Working together to understand , bring awareness and help to those victims of Earth’s Natural Dynamic of Change and Cleansing in her eternal voyage though the galaxy and prepare ourselves for the coming events…
The impressive scar-like rifts of the aptly-named Afar region. Graham Dawes, Author provided
In September 2014, the Natural Environment Research Council will launch a major five-year programme to study the volcanoes of Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley. The project team contains core investigators from seven UK institutions and several international partners, as well as a network of local collaborators including Addis Ababa University and the Geological Survey of Ethiopia. The main goals of project RiftVolc are to establish the eruption history, understand the current activity, and assess the potential threat of an eruption.
The volcanoes we will be studying also have enormous potential for geothermal energy. Ethiopia aims to increase its geothermal output by 300 times by 2030. Much of this will be from power plants at two of volcanoes – Alutu and Corbetti – partly as a result of a US$4 billion investment by Reykjavik Geothermal. So, we will also be working with the international geothermal industry to enable them to develop this resource safely and efficiently.
Risk assessment
The current population of Ethiopia is about 100m, roughly half of whom live within 100 kilometres of a volcano. A recent report for the World Bank ranked 49 of Ethiopia’s 65 volcanoes in the highest category of hazard uncertainty. This effectively means that around 50m people are presently exposed to unknown levels of risk from volcanic activity.
Ethiopia’s main trade route runs through the densely populated Rift Valley region - a key locus for volcanic activity. This area is also home to the country’s flower-farming industry, its third most valuable export. Clearly, a large eruption would physically devastate the immediate area, but could also have a destabilising effect on the social and economic fabric of the country.
By the end of our five-year project, we aim to have produced the first dated catalogue of eruptions in a continental rift. By using the latest technologies, we will have modelled the rise and storage of magma, which can then be compared to other tectonic settings. We will also have characterised the sources of volcanic unrest, and developed new methods for the assessment of volcanic hazards, which are applicable in data-poor regions.
Roughly 10% of the world’s volcanoes lie in regions where tectonic plates are being pulled apart, including “continental rifts” on land. These volcanoes are significantly understudied, compared to those located where plates come together, like the Pacific “Ring of Fire”. Understanding the processes that occur as a plate stretches, thins, and eventually breaks is an important part of plate tectonics.
Our previous projects in Ethiopia have highlighted the role magma plays in weakening the plate. Most recently, we were researching in the Afar region, where a seismo-volcanic crisis affecting a 60 kilometre long rift portion began in September, 2005. The Afar region is hot, dry and dusty, and the rift is a stunning scar" running through it, fashioned by volcanic activity which breaks the rock as magma squeezes into it, causing deep fissures and tall cliffs, before it eventually cools and solidifies to build new crust.
While our uncertainties decrease as we study these explosive natural hazards, our perception of the risk can increase, and unforeseen events can occur. As we were studying one part of Afar in 2011, Nabro volcano in another part of the region erupted; a timely reminder of the potential threat to the region. Despite lying in a remote and sparsely populated location, with no historical record of eruption, it claimed the lives of 32 people and displaced 5000 more. Prior to its eruption, the volcano was believed to be dormant.
Satellite imagery of lava flows from the erupted Nabro volcano in 2011.NASA/Wikimedia Commons
What we know, and what we don’t
As a result of earlier work, we understand how rifts form, and how magma is generated. But we still have a lot of questions about where and how magma is stored, how it gets to the surface, and what determines the size and style of the resulting eruption.
In recent years we’ve detected signs of underground activity at many of Ethopia’s volcanoes. Satellite radar surveys have shown ongoing uplift (upwards) and subsidence (downwards) movement of the ground surface. Analysis of seismic data has indicated clusters of earthquake under many volcanoes. But we do not know what processes are causing these disturbances, or what the potential threats related to an eruption might be.
The main part of the East African rift in Ethiopia is the best place to search for answers, as it has a wide range of volcanic styles, including towering peaks, fissures, flows of volcanic glass and lines of cinder cones. For example, the 28 kilometre long Lake Shala is actually the hole – known as a “caldera” – left by one of the largest eruptions ever to happen in East Africa.
Together with our Ethiopian partners, we hope our work will have a real impact on the understanding of volcanic hazard in Ethiopia, and in planning for future eruptions.
Why are so many plagues hitting the United States all of a sudden? Yes, one can always point out bad stuff that is happening somewhere in the country, but right now we are facing a nightmarish combination of crippling drought, devastating wildfires, disastrous viruses, dying crops and superbugs that scientists don’t know how to kill. And as you will see, we even have a plague of flies down in Mississippi. So what in the world is going on? Is this just a case of bad luck, or is something else happening? At the conclusion of this article, please feel free to tell me what you think. The following are ten plagues that are hitting America right now…
#1 The Plague Of Flies In The Upper Mississippi River Valley
This is perhaps the least dangerous plague, but it is also one of the most interesting. Just recently, a plague of flies was so thick in the upper Mississippi River valley that it showed up on radar…
The mayflies were detectable on radar around 845 pm and reports in the towns and cities began rolling in of the swarming and piles of mayflies. Numerous videos and pictures were circulating on social media, some of which are posted below as well.
The radar detected the flies about 845 pm, emanating from the river (the source) with echo values similar to that of light-moderate rain (35-40 dBZ). With a general south-to-north wind flow above the surface, the mayflies quickly moved north once in the air. As the flies dispersed moving north-northeast, they also gained altitude with some of the echo being detected as far north as Black River Falls and as high as 2500 feet above ground.
By late evening, mayflies were swarming in La Crosse, La Crescent, Stoddard and points up and down the river. While the emergence of mayflies from their river bottom mud dwelling can occur at various times through the warm season depending on the species, this particular emergence was that of the larger black/brown Bilineata species.
Here is one photo of the flies that was posted by the federal government…
#2 The Chikungunya Virus
As I wrote about the other day, down in Florida health officials have discovered the very first confirmed cases of the chikungunya virus to be transmitted locally. In other words, it is now being passed to people that have not even traveled out of the country.
An epidemic of the virus has already been declared down in Puerto Rico, and authorities are deeply concerned about the possibility of one up here as well.
Already, cases of the virus have been reported in 30 different states and the total number of cases in the U.S. is more than five times higher than in any other recent year.
If you live in an area that has a lot of mosquitos, you might want to be very, very careful right about now because this is a virus that is exceedingly painful…
With illness onset, the person develops high fever, chills, and joint pain, followed in some by a rash on the trunk, limbs and face lasting 3-4 days. Muscle and joint pain last about one week. Joint pain is often severe and in some people lasts longer, up to several months.
#3 The Wildfires Out West
The massive wildfires in Washington, Oregon and western Canada have spread clouds of smoke over vast areas of the northwest United States in recent days. The following excerpt comes from a recent CNN report…
Wildfires spanning almost 170,000 acres are driving hundreds of people from their homes in Washington state and across the border in Canada, officials said.
Washington authorities say the fires surged overnight to 168,713 acres in the state. The flames have encroached on towns.
Janet Pearce of the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said the four fires had not been contained as of Friday morning. An estimated 80 homes were destroyed and cell phone service was knocked out.
#4 The Drought In California
The nightmarish multi-year drought in the state of California just continues to get even worse.
This week it was reported that 81 percent of California is now experiencing “extreme drought” or worse.
Three months ago, that number was just 68 percent.
And we are being told that downtown Los Angeles is now the driest that it has been since rain records began in 1877.
Perhaps not, but it has gotten so bad down in Florida that experts are now saying that the entire citrus industry in the state “could be destroyed”…
“It’s horrible — it’s a disaster,” says Fred Gmitter, a professor of horticulture science at the University of Florida Citrus Research and Education Center.
It might be time to kiss your OJ goodbye, unless science steps in to save the day.
At least 70% of Florida’s citrus trees are already infected by the disease, known as citrus greening, huanglongbing, or occasionally just with an ominous “it,” as in “It’s here.”
Florida’s citrus crop this year is the lowest it’s been in 30 years, and agricultural authorities have continued to lowertheir production estimates. Orange-juice prices are up nearly 20% this year alone and will continue to rise. The disease was a major factor in the lime shortage that made the price of a box of Persian limes jump from $18 to $85 last December. Prices could jump higher for oranges. Researchers and growers say that if a cure isn’t found, the entire $9 billion Florida citrus industry could be destroyed.
#7 Bananas Going Extinct?
You bananas are not safe either.
According to CNBC, the TR4 fungus is spreading so rapidly that it could eventually totally wipe out the variety of bananas that we find in our grocery stores today…
Banana lovers take note: The world’s supply of the fruit is under attack from a fungus strain that could wipe out the popular variety that Americans eat.
“It’s a very serious situation,” said Randy Ploetz, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida who in 1989 originally discovered a strain of Panama disease, called TR4, that may be growing into a serious threat to U.S. supplies of the fruit and Latin American producers.
“There’s nothing at this point that really keeps the fungus from spreading,” he said in an interview with CNBC.
While there are nearly 1,000 varieties of bananas, the most popular is the Cavendish, which accounts for 45 percent of the fruit’s global crop—and the one Americans mostly find in their supermarkets.
#8 The Number Of Earthquakes Is Increasing
For a long time, scientists tried to deny that the number of earthquakes is increasing.
But now, the USGS is finally admitting that the number of big earthquakes has doubled…
If you think there have been more earthquakes than usual this year, you’re right. A new study finds there were more than twice as many big earthquakes in the first quarter of 2014 as compared with the average since 1979.
“We have recently experienced a period that has had one of the highest rates of great earthquakes ever recorded,” said lead study author Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.
Fortunately, most of the earthquakes in the U.S. so far this year have been relatively small or have been in isolated areas.
But they have been popping up in very unusual areas (such as Oklahoma), and as seismic activity along the Ring of Fire continues to increase, it is probably only a matter of time before one of our major cities gets hit with a major tragedy.
#9 Superbugs
Thanks at least in part to the massive overuse of antibiotics, a new generation of superbugs is arising. Scientists have no way to kill these superbugs, and according to experts they are finding their way “into healthcare facilities nationwide”…
Drug-resistant superbug infections have reached near-epidemic levels across U.S. hospitals, with an alarming 500% increase now documented in a study just published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology(the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America).
Lead author of the study, Dr. Joshua Thaden, warned “This dangerous bacteria is finding its way into healthcare facilities nationwide… A CRE epidemic is fast approaching… Even this marked increase likely underestimates the true scope of the problem given variations in hospital surveillance practices.”
The study also found that an astonishing 94 percent of CRE infections were caused by healthcare activities or hospital procedures.
#10 Fukushima
The Fukushima nuclear disaster is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Hundreds of tons of radioactive water are being released into the Pacific on a continual basis, and this could potentially affect our oceans and our food chain for generations to come.
But it is a “slow motion disaster” that is already “old news”, so most Americans don’t think about it anymore. But the truth is that there is a lot of evidence that it should be taken very seriously in this country. For much more on this, please see this article.
In Japan, of course, things are even worse.
In fact, one Japanese doctor that was working in Tokyo says that radiation sickness is rampant in that city…
Since December 2011, I have conducted thyroid ultrasound examinations, thyroid function tests, general blood tests and biochemical tests on about 2000 people, mostly families in the Tokyo metropolitan area expressing concerns on the effects of radiation. I have observed that white blood cells, especially neutrophils, are decreasing among children under the age of 10. There are cases of significant decline in the number of neutrophils in 0-1 year-olds born after the earthquake (<1000). In both cases, conditions tend to improveby moving to Western Japan (Neutrophils 0–>4500).Patients report nosebleed, hair loss, lack of energy, subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary hemorrhage, skin inflammations, coughs and various other non-specific symptoms.
And this Japanese doctor believes that things are so dire that he says that the entire city of Tokyo should be evacuated…
Residents of Tokyo are unfortunately not in the position to pity the affected regions of Tohoku because they are victims themselves. Time is running short. I took an earlier step forward and evacuated to the west. My fellow doctors of medicine, I am waiting for you here. And to the people in Eastern Japan still hesitating, all my support goes to facilitating and enabling your evacuation, relocation, or a temporary relief in Western Japan.
Just like with Chernobyl, this radioactive material is going to silently make people sick and kill people all over globe for years to come, and most of them will never have any idea what is really happening to them.
So what do you think about all of this?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
