Earthquakes & Volcanos & Climate Change

Here's this week's earthquake activity (5.5 magnitude+), as well as volcanic activity:

EARTHQUAKES above 5.5 magnitude:

• 5.9 earthquake hits Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India (6/19/2010)
• 5.5 earthquake (preliminary magnitude) jolted off Japan's northernmost Hokkaido Prefecture (6/19/2010)
• 6.3 earthquake rattled northern Japan (6/17/2010)
• 6.4 earthquake rocks eastern Indonesia (6/15/2010)
• 5.9 earthquake hits Southern California (6/14/2010)
• 6.2 earthquake jolted northern Japan (6/14/2010)
• 7.7 earthquake hits Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, tsunami alert in effect (6/13/2010)

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY :

• Colombia's government raised the alert code to orange for the Nevado del Huila volcano after increased levels of volcanic activity (6/15/2010)

#rgk

Read below, to see why these facts are relevant:

* * * * * * *

Personally I view the National Academy of Science (NAS) as very cautious and relatively conservative about their public statements, so I was especially alarmed to read the article I posted May 20th from the LATimes regarding the NAS’s most recent warnings regarding the acceleration of effects from climate change.

Here is some other recent science of note: NASA announced that satellite monitoring indicates Antarctica is rising very slowly now that the weight of glacial ice is melting off of it. This is a geological phenomenon known as 'isostatic rebound' and it is common to small islands in the Arctic, it is just no human has ever experienced it at the scale of the entire south pole... the largest continent on the planet.

So, first question being asked: 1) How much ocean will be displaced, as that will affect inundation levels elsewhere in the world. Scientists have begun to research this. 2) The question not yet asked is, if the largest continent on the planet is moving around, and it is connected to all of the plates, don’t you think the plates would move as well. Correspondingly, if that were true, it would seem there would be a lot more big earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring because of Antarctica’s “movement”.

If you were to 'Google' all earthquakes above 5.5, and all volcano eruptions in the last two decades, you will see a considerable upswing in both that begins to occur during the last 20-years, about the same time the ice began to unweight the continent.

I am no scientist, I am just sayin’… this is interesting, and I think it is much bigger than we know….

Read the LATimes article, 'National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses'

RECENT EARTHQUAKES above 5.5 magnitude:

• 6.7 magnitude hit the Andaman islands 139km southeast of Port Blair, India (6/01/2010)
• 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocks Southern Philippines, epicenter the island of Mindanao (5/31/2010)
• 5.7 magnitude earthquake jolted Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province (5/29/2010)
• 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck off Vanuatu (the South Pacific including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia) (5/28/2010)

RECENT VOLCANIC ACTIVITY :

• Kamchatka's Gorely volcano is spewing steam and ash again after decades of dormancy (6/12/2010)
• Volcanic activity at Ecuador's Tungurahua volcano near Quito has increased, prompting authorities to raise alert to 'yellow-orange' (6/12/2010)
  
• Heightened volcanic activity at Taal Volcano on the island of Luzon in the Philippines has caused people to evacuate (6/12/2010)
• The 'Throat of Fire' volcano in Ecuador erupts (5/29/2010)
• Volcano erupts in Guatamala, shutting down capital city & international airport (5/28/2010)