Last update: August 16, 2012 at 3:26 pm by By Ashish Khanal
Moderate earthquake close to Tahiti
A moderate earthquake with a Magnitude of M4.7 occurred close to the Mahaeana coast of Tahiti, French Polynesia. As the epicenter of the earthquake is below the sea bed, the shaking on the island was rather limited. Experience reports from people in Papeete, where the earthquake was also felt, are talking about a weak shaking.
El Hierro Volcano : Green pre-alert – A new earthquake swarm has started below El Hierro – 40 earthquakes until 13:47 UTC
Last update: August 16, 2012 at 4:32 pm by By Armand Vervaeck
Update 16/08 – 16:25 UTC
– 3 more earthquakes from M0.9 to M1.1 at a depth of 11 to 12 km (12:25 to 13:47 UTC)
– Maybe IGN could take a few courses in press reporting at GNS Science New Zealand. If an important new swarm starts, like the one today (even with weak earthquakes), an experienced volcanologist may write 5 sentences in explaining what the opinion of the organization is. Why does a body like Pevolca is to be used for volcanology ? If i would live in Sabinosa, i would love to hear a few words if continuous quakes are occurring below my house.
Update 16/08 – 13:37 UTC
– 5 more earthquakes in between M0.6 and M1.2 and at depths in between 10 and 11 km
Image courtesy Avcan
Update 16/08 – 11:53 UTC
– We have to continue bringing updates on the seismicity below the island. 4 more earthquakes bringing the total on 32 today. Magnitudes from M1.0 until M1.5. Depths 10-11 km. IGN has updated his list up to 08:30 UTC
– At right a small map with the epicenters of a number of the latest earthquakes.
Update 16/08 – 09:50 UTC
– 1 earthquake has to be added since our latest update (07:29 – 11 km depth – Magnitude M 1.5)
– For your comfort, we have cut 2/3ths of this article. Parts 49 and 50 (yes 50!) have been archived. Links to all those 50 parts can be found at the bottom of this page.
The latest 10 earthquake epicenters – image ourtesy Avcan
Very important Update 16/08 – 08:19 UTC – A new earthquake swarm has started below El Hierro
– For the 3th day in a row the number of earthquakes are fundamentally increasing below El Hierro. Although not official, we think that speaking of a new earthquake swarm is the only right way of describing the current set of earthquakes.
– No less than 26 earthquakes occurred this morning (from midnight UTC until 07:00 AM)
– The majority of the earthquakes are still weak, but the M2.2 from early this morning was the strongest in a while and the Magnitude pattern tends to become stronger every couple of hours.
– The CHIE seismogram is not showing a lot of action, but the M2.2 can well be seen. CHIE is not the best station at the moment to show the seismic events at his best.
– The depth is continuing around the 10 to 12 km which is a complete difference from the July swarm, but still far away from an eruption. More seismicity at lesser depths is needed to create a pre-eruptive condition. Newt to seismicity, we have also the gas analysis, the deformation, etc who will have to confirm if the present swarm will end in an eruption. The magma pressure should be powerful enough to find his way up.
– We do not know how many University of Nagoya GPS stations are still working, but we know for sure that FRON station still works and shows a vertical increase of many mm, which sounds normal after the present set of increasing earthquakes in the area.
– A reason for concern at this time should be the location of the seismicity (El Golfo Bay and Sabinosa area – including the cliffs south of Sabinosa). Landslides and rockfall may become dangerous at Magnitudes from M4 and up.
for more information, history, and updates, go to: http://earthquake-report.com/2011/09/25/el-hierro-canary-islands-spain-volcanic-risk-alert-increased-to-yellow/
In order to understand the resurgence of the divine feminine, we have to go the basics of science. ‘Feminine and Masculine’ energy is another way of saying ‘Negative and Positive’ energy. There can be no light without the balance of both. Most would agree that we live in a time with an overbearing emphasis on positive energy – so much so it has falsely become synonymous with happiness. I would go as far as to say, the conscious community is misguided in seeking only positive energy, inadvertently searching for truth through the lens of a masculine paradigm.
A deeper analysis of the attributes of male and female energies reveals that male (positive) energy travels in straight lines. It is the energy with potential to become anything, i.e. energy in its unmanifest form. It is the light of consciousness that thinks, knows and imagines everything, but has yet to come into physical existence. Do you, or anyone you know, spend a lot of time experimenting with positive thinking, laws of attraction and visualizations, yet often feel frustrated with the results? This is because light by itself needs a source and a refractive surface to become visible – like the green in trees – and that physical surface is the negative aspect, the feminine. In its pure form light/consciousness is filled with unlimited potential but doesn’t have the landing power until it is met with the physical/body. All things manifest into physical form are female energy or negative energy.
The experience of life is essentially the interplay of male and females energies (which further splits into eight signature frequencies of energy known as the LumenOctave or Octave of Light). The tipping of human consciousness towards the positive end of the spectrum is prevalent in a multitude of aspects. Think of corporations being driven solely by the bottom line, constantly pushing positive results; any indications of a downturn are considered taboo. School systems are structured around a positive reinforcement that values perfect regurgitation of information. Creative thought, avant-garde research and development, as well as lateral thinking are viewed as mere secondary attributes of human culture. For the majority on the path of human socio-cultural success, the cultivation of these energies is deterred. Moreover, the bulk of the spiritual dogma is “higher self”-centric with heavy emphasis on activating the pineal gland, opening the third eye, visualizations, remote viewing, astral projections and achieving higher states through “out of body”-experiences.
We are all too familiar with the syndrome of the “ideas man”. The one who “talks the big game”, yet when it comes down to actually delivering shows little results. Over-use of the higher faculties of the mind (the crown, the pineal and pituitary glands) heightens the reception of inspiration and thought from the higher dimensions, but offers little knowledge about the process of executing these inspirations within the physical reality. In order to materialize, the amazing visions intuited by the higher faculties need the glands and organs in the lower parts of the body, e.g. adrenal gland, prostate/womb region and the rectum to name a few.
The resurgence of the divine feminine is about to change the world as we know it
The dawning of the divine feminine is the breakthrough in consciousness bringing humanity to the aperture of the vast knowledge stored within the body. With this incredible knowledge follows instructions on how to use the tools we have been given to experience the light of our soul from a full spectrum standpoint. In the full spectrum experience, the male-focused upper body glands intuit inspirations, allowing the female-focused lower body to perform the quality assurance needed before birthing a concept into a physical form; it is the experience of knowing oneself, truly and undoubtedly as the creator. This balance is the key to healing the planet, which essentially is made of female energy matter.
Although the over-all end goals point to a balancing of the full spectrum, the need to counteract the damage caused by our over-dependence and attachment to positive energies and male attributes compels the scales to shift to the other end of the spectrum and re-establish the potency of negative female energies, which, to this day, are a conceptual figment of imagination for most. Thus, the ascension that we talk about is not ascension at all. It is a de-scension. A decension into the body – into the sensational experience. As above so below. This is the great paradox of life: The only way up is down. So we stand here at the brink – daring to correct the myths and false assumptions of this radical time in our evolution. With this, expect the body and the planet to take the center stage in the decades to come – and expect those who delve deep into the mysteries of the body, sensations and emotional realms to become the natural leaders; those, whom up until this point have been deemed the meek on Planet Earth.
Next time the family dog bounds out of the nearest body of water and shakes itself off right beside you, don’t get irritated: You’re witnessing a feat of evolution that engineers can only dream of re-creating.
Furry mammals can shake themselves 70 percent dry in just a fraction of a second, according to new research. The study, which looked at the shaking speeds of 16 species of mammals, from mice to lions to bears, found that the smaller the animal, the faster it must shake to dry its fur.
“We think this has been evolving over millions of years of time to become so good,” said study researcher David Hu, who studies biolocomotion at Georgia Tech. “Imagine if you could come out of the shower and, instead of using a towel, you could just press a button and in one-thirtieth of a second you’re 70 percent dry.”The findings could provide inspiration for self-cleaning and self-drying robotics, Hu told LiveScience. [Video: Watch the Animals Shake Dry in Slow-Motion]
Shaking to survive
For mammals, drying off is a matter of life and death, Hu said. A relatively hairless human emerging from a bath can carry up to a pound of water on his or her body. An immersed rat will emerge with 5 percent of its body mass in water clinging to its fur. And a wet ant can find itself staggering under three times its body weight in liquid. (Hu previously studied how mosquitoes can survive direct hits by raindrops during a storm.)
Drying off quickly is particularly critical in winter. Hu and his colleagues calculate that a 60-pound dog with a pound of water on its fur would use a full 20 percent of its daily caloric intake staying warm as it air-dried.
“Imagine you fell into the lake in the winter and had wet clothes all around you and couldn’t dry,” Hu said.
Water would also be a challenge for autonomous robots that traipse around outdoors. Dust poses similar problems for electronics, Hu noted, citing NASA’s Mars rovers. Modern Earthbound electronics often include internal shakers to dislodge dust, he said.
To find out how biology solved the self-cleaning problem, Hu and his colleagues went to the zoo and the park, as well as to the lab. They measured body sizes and shake speeds in 33 mammals from 16 species, ranging from guinea pigs and tiny juvenile mice to bears and lions. They also tested five breeds of dog.
“My graduate student had the pleasure of dousing them with a hose and measuring the frequency” of their shakes, Hu said, adding that no animals were harmed beyond momentary dampness in the process of the study.
To test drying speeds, the researchers also set up a “wet-dog simulator,” a device that shook tufts of wet fur.
Shake it up
The researchers found that the bigger the animal, the slower it could shake to dry off. That’s because the fur of a large animal shaking travels farther and is subject to more centripetal force than the fur of a small animal shaking. Centripetal forces are those that move an object in a circle. It’s a bit like being on a merry-go-round: If you’re at the edge of the merry-go-round, you’re subject to greater force than if you’re at the center.
So while a bear shakes about four times a second and a typical dog shakes four to six times per second to dry off, mice and rats have to move up to 10 times as quickly, the research revealed.
“They have to shake 30 times per second, which is unimaginable because their whole body is whipping back and forth,” Hu said.
The researchers also found that loose skin helped the drying process immensely, because the extra movement resulted in nine times the force than if the skin were tight. That could explain why hairy mammals tend to have some give in their skin, Hu said.
No matter their size, all of the mammals were about as efficient as possible as drying off quickly, Hu said.
“I don’t think we’re going to make a Mars rover in the shape of a dog or anything like that,” he said. “But if people can think about how animals do this so quickly, they’ll get an idea of what is possible.”
The Nazca (also spelled Nasca) Lines are geoglyphs located in an arid coastal area of Peru that cover an estimated 170 square miles (450 square kilometers).
Scratched on the ground, they number in the thousands and depict creatures from both the natural world and the human imagination. They include animals such as the spider, hummingbird, monkey, lizard, pelican and even a killer whale. Also depicted are plants, trees, flowers and oddly shaped fantastic figures. Also illustrated are geometric motifs such as wavy lines, triangles, spirals and rectangles.
The animal mounds were found in a region famous for a series of ancient geolyphs, called the Nazca Lines, which are now considered a World Heritage Site in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. Here, Nazca Lines resembling a humming bird, as viewed from a plane.
CREDIT: tr3gin | Shutterstock
How old are they?
The vast majority of the lines date from 200 BC to 500 AD, to a time when a people referred to as the Nazca inhabited the region. The earliest lines, created with piled up stones, date as far back as 500 BC.
Who made them?
The Nazca people were an ancient prehistoric culture that was successful in using engineering techniques to bring underground water to the surface for irrigation. Some of the theories regarding the purpose of the lines connect them to this need for water.
One of their largest settlements is Cahuachi, a place of ceremony that overlooks some of the lines. It contains more than 40 mounds, including pyramids made of adobe.
When were they “discovered”?
Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe was the first to study and report the Nazca Lines in detail after coming across them, on foot, in 1927. In the 1930s as air traffic in the area increased, the lines became better known, eventually attracting a steady stream of tourists.
It’s often stated that the lines can only be seen from the air; however, this is a myth. A 2007 study that looked at 1,500 drawings in the Palpa region found that “each and every geoglyph” can be spotted from the ground.
Theories and significance
The purpose of the lines continues to elude researchers and remains a matter of conjecture. Ancient Nazca culture was prehistoric, which means they left no written records.
One idea is that they are linked to the heavens with some of the lines representing constellations in the night sky. Another idea is that the lines play a role in pilgrimage, with one walking across them to reach a sacred place such as Cahuachi and its adobe pyramids. Yet another idea is that the lines are connected with water, something vital to life yet hard to get in the desert, and may have played a part in water-based rituals.
In the absence of a firm archaeological conclusion a number of fringe theories have popped up, such as the idea that the Nazca people used balloons to observe the lines from up high, something which there is no archaeological evidence for.
William Shakespeare is credited with coining the term ‘luggage’ in Henry IV in 1597. It took over 400 years before someone figured out it would be easier if the baggage had wheels. (The first wheeled carry-on was sold in 1970.) But it has only taken four years for a designer to create a carrying case for a 3-D printer.
That designer is Emmanuel Gilloz, a 24-year-old Frenchman who built the FoldaRap. Gilloz’s portable machine is a variant of the RepRap model that inspired the MakerBot and a variety of other popular 3-D printers. While other machines are optimized for resolution or build-size, Gilloz focused on convenience and portability. Wired caught up with him to hear more about the project.
Wired Design: Why was portability so important to you?
Emmanuel Gilloz: Constraints are great, I’m fond of origami, and I always try to make things that can be folded.
Most importantly I don’t have a car, and I moved a lot in the past two years. Bringing my machine to events or meetups meant I had to carry a big, heavy thing that wasn’t made for that kind of usage. Even the RepRap Huxley becomes heavy when you hold it for a long time, so as a designer and frustrated user I designed one tailored to my need.
Wired Design: What was the biggest design challenge you’ve had to overcome?
Gilloz: The biggest challenges were designing the hinge mechanism and finding the suppliers of all the non-printed parts. That kind of information is quite time-consuming to obtain, almost like chasing a treasure. It’s an even greater reason to share it in the wiki, because those who try to self-source a RepRap are not all interested in that type of hunt.
Wired Design: What other improvements would you like to see in RepRap 3-D printers?
Gilloz: Technically I’m quite happy with the RepRaps as they are. Their big advantage is the continuous improvement and modularity that makes each year’s machines more reliable, faster, simpler to build, and more capable.
From the RepRap family tree I see three trends: performance, self-replication, and simplicity. Simplicity is my favorite, I thrive for it. The choice to use some components rather than others can greatly simplify things.
In 10 years we will have even more awesome bots, if we remember to share our ideas. I’m trying to address that with the FoldaRap by showing the entire design process and mentioning all the suppliers.
Wired Design: Are there any other fabrication tools that excite you?
Gilloz: Paste extruders, powder sinterers, lasers (I want to make a foldable one), open source ecology … everything that contributes to make us more independent. In the long term it’s a matter of resilience and survival, being able to make stuff and empowering everyone else to.
I grew up with MacGyver and reading the US Army Survival Guide and did I mention making stuff is the coolest way to learn things and have fun?
Wired Design: How important do you think aesthetics are in 3-D printing?
Gilloz: We often heard people saying the bare threaded rods (on RepRap 3-D printers) look too “garage-made” for them, but they also have their charm. We will see how the 3D Systems Cube does with the opposite approach.
Personally I think that with the right amount of work in collecting the information of how to source, build, and run a 3-D printer it can be made as attractive as a mass-produced solution, but we do need more designers in DIY. It will be a good part of my future efforts.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. All photos courtesy of Emmanuel Gilloz.
A searing heat wave rare even for the Desert Southwest sent temperatures soaring to record levels on Monday, with Needles, California tying its record high for the date of 118°F (47.8°C). The temperature might have gone higher in Needles, but a thunderstorm rolled in at 3:20 pm, and by 3:56 pm PDT, rain began falling at a temperature of 115°F (46.1°C). Most of the rain evaporated, since the humidity was only 11%, and only a trace of precipitation was recorded in the rain gauge. Nevertheless, Monday’s rain at 115° in Needles sets a new world record for the hottest rain in world history. I don’t think many people were outside to experience to experience the feeling of rain falling at 115°, but if they were, it must have been an uncomfortable, sauna-like experience! Thanks go to Dr. Warren Blier of the NWS Monterey office for pointing out this remarkable event to me.
It is exceedingly rare to get rain when the temperature rises above 100°F, since those kind of temperatures usually require a high pressure system with sinking air that discourages rainfall. Monday’s rain in Needles was due to a flow of moisture coming from the south caused by the Southwest U.S. monsoon, a seasonal influx of moisture caused by the difference in temperature between the hot desert and the cooler ocean areas surrounding Mexico to the south. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the previous record for hottest rain, which I blogged about in June, was a rain shower at 109°F (43°C) observed in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on June 5, 2012 and in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. The 11% humidity that accompanied Monday’s rain shower at 115° in Needles was the lowest humidity rain has ever occurred at anywhere on Earth in recorded history, according to Mr. Herrera.
Figure 1. True-color MODIS satellite image of California and Arizona taken at 1:25 pm PDT August 13, 2012. Developing thunderstorms surround Needles, CA, and the line of clouds to the southwest of the city would develop into a thunderstorm that brought rain to the city at 4 pm PDT, at a temperature of 115°F. Image credit: NASA.
A “very rare” heat wave for Phoenix
The heat wave that brought Needles’ record hot rain has broken an exceptional number of heat records in Phoenix, Arizona the past two weeks. According to the Phoenix NWS office, the “almost unbearable heat” of the first two weeks of August is a “very rare” event, and August 1 – 14, 2012 was the warmest such 2-week period in city history. The average temperature on August 6 – 13 was 100°F or higher each of the eight days, tying the record for most consecutive days with an average temperature of 100°. The temperature peaked at 116° on August 8, just 6° below Phoenix’s all-time record of 122° set on June 26, 1990. The forecast for Phoenix call for a bit of relief–highs are expected to be a relatively modest 105° today, and down near 100° by Friday.
Figure 2. Morning satellite image of 93L over the Central Atlantic.
93L close to tropical depression status
A large tropical wave (Invest 93L) is located in the Central Atlantic about 700 miles east of Bermuda. Satellite loops this morning show a surface circulation has formed, and heavy thunderstorm activity has increased to the point where 93L should be considered a tropical depression, if the heavy thunderstorms can persist through this afternoon. Wind shear is light, and ocean temperatures are warm, near 28°C. The latest Saharan Air Layer Analysis from the University of Wisconsin shows that 93L has moistened its environment considerably, and dry air should no longer be a significant impediment to development. The 8 am EDT run of the SHIPS model predicts that wind shear will remain in the low range through the weekend, and I expect this system will become Tropical Storm Gordon by Friday. The storm will not affect Bermuda, but residents of the Azores Islands should keep an eye on 93L, which could pass through the islands as early as Sunday night. In their 8 am Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave 93L an 80% chance of becoming a tropical depression by Friday morning.
Elsewhere in the tropics
In the Gulf of Mexico, a fall-like cold front is expected to stall out early next week, and the GFS model is predicting something could start to spin up near the Texas/Mexico border on Monday. Wind shear is predicted to be low to moderate, and cold fronts stalled out over the Gulf of Mexico often serve as the seed for tropical storms.
Most of the models predict development of a new tropical wave off the coast of Africa 6 – 7 days from now.
Last update: August 14, 2012 at 3:09 pm by By Ashish Khanal
Massive very deep earthquake in the sea of Okhotsk
A Magnitude 7.7 (updated from 7.3 by USGS) earthquake hit the sea of Okhotsk 160 km from Poronaysk, Russia although it was a massive earthquake the depth of 625 km has decreased the shaking strongly, making it a IV on the Mercalli scale (light shaking) for a very wide area, no tsunami is possible because of the depth.
The earthquake has been felt as far as Japan!
Last update: August 14, 2012 at 3:09 pm by By Ashish Khanal
Moderate earthquake below Taiwan
The earthquake struck at a shallow 20 km depth and only at 12 km from Hualien, a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Hualien county is often shaken by earthquakes. The quake was felt all over the northern part of Twain, including in Taipeh.
The USGS shaking map below is based on a Magnitude of 6.3 at a depth of 9.7 km. The Chinese parameters would considerably weaken the shaking pattern.
Shaking map USGS – courtesy USGS
Update 11:30 UTC : Chinese seismological agency reports a Magnitude of 6.2 at a depth of 30 km. The biggest danger for this earthquake is some landslides in the steeper valleys. Landslides triggered by earthquakes are the most important secondary damage element after tsunamis of course.
A M6.2 earthquake occurred a shortwhile in Hotan district, Xinjiang China
Early reports are mentioning a very shallow earthquake.
We are currently trying to verify the data in China but their servers are down.
In a first overview of the location, the epicenter looks to be in a wilderness area in the mountains with no or very few people around.
Theoretical intensity should not go over VI MMI (strong shaking).
Based on other specialized organizations, the number of people in a radius of 100 km around the epicenter is max. 10000
Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : Mw 6.3 (USGS) and Ms 6.2 (China)
UTC Time : Sunday, August 12, 2012 at 10:47:06 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Sunday, August 12, 2012 at 06:47:06 PM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) : 9.7 km (USGS) and 30 km (China)
Geo-location(s) :
Approx. 100 km of Keriya, China
Approx. 100 km ofKeriya, China
282 km (175 miles) ESE of Hotan, China
Update 12:40UTC : As we are in a very remote area of China, it may take many hours (probably until tomorrow morning local time) before emergency teams (both aid and assessment teams) have reached the small settlements in the mountains (mountains as high as 6820 meter).
Earthquake epicenter mountains – beautiful but with many earthquake faults – image courtesy and copyright Garmo92
Update 11:47 UTC : The closest populated centers near the epicenter are Keriya and Niya. We do not have specific population numbers for Keriya and Niya, but Keriya county counts 220,000 people and Niya (Minfeng) county 30,000. The biggest city in the greater area is Hotan (also seismological headquarters), but Hotan is far away from the danger zone (282 km).
Update 11:40 UTC : There are NO hydrodams or Nuclear Plants in the vicinity of the epicenter (source GDACS)
Update 11:34 UTC : WAPMERR, the theoretical damage data engine is predicting 0 to 10 deaths and 0 to 100 injured. These numbers refer only to shaking and NOT to landslides. At Earthquake-report.com we think that besides landslides and based on the depth of 30 km, no important damage or injuries will be sustained.
Initial predictions like we are making are taking into account as much as data as we can find. Often local obtained data are the most accurate as these organizations are often highly specialized and have a lot of instruments in the earthquake area. The more instruments, the more accurate data are! The WAPMERR data are based on the UGS data (in this case) which refer to a M6.3 and a depth of less than 10 km. If the Chinese parameters are correct (what we believe), there is a huge difference in damage potential in between the 2 data sets.
