecological niches. Quite rapidly.

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Earthquakes Along Atlantic Rift

May 30, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Energy use and geology: hand in glove. The majority of geologists in college go into energy markets. The coal industry is struggling to deal with pollution from coal burning. One solution is to pump all the excess gases into the earth. I am totally against this for geological reasons. Just as the holding of any pollutants inside the earth is simply moving forwards in time the consequences of our own pollution is a bad idea. And the earth has just switched gears yet again after the huge series of powerful quakes in China have begun to fade. The Mid-atlantic rift is now having big quakes, the latest being in Iceland. And a geologist is reading a paper about earthquake clusters and how they are global after big quake events.

Mounting Costs Slow the Push for Clean Coal

For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground.
*snip*
Scientists need to figure out which kinds of rock and soil formations are best at holding carbon dioxide. They need to be sure the gas will not bubble back to the surface. They need to find optimal designs for new power plants so as to cut costs. And some complex legal questions need to be resolved, such as who would be liable if such a project polluted the groundwater or caused other damage far from the power plant.

Major corporations sense the possibility of a profitable new business, and G.E. signed a partnership on Wednesday with Schlumberger, the oil field services company, to advance the technology of carbon capture and sequestration.

But only a handful of small projects survive, and the recent cancellations mean that most of this work has come to a halt, raising doubts that the technique can be ready any time in the next few decades. And without it, “we’re not going to have much of a chance for stabilizing the climate,” said John Thompson, who oversees work on the issue for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group.

I am 100% against this goofy idea. The earth is far from stable. Anything that is put into the ground eventually will come back topside as the earth shifts and shoves everything around. Not to mention meteorite strikes! So if we take this gas and then pump it into the ground, it won't vanish there. It is STORED there and will reenter the planetary system if disturbed. The chances of it being disturbed over time is 100%. Not 50% but absolutely certain.

Liquids can pour out and cause problems but they have to have somewhere to flow. They tend to sit wherever gravity has placed them. Gases, on the other hand, are hard to contain. They just want to bust out and spread as far as possible from each molecule next to the other. The imperative to do this is absolute. When we artificially trap gases and compress them into anything, the smallest pin hole puncture or itty bitty leak empties the compressed gas. Only a trace will be left. Anyone who handles gasses knows this and this is why tanks have to be carefully sealed and kept very safe and not thrown about. This is why you can't fill old tanks that look OK. They have to be replaced on a regular schedule.

Nature's timeline is near infinity. Ours is about six months into the future, if that. Any system devised to bottle up the genie of gas will fail and when this fails, 50 years of coal pollution will enter the planet's systems in less than a few days or even minutes? And this will do what? HOLY COW. It is obvious what happens next! It is far, far, far worse than gases building up slowly. We can't burn 500 million years of compressed biomatter in 50 years. We just cannot do it. Thus, the need for windmills, etc.

Iceland rocked by earthquake

The 6.1 magnitude temblor struck about 3:46 p.m. (11:46 a.m. ET), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was about 50 km (31 miles) east-southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, and was about 10 km (6.2 miles) below the Earth's surface.

It was unclear exactly how many people were injured or the severity of their injuries, Olli Tynes, a journalist with Reykjavik's Channel 2, told CNN.

The earth has been quieting down after the release of tension in the Chengdu region of China. That place is a basin which probably is caused by the land being squeezed between the Australian plate wrapping around southern Asia and the Eurasian plate to the north traveling eastwards. Perhaps the lithosphere in Chengdu is collapsing into the mantle. The length of the earthquake activity along the western edge of this basin makes this a real possibility. There was definite subsidence going on here.

Starting this week, the clusters of earth quakes have shifted to the opposite side of the planet. The Australian front has gone quite, relatively speaking. And the Chilean/Peru coast has seen a definite increase in earthquakes and volcanic activity. Then the Atlantic rift has been seeing a series of major earthquakes up and down the entire length. This, in turn, shoves both North and South America westards into all the plates under the Pacific Ocean.

This is increasing stresses in California/Oregon and Washington state.

Large quakes trigger distant smaller quakes

When powerful earthquakes strike anywhere in the world, their seismic waves go rippling through the ground and trigger smaller quakes thousands of miles away where no one had ever expected them, scientists have discovered.

Geophysicists reported Sunday that they have studied records on the aftermath of 15 major quakes during the past 18 years and found evidence that they regularly caused small temblors on distant, obscure faults in 12 of those events.

But just what causes those clearly detectable smaller quakes in areas touched by seismic waves from far more powerful temblors remains an unsolved mystery, the scientists say.

Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, and his colleagues in Utah and Texas call the phenomenon dynamic triggering. They say the triggered temblors can occur even in stable ground where faults have long been inactive, as well as in volcanic ground and hot springs where the earth is always unstable.

What interests me most is the fact that the biggest quakes surrounding the basin/mountain complexes are most often at the 10 kilometer level. And the biggest quakes have a very strong likelihood of being at that level, too. The series of quakes these last four days in the Atlantic were all at that critical level, too. One wonders about this. It seems to me that there is a distinct difference in planetary materials between the 10 kilometer and the rest of the lithosphere.

Every earthquake sends many types of seismic waves coursing through the Earth - some deep within the Earth's crust and others across the surface. Two types of surface waves are known as Rayleigh and Love waves, and Pankow and Parsons focused on the impact of those.
The Rayleigh waves move the ground from side to side like a snake and cause most of the shaking in any earthquake, while Love waves move up and down as they travel, very much like waves on the ocean.
*snip*
The researchers first examined the record of Love waves during the five hours after each of the 15 major quakes they studied, and calculated where and when small quakes would have been detected as those waves passed. The number of small quakes worldwide increased by 37 percent within each five-hour period, the scientists found. And when Rayleigh waves followed the Love waves, the number of small quakes triggered worldwide shot up by 60 percent, the group reported.

I hope to read this paper in full when it comes online. Since the earth is a whole entity, it pays to study these seemingly subtle effects. For this leads to understanding the obvious, bigger forces. Since our planet is mostly molten materials in the mantle and a dense core that is very, very hot, it pays to try to understand how shifts at the top, thin solid layers affect the molten parts. And of course, the energy of these earthquakes travel across this liquid mass.

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Tonight We Visit Beautiful Alaska

5/28/2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Readers of this news service are all quite interesting. One of them, Mr. G. Oppenwall, sent me some lovely pictures he took in Alaska. I thought we should share these with everyone. Alaska has one of the most amazing landscapes on earth. And the wild life is varied and fascinating. Also, I want to warn everyone in the far north this year, the volcano in Chile, even though it is in the far southern hemisphere, is evidently beginning to spread fine particulate matter and gases to the higher stratosphere and it is now across the entire planet. For I went outside tonight, while pitching rocks and working on the garden fence. And looking up at the sunset, I could see the soft veil across the heavens. The wind was blowing hard from the clean air regions of the Arctic. Normally, the sky is a deep blue, not a fine pale blue. And as the sun set, the zenith took on the classic purple/pink coloration that these skies have only when a volcano is active. This means a cool summer. So far, here it has been very cool this last two weeks and even though it is nearly June, it might freeze tonight. Cover those young veggie plants!

Now stop that ! You're not "imposing" on me. Only Impotent people impose on me. Ha ha.

In order....Mt Denali 20,400( formerly Mt McKinley, dead white guy pres.) , Kennicott Glacier in Mt St Elias NP, the old Kennicott Copper mine (for 10ys the most lucrative copper mine on earth), moose in lake near Chena Hot Springs, Mt Sanborn (16,500'), Dall Sheep in Mt St Elias NP, Hanging glaciers on side of Dragontail Peak in Alpine Lks wilderness area state of Wa, ditto next pic, High Rock fire lookout just barely outside of Mt Tahoma (Rainier) NP, near Asgard Pass in Alpine Lks,WA, Mt Denali again,crevasse in Kennicott glacier in Mt St Elias NP.

Most of the guys I work with are overtime junkies, so to try and stimulate their sense of curiosity/adventure, I photo copied many of these pictures and have them
all over the walls of my little shop within a shop.

We were unbelievably lucky with the Dall Sheep. I've been to Alaska several times and have only seen them as little white dots way above the trail or road. The
wind must've been blowing our scent in the opposite direction. They are very fast,shy,and skittish animals. When they finally did sense our presence they took off
for the rocks.

We camped out at Chena Hot Springs and after having slept all afternoon at the pool (well deserved sleep as Alaska in the summer makes you manic)
decided to go for a "moose cruise" which is driving real slow looking at all the pools and swamps for moose. We saw at least 20 moose within about 2hrs.

The Enchantment lakes pics were taken "illegally". You are supposed to pay a permit fee for a campsite and make reservations almost a yr in advance. Yeesh !!
So we "commando camped" with just bivvy sacks on some rocks hidden out of sight from possible permit checking rangers. Tough hike. 7500' elevation gain/loss.
Took 2 FULL days to complete.It snowed on us just a little bit at night as this was in early Oct only a few days away from the snow season.

This fire lookout tower was built by hauling the lumber 3 miles up a steep trail, and then another 500 yds up a steep rocky slope by backpack/human labor

Jack Kerouc of "On the Road" fame spent a summer here, and several other lookouts near Mt Rainier, for a summer job for the forest service back in the days before satellite technology eliminated the need for a lookout job.

We escaped a sudden storm in one of these towers once and I'm pretty sure we got blasted by lighting once or twice. Thank god these things have lighning rods.
Maybe we should've taken you with, nyuk nyuk !

Ha, my friend Tim Cassidy ( hails from Las Vegas NM and his family traces back to THAT Cassidy of historical fame) just brought me over a tractor cap that says
"National Security Agency" Yeee Haaa !!! I'll wear it all day today in the shop. Evidently his sister knows somebody that knows somebody. Kinda like our mutual fiend, JB who my sis says now works for "Synthesis Solutions" a private Blackwater type Sump in the Deee Ceee area. Yeeesh

see you...........G.

ps, that shot of a wolf was the luckiest pic of my life. Took it on the tundra about 30mi from the Arctic Ocean, he looks like an old guy with gray muzzle. I know people
that have lived in Ak most of their lives and they never see wolves except maybe way off in the distance. My camera only goes up to 200mm zoom

Understanding the Complex History Of China's Geology

May 13, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The death toll from the 7.9 earthquake in China grows greater. Heroic efforts by the Chinese military and others, trying desperately to dig out the unfortunate people trapped in the rubble continues. As usual, regulating the building earthquake-proof structures is a very important government function. The many tragedies we see in earthquakes are due to improper or weak architecture. Modern cities must heed the lessons of other cities' woes! The school that collapsed in China is a classic example: it should have never happened. Also, we look yet again at the Himalayan mountain region and the geology of central China and why this is so unstable. Geologists are still trying to figure out how the earth's different elements intersect and interact there.

Search for China quake survivors

A massive search and rescue operation is under way in south-western China after one of the most powerful earthquakes in decades. Troops have arrived in Wenchuan county at the epicentre, which was largely cut off by the quake - but heavy rain is hampering rescue operations.

Elsewhere in Sichuan province, frantic efforts are being made to reach thousands of people under the rubble.
The death toll is now more than 12,000, officials say, and looks set to rise.

It is quite moving to see the frantic efforts of the military as they burrow deeper and deeper into the school to dig out the children. Some of the children are still alive. The soldiers are bringing in IV fluid to attach to survivors who are in shock as well as dangerously dehydrated from the cement dust in the ruins. These efforts are in strong contrast to the horrors of the poor, suffering people of Burma. There, the madcap military dictator refuses to give even slight aid. Maliciously leaving the people to fend for themselves, already over 30,000 have died. By the way, all of this is a reminder as to why we have a central government and why it has to exist to protect the people from earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, etc. Our own government has sent much of our own military to Iraq rather than have them here to protect us. When the inevitable earthquake wrecks a good part of California, there will be no soldiers to come pouring in within the first 6 hours to dig out survivors or bring aid.

This is a warning to all Americans to cease sleepwalking in the Iraq war! If we continue this way, we will pay in precious lives at home. If our rulers want wars, they can raise troops some other way. Not send all our National Guard far away.

I have written extensively in the past about the Tibet/China clash of continental land masses. India, which is part of the Austro-Indian plate, has moved northwards very rapidly and slammed into Eurasia, causing the greatest mountain building on earth. This week's massive earthquake is related to this business. Surrounding this tremendous mountain building is some of the queerest geology on earth. When we look at this part of the planet using different tools, we see clearly, something is not right. The thinnest crust is right next door to the thickest crust on earth. And the dynamics of the lithosphere is very strange here, probably due to the rapid movement of the India half of the large plate which has not one but two continental masses. Here is an earlier story I wrote about all this:

Geologists Contradict Each Other About Tibetan Plateau

One thing about wanting pet theories to work is to look at one or another aspect. Then the puzzle seems to 'fit'. But always, when arranging a theory, one has to look at all possible similar situations and see if they match in any way. The fact of this matter is, definitely something is at work with the Tibetan plateau, the fact that the center of the Tibetan highlands is an awful lot like so many other centers of massive mountainbuilding/continental collisions means there is something rather common about all these situations. Namely, they are all operating on the same principles.

I used a box of Jiffy mix yellow cake and baked it at 400 degrees. Then I let it cool rapidly and it collapsed very neatly. A fun experiment if you don't mind a cake raw in the center and over-baked on the edges.

In this case, I would suggest that when plates, both oceanic and continental, collide and one begins to climb over the other, it is like baking a cake, literally, since this friction and compression 'cooks' everything, the whole beings to rise until a critical point is reached and then the center collapses, leaving a classic ring of mountains around a depressed center.

Perhaps the mantle, after a lot of landmass piles up on top of it and it is compressed more and more, a section in the center breaks off and begins to sink. As this slips lower, the mountains around the developing sinkhole rise, sort of like if you press down on a pillow, the edges rise.

Here is the Independent UK article I was referring to:

By Paul Rodgers
Published: 18 February 2007

The discovery of the missing mantle - the cold, heavy rock beneath the crust - was revealed last week by Professor Wang-Ping Chen at the University of Illinois, whose team used more than 200 super-sensitive seismometers strung across the Himalayas, from India deep into Tibet.

"While attached, this immense piece of mantle under Tibet acted as an anchor, holding the land above in place," said Professor Chen, whose results are to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. "Then, about 15 million years ago, the chain broke and the land rose."

By pushing the Himalayas to their current altitude, more than 8,000m above sea level, and raising the Tibetan plateau to 5,000m, the detachment of the block was responsible for both the monsoon rains that make south Asia so fertile and the Gobi desert in central Asia. Warm winds blowing from the Pacific Ocean cool as they rise over the mountains, releasing the moisture they contain as torrential rains, leaving almost no water to fall on the arid interior of the continent.

Nearly all of the great quakes are at the 10 kilometer level. As we see here with this latest example:

IRIS map:

Another interesting aspect of this latest quake in China is how far it was felt: 1,000 miles! The entire eastern half of the nation felt it. A year ago, I found some great gravity field maps of the earth while doing a story about meteorite strikes on the moon.

Here is the NASA earth gravity map:

The gravity field right below India is by far and away, the lightest on earth. But the densest is where the rest of the Australian-India plate is being subducted under the Asian plate: the most geologically active area on earth, the Sumatran chain. The densest place on earth is not the Himalayan mountains nor the Rocky mountains. It is actually the front edge of this very fast moving plate. This same plate is also moving much faster than all the other plates on earth at this time. The speed is many multiples faster than the rest of the continents. Geologists still don't know why this is. But obviously, there is a great disturbance in the planetary lithosphere connected to this particular plate! The other place with a high gravity value is, oddly enough, the north Atlantic Ocean.

I drew in some lines showing the outer edges of the Australian plate which clearly shows how it is wrapping around the Asian plate. Both India and Australia ride along their plate while the middle section between them is being stretched and warped as it folds around Asia. India, on the other hand, is crashing into Asia and shoving it rapidly upwards. Is this plate being stretched to a great degree by all this? Is this why the weakest gravity spot is right next door to the Sumatran subduction zone?

All of this is very connected with the geology of China. China is being squeezed like in a vise by the Australian-Indian plate. For the last 2 months, the Sumatran subduction zone which has been tremendously active since the Great Boxing Day Quake, one of the biggest quakes in 100 years. Japan just had a serious quake just offshore last week. Now, this latest big quake in China. And the US West coast is still having quakes along the Juan de Fucas and the San Andreas system, far more than in the last 5 years. Perhaps the energy released from the Great Boxing Day Quake has worked like a spring to pop the Australian half of the plate northwards yet again, shoving the Pacific Plate ever harder against both the Asian subduction zone off of Japan as well as the North American Plate?

National Geographic map:

In Asia, behind the leading edge of the fast moving Australian-Indian Plate, we see some interesting features. Nearly always, when plates collide like this, we get volcanos and huge uplift mountains. Several things here: the leading edge of India is not producing volcanos. It is causing only uplifts. Nor are there any volcanos in Burma and Thailand, for example. Only further to the south, in Sumatra, are there volcanos and these are some of the nastiest ones on earth. I also highlighted two interesting features in China, both of which are important in today's story about the earthquakes: the Xinjiang depression and the Chengdu depression. These are behind the Himalayan mountains. Actually, there are other, similar depressions. All over the planet, active geological areas where there is rapid mountain building, we see these odd depressions. All active mountain regions have 'long valleys' associated with them that often lie between costal mountains next to subduction zones and more distant mountains due to uplift.

Geologic framework and tectonic evolution of the Qinling orogen, central China

Qing-Ren Meng and Guo-Wei Zhang

Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China

The geologic framework of the Qinling orogen was built up through interplay of three blocks, the North China block (including the North Qinling), the South Qinling, and the South China block, separated by the Shangdan and Mianlue sutures. The Shangdan suture resulted from Middle Paleozoic collision of the North China block and the South Qinling. The Mianlue suture resulted from Late Triassic collision of the South Qinling and the South China block. Present upper crust of the Qinling is structured dominantly by thrust–fold systems. The North Qinling displays thick-skinned deformation with crystalline basement involved, whilst the South Qinling is characterized by thin-skinned thrusts and folds detached above the Lower Sinian. Two types of Precambrian basement, crystalline and transitional, are defined according to lithology and metamorphic grade and different in age. Stratigraphic and sedimentary architecture is characterized by distinct zonation.

The Qinling orogen experienced a prolonged continental divergence and convergence between blocks. During the period from Late Neoproterozoic to Early Paleozoic times, the South Qinling was the northern margin of the South China block, and the North Qinling was the southern margin of the North China block, separated by a Proto-Tethyan Qinling Ocean. The North Qinling evolved into an active margin when the Proto-Tethyan Qinling Ocean subducted northward during Ordovician time. Collision of the South and North Qinling took place in Middle Paleozoic along the Shangdan suture. Synchronous with the collision, rifting occurred at the southern rim of the South Qinling and was followed by the opening of the Paleo-Tethyan Qinling Ocean during the Late Paleozoic, resulting in the splitting of the South China block from the South Qinling. Collision of the South Qinling and the South China block came about in the Late Triassic along the Mianlue suture. The Late Triassic collisional orogeny caused extensive fold-and-thrust deformation and granitoid intrusions throughout the Qinling, and led to final amalgamation of the North and South China blocks.

In other words, China is actually two major continental masses that have been alternately squeezed and then depressions widened, most likely due to the sudden collapse of the lithosphere. The resulting ocean was then eliminated due to the nutcracker effect of the break up of the Antarctic-Australian-Indian plate, most likely due to the Permian meteorite strike that may have eliminated most life forms in the greatest extinction on earth. This is probably why, outside of the depressions of Xinjiang, Chengdu and Mongolia, China has virtually no flat plains like India, Russia, the US, central Africa, Brazil, etc.

TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF EASTERN CHINA

Several orogenic belts transecting eastern China are the sites of former convergent plate margins, although there have been varying views on the collisional framework of individual continental blocks, styles of convergence at these zones, and the timing of respective collisions. A tectonic study of eastern China, Mongolia and the southern Soviet Far East indicates the collision of the South China Block with a combined North China-Northeast China Fold Zone Block in the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic, their collective suturing to Eurasia in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, followed by the Sikhote Alin-Japan Block in the Mid to Late Cretaceous.

The evidence is as follows: (1) A linear belt of Late Triassic-Early Cretaceous granites and granodiorites trends east from the Qinlingshan through the Dabieshan to the Huaiyang massif. Ophiolites, flysch, subduction zone melange, a paired metamorphic belt indicating north dipping subduction and marine strata of Carboniferous to Late Triassic age from the Qinlingshan define the suture between the North and South China Blocks,

(2) A sinuous belt of ultramafics, blueschists, silicic to intermediate magmatism and west and north vergent folds and thrusts trend from the west margin of the Ordos Basin through central Inner Mongolia and along the east Great Khingan Range to the Amur River. Coupled with a Mid Jurassic-Early Creataceous unconformity a suturing of eastern Chinese blocks to Eurasia along this zone is suggested,

(3) A fold and thrust belt with ultramafics, flysch, blueschists and subduction zone melange along the Ussuri River in northeast China indicates the suturing of the Sikhote Alin-Japan Block to Eurasia along a west dipping subduction zone in the Mid to Late Cretaceous. Similarly, a tectonic study of southern China and Southeast Asia has revealed a complex regional mosaic of suture-bounded terrains which nucleated about the eastern, western and southern margins of the Yangtze Craton during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. The evidence is as follows:

(4) A north–south trending belt of ophiolites, blueschists, calc-alkaline volcanics and subduction zone melange, including granites, granodiorites arid strongly deformed marine strata all of Late Triassic age exposed in the Longmenshan of Sichuan merge with the Kekexilishan ophiolite zone Into the Ailaoshan-Tengtiaohe ophiolite and blueschist belt in central Yunnan along which the Songban-Ganzi Complex and the Shan-Thai-Malaya Block join the Craton, and

(5) A southeastern prolongation of the Ailaoshan-Tengtiaohe belt bifurcates into the southeast trending Konvoi zone of northern Vietnam and the north–south trending Pak Lay-Luang Prabang zone of Laos and eastern Thailand. Zones of ophiolite, calc-alkaline volcanics and strong Late Triassic deformation, they separate the Indosinia and Shan-Thai-Malaya Blocks from the Craton respectively. These findings differ significantly from previous interpretations of a Late Paleozoic consolidation of South–Eastern Asia as well as disputing the existence of a true Pangea.

The dispute about the inner workings of this region continue and shall continue as geologists unearth greater details of this strange region. I still think the biggest mystery is why the Australian-Indian Plate is moving so fast in the first place. India definitely has been greatly slowed down ever since plowing into Asia but Australia is still moving at a tremendously fast geological rate and by far, the most earthquakes on earth are along the leading edge of Australia. The fact that Australia itself is so geologically silent while creating the greatest havoc on earth is also a big puzzle. Eventually, all of Southeast Asia will be folded into China and perhaps Japan will be crushed between Australia and Russia a few million years from now.

A New Look into the Center of the Earth

The inner reaches of the Earth remain shrouded in mystery. Even the surface of Mars has been explored more extensively. Because deep drilling comes to a halt after a maximum of 12 kilometers, the remaining 6,300 kilometers to the center of the Earth remain inaccessible.
*snip*
“Old, cold plates are pushed down into the Earth’s mantle on the continental edges,” he explains. “At this point they collect large amounts of iron. You can imagine it as something similar to water condensation.” Weighted down by the iron, the plates sink farther and farther into the hot, molten rock until they reach the inner sanctum of the Earth’s mantle. There, at a depth of 2,900 kilometers, they finally halt their decent and settle into “plate graveyards.” This is presumably the outer edge of the earth’s heavy core, where the temperature is 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,200 degrees Fahrenheit).

Brimming with enthusiasm, Maruyama continues: “But the capsized continents don’t simply rest in their plate graveyards forever.” Rather, they are about to experience a sudden resurrection. Heat and pressure in the depths trigger chemical processes, causing the plates to deposit their load of heavy elements. Once liberated of this burden, they become lighter than their surroundings, causing them to rise like corks in water. The result: Above the old plate graves, on the floor of the Earth’s molten mantle, a mushroom-shaped upwelling of abnormally hot magma called a mantle plume makes its way toward the surface.

Eventually, the rising flow of molten rock reaches the crystallized crust and cuts through it like a welding torch. Volcanoes form, such as those on the Big Island of Hawaii. Maruyama says the red hot lava that erupts on the volcanic island comes directly from an old plate cemetery 2,900 kilometers below the surface, where the remains of an ancient continent that broke up some 750 million years ago simmer to the surface. His theory postulates the amazing comeback story of this ancient rock from the deep.

All this surface chaos is causing parts of the lithosphere to detach and collapse. The latest major earthquake is in such a battle ground: on the edge of a nearly circular spot where there is surrounding mountains and a depression.

From an earlier story at my site about volcanic hot spots and the gravity maps:

The movement of India is most astonishing: unlike most other plates, when the India subcontinent calved off of the Antarctic landmass, it took off like a bullet and shot north, hitting Asia which is moving eastwards in a long, slow arc, slamming into the belly of that great landmass with such forward force, it has raised the tallest mountains on earth which are still rising for this sector hasn't exhausted its momentum yet.
*snip*
What lurked under the joining of India, Africa and Antarctica? That center point where everything broke apart? Why is the deepest low gravity point associated with the Indian Ocean Plate and India itself INCLUDING TIBET?

From an earlier article about the lithosphere:

The question is, why are the two largest land masses on the northern hemisphere moving in a turning motion, towards one spot in the Pacific? We know they are being pushed but why in that particular direction? There is nothing at the North Pole that could be pushing them, is there? Antarctica is nearly totally stationary. Perhaps this is due to the heavy load of ice sitting on top. The earth isn't round and we have a moon that has enough gravitational pull to yank the huge oceans into high and low tides that are quite obvious on the ground.

We also have a widening Atlantic Ocean that is smaller than the Pacific. The weight of the oceans, the thinness of the ocean floors, the lithosphere, all these things affect the movement of the plates.

Here is a map of the earth I drew last year showing the general movement of the earth's plates. Note how the pressure directions for Asia are all towards the Pacific. And the leading edge of India is not due north but actually aimed straight at the region where yesterday's earthquake occurred.

This map I drew shows how all the plates except for South America are being dragged relentlessly towards one spot in the Pacific Ocean just offshore of Japan, around the Micronesian Islands. Maybe this is where the New Pangea will arise?

Perhaps the base of Australia (and India) were detached from the lithosphere allowing them to flow with minimal friction? One can only guess. What we do know is, the leading edge of Australia is causing mountain building via volcanoes. But the buckling of the continent's leading edge is minor compared to the leading edge of North America that is violently buckling under the stress of trying to crash over the Pacific Plate, indeed, it is probably shoving that plate westards at a good clip, considering. Except this doesn't explain much of anything!

Why is the Pacific Plate moving so swiftly into Asia? It hits Asia and slides under with great violence. We know that Eurasia is moving towards the Pacific thanks to the Atlantic rifting. But why is it cartwheeling to this one point in the ocean that happens to be the same spot Australia is determined to head into? If I were looking at this as a dynamic system on a flat surface, I would suspect there is some magnetic force at work, if this were concave, I would suspec that is the lowest point.

But this is a globe and there is no singular reason for all the northern landmasses to move towards that spot. Heh. Maybe I should call it 'The Great Attractor' in honor of that mega-complex of galaxies that our own is heading towards at break neck speed!

And this week's news reminds us of the curious business concerning the 10 kilometer level. Why is this a very favorite level for mega-earthquakes?

The Lithosphere Has Collapsed In Huge Areas

One of the things that always intrigues me is the number of earthquakes at the 10km level. Many 8 to 9 mag earthquakes like the terrible Boxing Day Tsunami event, are at that depth. Click on the chart here to enlarge it. This is from 3/3/2007, a normal day with a long list of earthquakes. Nearly half of them are at the 10 km depth.

Up until recently, we were taught that the lithosphere was the same all over except where it was being subducted under a continent, for example. Also, theories about tectonic plate movements suggested that the continents were basically unchanging except at the outer edges where they would bump into each other or join together like India crashing into Asia. But as scientists probe this planet's innermost structures, a totally different picture is now emerging, one that is very disturbing.

The continents are actually quite prone to falling apart because the base upon which they rest can suddenly collapse.

The discovery that a segment of the ocean floor, not just the lithosphere but the whole thing, fell away suddenly into the depths of the mantle, is an eye-opener indeed. This event happened where the earth's plates are moving apart but I suspect this is the wrong imagery. Perhaps the better idea is to think of the split that runs the entire planet from the Artic to the Antarctic plate is a serious crack in the earth.

These are two charts I drew up last year, while wondering about how the lithosphere operates.

Surface Deformation and Lower Crustal Flow in Eastern Tibet

Field observations and satellite geodesy indicate that little crustal shortening has occurred along the central to southern margin of the eastern Tibetan plateau since about 4 million years ago. Instead, central eastern Tibet has been nearly stationary relative to southeastern China, southeastern Tibet has rotated clockwise without major crustal shortening, and the crust along portions of the eastern plateau margin has been extended. Modeling suggests that these phenomena are the result of continental convergence where the lower crust is so weak that upper crustal deformation is decoupled from the motion of the underlying mantle. This model also predicts east-west extension on the high plateau without convective removal of Tibetan lithosphere and without eastward movement of the crust east of the plateau.

So, on top of literally everything, part of Tibet is actually being rotated in place while everything around this section is moving in one direction, northwards, due to India? If India was just a single continent mashing itself into Asia, we wouldn't see all these peculiar geological situations in China, would we? I would surmise that all these peculiar conditions are due to the entire Australian-Indian Plate riding up over Asia as India is doing while the other half is being subducted under Asia here the Australian-India Plate is very weak and underwater? So this is stretching both the Australian-Indian Plate as well as twisting and turning the Asian Plate where it is the weakest...namely, in the regions where east and west China were mashed together by this same Australian-Indian Plate movements?

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Dirty Volcanic Eruption In Chile Can Change Climate

May 7, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

A mid-sized volcano in Chile is having a major-sized volcanic event. If it blows off its crown, it can change global weather. It all depends on volume, power of the explosive forces breaking out into the stratosphere and the mass of ejected particulate matter and aerosol gases. We have had several 'cooling off' periods caused by volcanos during my lifetime. And in history, volcanic activity has pushed forwards evolution and has caused mini-ice ages as well as starvation and privations. Indeed, some huge volcanic eruptions have nearly killed off all homo sapiens in Africa long ago. Only about 2,000 humans survived the effects of a major volcano in Sumatra blowing up. Volcanos are the engines of evolution just as meteorites can alter the course of nature.

Chile eruption spurs evacuations

Chaiten volcano in the southern Patagonia region began erupting on Friday for the first time in 450 years.

Ash from the volcano has caused disruption in neighbouring Argentina. Sitting on the edge of the South American and Nazca tectonic plates, Chile is in one of the most volcanically-active regions on Earth. Experts say about 20 of its more than 100 active volcanoes are in danger of erupting at any time.
*snip*
"Today the volcano is erupting with pyroclastic material [of hot ash and gas] on a different scale," he told Reuters news agency.

"We... have ordered the immediate precautionary evacuation of all civilians, military and press in Chaiten."
A government vulcanologist warned there could be a big eruption at any time.

"There could be a major explosion that could collapse the volcano's cone," said Luis Lara of the National Geologic and Mining Service.

Here is the You Tube video of this event:

Notice how wide the volcanic eruption is at its base. This is no narrow hiccup by a volcano releasing pressure. It is wide and deep. The resulting cloud of gases and volcanic dust is very intense. There is no lava or fireworks. This is dark, dark material pouring out. Volcanos that are 'dirty' like this are the ones that have the biggest impact on the weather and thus, on all living things. If a volcano also blows up and this one certainly has the capacity to do this, then the world's temperatures can fall significantly.

Click here for the CNN photos at sunset.

Here are the IRIS maps showing the series of 4+mag earthquakes where the volcano is erupting.

This volcanic event is close to Antarctica and far from the Northern Hemisphere. I checked the weather maps and during this time of year, the prevailing winds are eastwards. This is causing problems for Argentina as the volcano's dust is falling thickly there.

Here is the map of all the many volcanos on the 'leading edge' of South America.

Large red triangles show volcanoes with known or inferred Holocene eruptions; small red triangles mark volcanoes with possible, but uncertain Holocene eruptions or Pleistocene volcanoes with major thermal activity. Yellow triangles distinguish volcanoes of other regions.

When I first bought our little slice of the mountain here in Berlin, it was a splendid year, 1990. The fall was so warm, we joked about global warming turning the place into Virginia weather, not the harsher Northeastern weather. It was so warm, when we staked out the perimeters of the house we planned to build, we had absolutely no fear of the following winter. And we did quite well during it. We had less than 3 feet of snow altogether. And it became warm by the end of March. So I looked forwards to an easy summer, doing serious foundation and basement work on the house.

Then, we saw the news on TV: Mt. Pinatubo blew its stack on the other side of the planet. I ran outside to see if there was the characteristic very high, very white sheet of volcanic dust and there it was! The normally very blue sky was wane and pale. 'The weather is going to change for the worse,' I warned my husband. The sun seemed to dim slightly. We were using solar energy and we could see on the computer's screen the output was dropping.

'This is going to be a problem if the volcano keeps up,' I said. I was worried and decided to get some more kerosene lanterns for fear that we would have reduced solar energy.

Mount Pinatubo Eruption

The Volcanic Mount Pinatubo Eruption of 1991 that Cooled the Planet

Aug 5 2007
In June 1991, the second largest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century* took place on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, a mere 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of the capital city Manila. Up to 800 people were killed and 100,000 became homeless following the Mount Pinatubo eruption, which climaxed with nine hours of eruption on June 15, 1991. On June 15, millions of tons of sulfur dioxide were discharged into the atmosphere, resulting in a decrease in the temperature worldwide over the next few years.
*snip*
In addition to the ash, Mount Pinatubo ejected between 15 and 30 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas. Sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere mixes with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to become sulfuric acid, which in turn triggers ozone depletion. Over 90% of the material released from the volcano was ejected during the nine hour eruption of June 15.

The eruption plume of Mount Pinatubo's various gases and ash reached high into the atmosphere within two hours of the eruption, attaining an altitude of 34 km (21 miles) high and over 400 km (250 miles) wide. This eruption was the largest disturbance of the stratosphere since the eruption of Krakatau in 1883 (but ten times larger than Mount St. Helens in 1980). The aerosol cloud spread around the earth in two weeks and covered the planet within a year. During 1992 and 1993, the Ozone hole over Antarctica reached an unprecedented size.

The cloud over the earth reduced global temperatures. In 1992 and 1993, the average temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was reduced 0.5 to 0.6°C and the entire planet was cooled 0.4 to 0.5°C. The maximum reduction in global temperature occurred in August 1992 with a reduction of 0.73°C. The eruption is believed to have influenced such events as 1993 floods along the Mississippi river and the drought in the Sahel region of Africa. The United States experienced its third coldest and third wettest summer in 77 years during 1992.

Note how the pictures of Mt. Pinatubo look an awful lot like the eruption in Chile today. This is not a good thing to see. I was trained in childhood to look for the effects of volcanic eruptions. My grandfather saw the effects of Krakatoa in the 19th century and described to us the strange light effects this caused. When Mt. Agung in Sumatra blew its stack in 1963, we were driving from the McDonald Observatory in Texas to Kitt Peak in Tucson. Suddenly, the western sunset flared into brilliant reds and golds. My mother yelled, 'A volcano has blown up!' And my dad stopped the car and set up instruments and camera and spend the rest of the evening, studying it. They eventually wrote a book about this.

We noted that every time a volcano blew up from 1963 to 1976, it got really cold and wet, lots and lots of rain even in Tucson. One volcanic year, the rivers flooded and the desert was all green. We had to walk on boards to get to and from the buses because of the mud! We missed school because the Tanque Verde river overran the bridge, cutting off our ranch from the city.

Back to 1991: A hot June turned swiftly to freezing cold. We have a video of my son and I running around in our winter coats in the freezing cold! Danny and I began to frantically build our winter supply of wood. We were fearful. By October, we had a huge pile of wood. Only the freezing rain made it into a solid mess. We took axes to it and couldn't break it apart! It began to snow in ernest before Halloween.

'Oh my god, we are going to die!' I thought. So I strengthened the tent's roof and began to hoard food. But by November, we needed Duke, our sled dog, to haul up load after load of canned goods and bags of flour, etc. The snow got deeper and deeper. Eventually, we were in an igloo buried in the snow. We would hitch up the dog to his sled and go into the woods and fell trees since our woodpile was buried.

We survived. The howling storms were frightful. One storm, we had to brace the windows which bulged and almost blew out. When the deep snow melted, we marveled at the tree stumps left behind when we foraged for wood...they were over 4 feet tall! And Chris and I lay on the snow to cut as low as possible!

The following year was difficult, too. This time, due to the cold winter in China, the loess red dust caused huge dust storms that turned the sky over us, when the wind blew hard from the west to the east, a brilliant copper color. This dimmed the sun so we had a second very cold winter plus the snow was pink sometimes! By then, we had Sparky, our Alpine horse. He loved the very deep snow and couldn't wait to go tearing around with his sled in it. So we had a much easier time with him drawing up the mountain, all our supplies, giving Duke a break.

From my parent's book about volcanos and sunsets:

When partially blocked by trees or clouds, light from the setting sun breaks into unique beams called crepuscular rays that resemble the unusual sunsets produced by volcanic eruptions. Light from crepuscular rays scatters off gases in the atmosphere much as sunlight deflects off volcanic aerosols.

Huge volcanic eruptions cool earth, counter global warming

Pinatubo’s eruption triggered high-speed avalanches of hot ash and gas, huge mud flows that displaced about 20,000 indigenous Aeta highlanders and 200,000 people in the surrounding lowlands.

Volcanic gases, according to Solidum, could also deplete the ozone, humanity’s protection from sun’s radiation.

Pinatubo eruption, for example, resulted in 15 to 25 percent ozone loss at high altitude, ozone depletion in the tropics, and highly elevated levels of acting chlorines in polar regions, Solidum said, quoting a report by the Volcanism and Climate Change American Geophysical Union.

Generally, carbon dioxide generated by volcanic eruptions enhances global warming. But the estimated 110 million tons of carbon emitted by erupting volcanoes into the atmosphere a year were much less than the 10 billion tons of carbon produced annually by human activity, Solidum said.

Not all eruptions affect the climate; only big eruptions like Pinatubo’s puncture the stratosphere, according to Solidum.

We shall see if this volcanic event is on the scale of these giant eruptions. I really don't want that, right now we have an artificial famine caused by commodity speculators, the Hubbert Oil Peak oil problems and biofuel use that diverts food from humans to cars. But if we have a global volcanic 'winter' this can turn into a catastrophe. This has happened before!

The massive eruption of Mount Tambora in Sumatra caused 'A year with no summer' here in the Northeast.

The unusual climatic aberrations of 1816 had the greatest effect on the American northeast, New England, the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland, and northern Europe. Typically, the late spring and summer of the northeastern U.S. are relatively stable: temperatures (average of both day and night) average about 68–77 °F (20–25 °C), and rarely fall below 41 °F (5 °C). Summer snow is an extreme rarity, though May flurries sometimes occur.
In May 1816,[4] however, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snowstorms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June, with consequent additional loss of crops—most summer growing plants have cell walls which rupture in a mild frost, let alone a snowstorm coating the soils. The result was widespread localized famines, and further deaths from those who, in a hunger-weakened state, then suffered disease as well in their less resistant condition.

In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours. Even though farmers south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize and other grain prices rose dramatically. Oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel the previous year to 92¢ a bushel—nearly eight times as much—and oats are a necessary staple for an economy dependent upon horses for primary transportation. Those areas suffering local crop failures then had to deal with the lack of roads in the early 19th century, preventing any easy importation of bulky food stuffs.

When we were trying to survive in our tent complex during that very cold two years, we read a lot of books about the 'Year with no summer.' Needless to say, work on the house went very, very slowly. The extreme foul weather is not good for digging and laying bricks or pouring cement! By the time the weather became cooperative, my husband was poisoned at work when the museum cut off his oxygen supply while he was working with chemicals.

So I ended up nursing my husband while living in a tent while trying to build a house. We succeeded which goes to show, determination and sweat can win out over great odds. Now, I am prepared for a possible bad winter! But this is the opposite side of global warming: we are always just one volcano away from a bout of Ice Age fun.

Vog — volcanic smog — casts haze over Hawaii
Crops, humans suffering from exposure to toxic gas

Big Island crops are shriveling as sulfur dioxide from Kilauea wafts over them and envelops them in "vog," or volcanic smog. People are wheezing, and schoolchildren are being kept indoors during recess. High gas levels led Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to close several days this month, forcing the evacuation of thousands of visitors.

Residents of this volcanic island are used to toxic gas. But this haze is so bad that farmers are thinking about growing different crops, and many people are worrying about their health.

This is exactly the sort of eruption that killed off half of the people of Iceland in the 18th century and possibly triggered food riots in France and Germany and caused, supposedly, the Queen of France to utter those immortal, fatal words, 'Then let them eat cake.'

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Geologists Warn San Andreas 99% Chance Big Quake Next 35 Years

May 1, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Two more earthquakes greater than 4 mag hit the lower end of the Californian San Andreas region. So we have had a good number of medium-hard shakes at both the top and the bottom of the San Andreas. The number of micro quakes has also grown much greater lately. Of course, the many millions of people in California living on top of this very restless earth are not supposed to be alarmed. My family has lived out there since the Gold Rush. We know these dangers and know that we must pay heed to them. Time to review earthquake preparations. Even the cautious geologists fearful of losing jobs are sounding a timid alarm.

California '99 percent' certain to have major quake by 2038: scientists

A powerful earthquake capable of causing widespread destruction is 99 percent certain of hitting California within the next 30 years, scientists said Monday.

A new model devised to determine the probability of major earthquakes has found that the chances of a 6.7 magnitude earthquake not hitting California by 2038 was one percent, the US Geological Survey said.
The chances of a monster quake, measuring 7.5 or greater, were predicted at 46 percent over the same projected period, with densely populated southern California most likely to be affected.

The predictions were the result of a new system that combines information from seismology, earthquake geology, and precise measurements from the earth's surface, allowing the probabilities of a major earthquake to be forecast.
*snip*
The group found that two of California's largest cities -- Los Angeles and San Francisco -- were more than 63 percent likely to face a 6.7 quake.

A 6.7 earthquake in Los Angeles in 1994 left 60 people dead and did an estimated 10 billion dollars damage, while a 6.9 quake in San Francisco in 1989 claimed the lives of 67 people.

Geologists say one of the biggest areas of concern in California is the southern section of the San Andreas fault in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, which is described as being "10 months pregnant."
*snip*
Geologists say the fault erupts with a large earthquake ever 150 years or so, but has not relieved tension in 300 years.

First off, there is a 100% chance of a 7+ earthquake. Hell's bells! These happen like clockwork! But the 9 mag deals: they are rare. They happen when a fault can't move for many years. There is a sector of the San Andreas that moved last when my great-great grandaddy crossed it. On horseback, of course. This newspaper article even mentions this sector! But don't show detailed maps, etc. Which is a shame. Many people and many water/transportation systems cross this sector and will see a probable sudden jump sideways of more than 45 feet in less than one second.

Click here for the official IRIS site maps:

This map shows clearly how quakes have moved from a heavy dose of shaking at the important Juan de Fuca plate and now, at the bottom of California where the San Andreas plunges into the Gulf of California. Nearly all of last year, there were no quakes above 4 mag in this sector of the planet. Sumatra was very active. Now, Sumatra is very inactive. All the action is along the leading edge of the Australian part of the Indian/Australian plate, the part pushing the entire Pacific plate into the Juan de Fuca plate and the westward moving North American continent. This three way mighty clash is a big geological force creating earthquakes, tsunami and volcanos. Along with Japan, Sumatra and New Zealand, California is one of the most geologically active areas on earth.

When populations are fairly low and people live in palm frond huts, earthquakes are no great matter. Tsunamis are terrible and few structures can withstand them and they sweep away all humans in their path. And volcanos: nothing can stop a volcano. One can only run like hell. Truly, volcanos are tools of the gods as our ancestors believed.

Here is the last week's worth of quakes in California and Nevada. It is very, very long this time, very long compared to the last several years.

Now, the section of the San Andreas the geologists mention in this short news story is not hard to find. Along one side of this fault rise the highest coastal mountains. In particular, this section has the highest of them all! These mountains aren't accidental. They are the result of violent earthquakes along here. My grandfather worked on and at the great observatories built on these mountains like Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson. I used to play there as a child. The mountains are so new, the sides are very, very steep. These aren't like the mountain I live on here in New York which is very rounded and fairly low, brought down by millions of years of erosion and glaciers. These mountains in California are very much teenagers and growing in spurts. Like teenagers, moody and prone to violence.

Let's look at the official 'probability maps from the geological survey: 24-Hour Aftershock Forecast Map

What Are Aftershocks, Foreshocks and Earthquake Clusters?

Aftershock Facts: In a cluster, the earthquake with the largest magnitude is called the main shock; anything before it is a foreshock and anything after it is an aftershock. A main shock will be redefined as a foreshock if a subsequent event has a larger magnitude. The rate of main shocks after foreshocks follows the same patterns as aftershocks after main shocks. Aftershock sequences follow predictable patterns as a group, although the individual earthquakes are random and unpredictable. This pattern tells us that aftershocks decay with increasing time, increasing distance, and increasing magnitude. It is this average pattern that this system uses to make real-time predictions about the probability of ground shaking.

Between Parkfield and just south of Los Angeles: this is the red hot danger sector. If you bookmark this web page, it lets you know what parts are the most active at this time. A good site to keep on the computer if living in California.

Click here for maps showing intensity of the 1857 quake along this section of the Sand Andreas that has not had any major quakes since then. This is possibly the most dangerous section of the San Andreas for it has not moved much since then and it is well over 150 years. The most serious mountain ranges on the coastal side of the Central Valley and Death Valley are along this fault line.

I took the official 'scenario' maps and linked them to the bigger map of California. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and be much easier to read.

Below is an enlargement of the official government scenario maps for the sector of the San Andreas that is the least active this last 100+ years.

The nature of this beast is, if it is a 7 mag earthquake, it will be bad. If it is a 9 mag and that is quite possible, then it can cause landslides on the Los Angeles/Pasadena side of the mountains that rear up right over the Los Angeles basin. And if it is big enough, it can trigger other fault lines which can have secondary earthquakes at 7-8 mag levels. Like we saw very clearly in Sumatra with the Great Boxing Day Quake.

This map is from the USGS. I amended it to show the general location of the many water systems that carry water from the east to the biggest cities in California. All of these systems cross the San Andreas. If even half of them are severed, this will be a huge problem for LA. If LA takes damage in a major, 9 mag event along the eastern edge of the mountains, this can translate into a huge tragedy. This is why people in this sector should store a good supply of water in plastic containers that are stored on the ground. For example, I have a 250 gallon plastic storage tank with both a battery pump and a hand pump. But just gallon containers will be good. No one will want to drink from a toilet. But this is part of being in a major city that depends nearly 100% on water brought across some of the most active and dangerous fault lines on earth.

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