Earth news: Searching For Gas, Indonesia Finds Hot Mud

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Drilling for gas in Indonesia leads to an eruption of hot mud. Volcanoes kill people in Ecuador and lava flows in the Philippines. The earth is still troubled by the Great Quake. Also, depsite promises to the contrary, frankenstein rice genes are now polluting all rice grown in America bit by relentless bit.

Drilling for gas leads to an eruption of very hot mud.

By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Sidaorjo

Many villagers ran to escape the encroaching hot mud
Thousands of people on the Indonesian island of Java have been forced from their homes by tonnes of hot mud and gas.

The sludge, which has been spewing out of the ground for more than two months, is the result of a crack in a gas drilling project near Indonesia's second city, Surabaya.

In a sign of growing international concern over the disaster, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the affected area of Sidoarjo last week.

But despite attempts by government officials and the company involved, so far nothing has managed to contain the flow.

This is certainly interesting. Water or mud isn't hot for no reason, like all hot springs, water is heated by the earth's mantle and we are talking about hot lava here. It appears to me that the gas the drillers were hoping to find were probably caused by volcanic-type conditions, not decaying plants from millions of years ago.

This part of the earth has been significantly re-arranged recently and it doesn't surprise me to see the mud and water under tremendous pressure, erupting out of the ground when disturbed. Also, when the underwater rifts change position, a lot of water gets gulped down into the earth. There are many factors at work here and they point to some very unsettled times ahead.

Three days ago, the roof of the biggest buildings in the inundated town were visible. Today's photos show them barely peeking out of the muck. The mud also appears to be a very fine grit like porcelain. If one goes to the river running in the valley below my farm, poking around where the springs pop up in springtime, one finds a lot of this sort of fine, grey mud. It bubbles out of the ground just like this mud in Indonesia only it isn't hot at all.

A sudden eruption in Ecuador kills several villagers.

By GONZALO SOLANO, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 57 minutes ago
QUITO, Ecuador - A volcanic eruption in Ecuador's Andes mountains destroyed three villages, killed at least one man and left more than 60 others missing, the mayor of a village on the volcano's slope said Thursday.

One body was recovered after the overnight eruption of lava from Tungurahua, in the country's high Andes, and four others were believed to be under the rubble, Penipe Mayor Juan Salazar said.

Salazar told Channel 4 television that the villages of Chilibu, Choglontuz and Palitagua "no longer exist. Everything is wiped out."

Another famous grave danger with all the North and South American active volcanoes are mud slide due to the sudden melting of glacial ice at the crown. A good section of Seattle has been flooded this way by Mt. Rainier in the last 500 years and could easily do this again. All over the world, people colonize land right on the upper flanks of active volcanoes because they are so fertile. Huge cities have sprung up next to some extremely dangerous volcanoes such as Seattle, Tokyo, most cities in Indonesia, Italian cities, famously so. Many of these cities are fairly new (less than a thousand years old) and geological time moves a tad slower than the weather. Nonetheless, we are certainly foolish, building nearly impossible to vacate cities right on the edge of cracks of doom.

And lastly, Frankenfoods strike again.

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 18, 6:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Long-grain rice samples from the United States have tested positive for trace amounts of a genetically modified strain not approved for consumption, but it doesn't pose a threat to humans or the environment, federal officials said Friday.

The genetically engineered rice was detected by Bayer CropScience AG. The German company then notified U.S. officials. The strain is not approved for sale in the United States, but two other strains of rice with the same genetically engineered protein are.

U.S. officials said they have contacted foreign trade partners to assure them of the product's safety. They said the United States would provide those partners with any necessary information to alleviate concerns.

When we yelled about genetically engineered foods, the scientists working for megacorporations laughed at our concerns. Well, the stupid stuff is spreading just as we expected. So now they are reduced to telling us more lies, namely, eating this crap won't turn us into cockroaches. Of course.

But instead, it will screw up our digestive systems. Worse, it is spreading and the iron rule of nature is, invaders always destroy natives! The only reason normal domesticated foods couldn't do this is due to their inherent weaknesses, namely, they are like our pets, pretty, nice, we like them but totally ineffective in the struggle to survive in the wild. They need us to live! We have to fight off other plants and animals and protect them all!

With bioengineering, this was thrown out! Now, the plants are invaders, resistant to Round Up, stronger than the native plants, immune to bugs or molds, so of course, as super-plants they not only invade all other species, they transfer these lovely power genes to other plants and the laws of evolution means they drive out all others and end up in everything all over the place. Duh.

I seriously wish the people creating these monsters really understood evolution and the way nature interacts.

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