Geologists think they have finally identified the volcano that in 1258 AD produced the largest eruption in 7,000 years — an event that was completely unnoticed by humanity at the time.
An evening pause: Can you make diamonds using only an acetylene torch?
The trial of seven earthquake scientists in Italy on charges of manslaughter for not correctly predicting the earthquake in L’Aquila continued yesterday with each of the defendants testifying.
The trial will not resume again until the fall.
The Dead Sea is getting a bounce.
Twelve amazing confluences from around the world.
It appears that the floating debris from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year is reaching North America sooner than expected.
I got a laugh from the last two sentences of this story. The early arrival of “more than 200 bottles, cans, buoys and floats” from Japan was immediately turned into a crisis that required government intervention.
With debris making landfall sooner than predicted, U.S. lawmakers have started to question whether the government is truly prepared. “Many people said we wouldn’t see any of this impact until 2013 or 2014, and now ships and motorcycles and this various debris is showing up and people want answers,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said.
And if the debris was taking longer to get here? Cantwell would then argue we need to spend more money to track it more precisely. By her standards, no matter what happens, government has got to get bigger.
Sakurajima Volcano, which scientists have on alert since last year, erupted in Japan yesterday. Spectacular video below the fold.
This is not the big eruption that scientists are expecting, only a preliminary.
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Coiling lava found on Mars.
Uh-oh: That Mexican volcano near Mexico City is now spewing ash a half mile into the sky.
Mexico has raised its volcano alert level in response to increased activity of Popocatepetl volcano, southeast of Mexico City.
New simulations suggest that the magnitude of tsunamis predicted to hit Japan have been significantly underestimated.
The difficulty here is that these predicted giant tsunamis are still expected to be very rare events. It is thus unclear what is more practical, to build things at great cost so that they can survive these rare events, or to live with the risk and rebuild each time after disaster strikes.
Last week’s 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Mexico apparently caused a miniature tsunami in a spring pool near Las Vegas, 1,700 miles away. With video.
Indian scientists, using data from their lunar probe Chandrayaan-1, have found evidence for past volcanic activity on the central peak of the crater Tycho.
The world’s biggest atlas: Yours for only $100K.
Another volcano in Iceland shows signs of coming to life.
Scientists have found new evidence for recent earthquakes on Mars.
Making buildings invisible to earthquakes.
The manslaughter trial of six scientists and one government official continued yesterday in Italy over their reassurances to the public prior to a deadly earthquake in 2009.
Guido Bertolaso, former head of the Department of Civil Protection and De Bernardinis’s direct superior, had not been indicted and was originally expected to appear as a witness. But a few weeks ago a wiretap revealed that he had apparently set up the meeting to convey a reassuring message, regardless of the scientists’ opinion. He also seemed to be the source of the “discharge of energy” statement. He thus found himself under investigation and, at the beginning of the hearing, he was officially notified that he too may soon be formally indicted for manslaughter.
Bertolaso was asked by the prosecutor to explain that telephone conversation. He defended himself by saying that by defining the meeting as a “media move”, he was not trying to downplay risks but rather to put some order into the contradictory information that was reaching the citizens in those days. In particular, he referred to Giampaolo Giuliani — a laboratory technician and amateur seismologist who was alarming the population with claims that a major shock was coming — and to a newspaper article that had misquoted some Civil Protection experts and stated that the shocks would soon be over. The meeting, he said, was meant to make clear that both were wrong and that no deterministic prediction could be made. [emphasis mine]
This increasingly appears to be another case of science being corrupted by politics.
Eleven months after the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, a collection of incredible and inspiring before and after pictures.
