Karl's Weird News

Gulf Surface Oil Vanishing Quickly

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected, a piece of good news that raises tricky new questions about how fast the government should scale back its response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The immense patches of surface oil that covered thousands of square miles of the gulf after the April 20 oil rig explosion are largely gone, though sightings of tar balls and emulsified oil continue here and there.

Reporters flying over the area Sunday spotted only a few patches of sheen and an occasional streak of thicker oil, and radar images taken since then suggest that these few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.
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Scientists said the rapid dissipation of the surface oil was probably due to a combination of factors. The gulf has an immense natural capacity to break down oil, which leaks into it at a steady rate from thousands of natural seeps. Though none of the seeps is anywhere near the size of the Deepwater Horizon leak, they do mean that the gulf is swarming with bacteria that can eat oil.

Iceland volcano eruption: Navy armada ready to pick up stranded Britons

Three of the Royal Navy’s most illustrious ships are to spearhead a dramatic operation to rescue 150,000 Britons stranded abroad by the volcanic ash crisis.

After a meeting of emergency planning committee Cobra in Whitehall this morning, Gordon Brown revealed the aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Ocean will be made available for the massive relief effort.

A third Royal Navy vessel, HMS Albion, is already on its way to Spain to pick up troops and ‘may be able to be of help’, the Prime Minister said.

Mr Brown also announced that Spain’s Madrid airport, which remains clear of the ash cloud, is likely to be used as a hub for stranded Britons returning from Asia, Africa and the U.S. Travellers could then be ferried by bus and train to Spanish and Channel ports, to be picked up by the Navy ships.

Britain Closes Airspace as Volcanic Ash Spreads 

 British civil aviation authorities ordered the closure of the country’s airspace as of noon on Thursday to shield aircraft from a high altitude cloud of ash drifting south and east from an erupting volcano in Iceland.

The plume of ash shut down airports and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights in a wide arc from Ireland to Scandinavia.

The closures left airplanes on the tarmac as the rolling cloud — made up of minute particles of silicate that can damage airplane engines — headed from Britain and Scandinavia toward northern France. News reports said Denmark also had restricted air travel.

“From midday today until at least 6 p.m., there will be no flights permitted in U.K. controlled airspace other than emergency situations,” Britain’s National Air Traffic Service said in a statementon its Web site. “This has been applied in accordance with international civil aviation policy.”

 The move effectively grounded all flights in Britain from 11:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (7:00 a.m. Eastern) and affected an estimated 6,000 flights that use British airspace every day, aviation experts said.

Oddly, for travelers, the closure was announced under clear blue skies. Experts had said earlier that the ash may not be visible from the ground but can clog airplane engines.

Huge Wave Sweeps Away, Injures Calif. Surfing Contest Spectators

Two huge waves swept away spectators watching a Northern California surfing contest Saturday morning, causing broken bones and other injuries to people standing on a seawall.

Fifteen people had significant injuries, including broken legs and hands, authorities said. At least three of them were transported to area hospitals.

Others were treated at the beach for injuries such as scrapes and bruises. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Scott Jalbert estimated “a couple hundred” people were on the seawall at the southern tip of Mavericks Beach when the waves struck, upstaging the surfing competition that draws some of the world’s top surfers.

Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts

The ground is so hot in one part of Southern California it can melt your shoes right off your feet.

An unexplained “thermal anomaly” caused a patch of land in Ventura County to reach a temperature of over 800 degrees on Friday, baffling experts who have been monitoring the area for weeks.

The anomaly was discovered after the land got so hot, it started a brush fire and burned three acres. Firefighters were brought to the scene a month ago after reports of a blaze, but by the time they arrived found only smoldering dirt and brush.

Firefighters took no chances with the smoking ground, clearing brush near the fumes and cutting a fire line around the area to prevent a blaze

Currents Kill 4 In N.Y., Others Missing

The toll of swimmers caught up in treacherous ocean currents in the metro region over the weekend grew to at least 10 on Saturday as two more men drowned, a 10-year-old girl disappeared and another beach-goer had to be pulled from the water.

Altogether, four people died and three vanished within two days at beaches in New York City and on Long Island, authorities said. At least three more were rescued, they said.

In Long Beach on Saturday evening, a swimmer or surfer died after he was spotted struggling about 150 yards from shore, said Police Lt. Bruce Meyer. Lifeguards were off-duty but rushed to the beach and reached the unconscious 29-year-old man within minutes. Rescuers and hospital staffers were unable to revive him, Meyer said.

Lightning Strikes 10 People; 1 Dead

One man died, while nine others are injured after being struck by lightning in various parts of the tri-state area.

A man is dead and four other people are injured after a lightning strike on the beach in Sandy Hook.

National Park Service spokesman Brian Feeney says the lightning strike at about noon Sunday was on a beach where swimming isn’t allowed. That means there weren’t even lifeguards to raise the alarm as a fast-moving severe thunderstorm swept into the area.

Feeney said one man in his 40s was dead.

Five people were struck by lightning on Long Island. The group was playing soccer in Hicksville when they were caught off guard by powerful thunderstorms. The victims, all in their 20s, sought shelter under a tree.

Regulators Monitor Massive Sinkhole in Southeast Texas Town

Regulators continued monitoring a massive sinkhole which has swallowed up oil field equipment, poles and some vehicles since surfacing just outside the southeast Texas community of Daisetta.

There were no reports of injuries or of any homes being damaged early Thursday.

Investigators with the Texas Railroad Commission were checking pipelines in the area and trying to determine if any regulations have been violated, said agency spokeswoman Ramona Nye.

Swedish researchers find world’s oldest living tree

The world’s oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University said on Thursday.

Researchers had discovered a spruce with genetic material dating back 9,550 years in the Fulu mountain in Dalarna, according to Leif Kullmann, a professor of Physical Geography at the university in northwestern Sweden.

That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC.

“It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions,” he said.

‘Like Something Out of a Movie’: 2 Die as Pileup Closes Calif. Highway

Dense fog along a busy highway was blamed for a massive pileup of as many as 100 cars, killing two people and injuring dozens, the California Highway Patrol said.

At least nine big rigs were involved in the pileup on northbound Highway 99 just south of Fresno, CHP officials said. No hazardous materials were spilled.

“It looked like something out of a movie, walking up and seeing all the cars mangled and crushed,” said CHP Officer Paul Solorzano, Jr.

F2 Tornado Confirmed In Brooklyn

What was thought to be a violently windy thunderstorm that plowed through Brooklyn Wednesday morning turned out to be a weather event of historical proportions.

The National Weather Service confirmed that the storm brought with it Brooklyn’s first ever tornado since such weather events were recorded. Officials measured it to be an EF2 twister, characterized by winds of anywhere from 111 to 135 miles per hour.

A tornado warning had been issued in Brooklyn from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., and during that time a severe thunderstorm blew through the region, making for an incredible headache for morning commuters. Thousands of New Yorkers found themselves enduring hours of delays in the sweltering heat with subways shut down and vacant taxi cabs hard to come by.

I can confirm that it was quite a wild storm here this morning. Lightning was flashing like a strobe light and the thunder was booming like artillery from around 4am to 6am. Public transportation was in total havoc, with my subway line flooded and out of commission for the morning rush hour. Even now around the evening rush hour things are not quite back to normal.

Sinkholes threaten Mexican capital

As if life-shortening pollution, hours-long traffic jams and kidnappings weren’t bad enough, Mexico City residents now have to worry about the earth opening up and swallowing them.

As the summer rainy season hits, concern is growing that hundreds of cracks, holes and fractures that line this city could open up with disastrous consequences in a metropolitan area of 20 million people.

The fear became reality this month in a Mexico City slum when heavy rainfall ruptured a fissure in the street, swallowing a car and an onlooker, who was killed when he tumbled into the muddy depths more than 60 feet below.

Mexico City’s latest urban ill stems from its geography and history. Built on a drained lake bed after the Spanish destroyed the Venice-like city of Tenochtitlan, Mexico City has been sinking steadily for centuries, falling the equivalent of a three-story building since 1900.

Flash flood at Thai waterfall kills 23, many missing

At least 23 people died Saturday and many more were missing after a flash flood swept over a popular waterfall in southern Thailand, officials said. The tragedy took place at about 2:00 pm (0700 GMT) at the Sairung waterfall in Trang province, some 700 kilometres (434 miles) south of Bangkok. “At least 23 people were confirmed dead and we have learned that more bodies are coming,” a local hospital official said, adding that she did not know how many people were missing.

Early Earth Was Purple, Study Suggests:

The earliest life on Earth might have been just as purple as it is green today, a scientist claims.

Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the Sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue.

Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants, absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum.

“Why would chlorophyll have this dip in the area that has the most energy?” said Shil DasSarma, a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland.

15 million gallons of sewage disappears

About 15 million gallons of partially treated sewage water disappeared from a 250,000-square-foot storage lagoon into a sinkhole, but officials don’t know where it went after that. Kent County utility operator Nathan Danenberg, who runs the sewage treatment system for Sand Lake, discovered the leak in the 8-foot-deep lagoon on Friday while taking samples. It wasn’t clear when or why the leak occurred.

The looming sinkhole crisis

WHEN THEY SAW the recent pictures of a giant sinkhole in Guatemala, some folks in Los Angeles may have thought: “It could never happen here.”

They’re wrong.

The Guatemala City sinkhole that killed three people and swallowed dozens of homes was formed by the same thing that creates sinkholes in Los Angeles. Not weather. Not an act of God. Not strange rock. Bad sewer pipes created this sinkhole. And the problem is getting worse, around the world and in the United States.

Last year was the worst ever in the U.S. for sinkholes. Almost every state in the country experienced record problems.

In San Diego, the mayor held a news conference near a yawning abyss. A 64-year-old Brooklyn woman fell into a 5-foot-deep sinkhole in front of her house.

Sea floor records ancient Earth:

A sliver of four-billion-year-old sea floor has offered a glimpse into the inner workings of an adolescent Earth. The baked and twisted rocks, now part of Greenland, show the earliest evidence of plate tectonics, colossal movements of the planet’s outer shell. Until now, researchers were unable to say when the process, which explains how oceans and continents form, began.

Concrete balls slow Java mud volcano

The use of concrete balls to reduce the force of a mud volcano that has swamped villages on Indonesia’s Java island appears to be working.

The mud has displaced about 15,000 people following an oil-drilling accident in May in Sidoarjo, an industrial suburb near Surabaya city in the east of Java island. It has also swamped roads, railway tracks and factories.

The flow has decreased by about 20 percent after 374 clusters of concrete balls linked by steel cables were dropped into the volcano, said Endar Bagus, one of three scientists who initiated the experiment. “We’re seeing a decrease in the mud debit,” Bagis said, “but our observation is relative, not absolute.”

Huge Underground “Ocean” Found Beneath Asia:

A giant blob of water the size of the Arctic Ocean has been discovered hundreds of miles beneath eastern Asia, scientists report.

Researchers found the underground “ocean” while scanning seismic waves as they passed through Earth’s interior.

But nobody will be exploring this sea by submarine. The water is locked in moisture-containing rocks 400 to 800 miles (700 to 1,400 kilometers) beneath the surface.

Mission to Study Earth’s Gaping ‘Open Wound’:

A team of scientists will embark on a voyage next week to study an “open wound” on the Atlantic seafloor where the Earth’s deep interior lies exposed without any crust covering.

The lesion is located mid-way between the Cape Verdes Islands and the Caribbean in the Atlantic Ocean [image]. It lies nearly 2 miles beneath the ocean surface and extends over thousands of square kilometers.

“It’s quite a substantial area,” said Chris MacLeod, a marine geologist at Cardiff University in the UK, who will be part of the expedition.

 Longest Underground River Found

Cave divers in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula have discovered what may be the world’s longest underground river, connecting two cave systems with a waterway at least 95 miles long.

A group of foreign divers exploring the area near the Caribbean beach resort of Playa del Carmen have yet to name the stretch, but believe it could be connected to two other major systems, adding more than 125 miles to its length.

Ground Rises Near Ancient Italian Volcano:

The ground on the western edges of Naples, Italy is rising, spurring worries of a possible volcanic eruption, but scientists now think they know exactly what is causing the uplift and may be able to better predict any potential eruption.

Using GPS measurements, a group of scientists at the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology in Italy monitored the ground’s motions for several years, and based on the patterns they observed, they believe the uplifting is caused by magma intruding from a shallow chamber.

The rising motions of the ground reached a peak rate of about three feet per year during two major uplift episodes in the last few decades. Some previous episode of the alternate uplifting and subsidence left its mark: Bore holes from mollusks can be found on Roman pillars in the area, indicating the ground once subsided below water and has since risen up again.

Giant sinkhole swallows father, teens

A giant sinkhole opened before dawn Friday, swallowing several homes and a truck and leaving a father and two teenagers missing in Guatemala City.

Officials said the 100-meter-deep (330-foot-deep) sinkhole in a crowded neighborhood of poor, concrete homes was caused by recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.

National disaster coordinator Hugo Hernandez identified the missing as Domingo, Irma and David Sosyos, ages 53, 18 and 15, respectively. A body appeared in a river of sewage near the sinkhole, but it was unclear whether the corpse was a victim.

Volcano gets choke chains to slow mud

Indonesian geophysicists hope to stem the flow of a destructive mud volcano on East Java by dropping chains of concrete balls into its mouth. The mud eruption began on 29 May last year in the middle of a rice paddy in the village of Porong, 30 kilometres south of Surabaya, the provincial capital. Since then, the volcano has spewed out up to 126,000 cubic metres of mud a day, flooding an area of more than 4 square kilometres.

Undersea Volcano May Have Caused Quakes:

A wave of small earthquakes that has caused alarm in southern Chile may be related to the birth of an undersea volcano, officials said Tuesday. More than 1,700 tremors have been recorded recently in the rugged, sparsely populated area dotted with volcanos and cut with fjords. Dozens of people slept outside or in tents on recent nights, fearing a larger quake might follow and topple their houses.