Hawaiian Volcano Crater Floor Collapse Followed by Eruption in Fissue Along Kilauea's East Rift Zone

A fissure that opened on Kilauea's east rift zone after the March 5 collapse of the Pu'u 'O'o crater floor continues to erupt lava. Activity along the fissure was sporadic overnight and throughout March 6, with periods of quiet punctuated by episodes of lava spattering up to 25 m (80 ft) high.

The fissure is located west-southwest of Pu'u 'O'o in a remote area of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Due to the ongoing volcanic activity, Park closures remain in effect in this area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110306234145.htm

Where Will the Debris from Japan's Tsunami Drift in the Ocean?

The huge tsunami triggered by the 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake destroyed coastal towns near Sendai in Japan, washing such things as houses and cars into the ocean. Projections of where this debris might head have been made by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maximenko has developed a model based on the behavior of drifting buoys deployed over years in the ocean for scientific purposes.

Maximenko's long-standing work on ocean currents and transports predicted that there are five major regions in the World Ocean where debris collects if it is not washed up on shores or sinks to the ocean bottom, deteriorates, or is ingested by marine organisms. These regions turn out to be "garbage patches." The North Pacific Garbage Patch has become famous, the North Atlantic Patch was fixed some years ago, and the South Atlantic, South Indian Ocean, and South Pacific patches have just been found, guided by the map of his model that shows where floating marine debris should collect.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406102203.htm

landslide risk sends 9 families from homes

Nine families in Saint-Jude, Que., will have to wait several months to return to their homes after a riverbank collapsed on Wednesday.
The homes are in the same area, an hour's drive northeast of Montreal, where a family of four died last year after their home was swallowed by mud in a massive landslide.
On Sunday, a large section of one of the banks of the Salvail River eroded and collapsed into the water.
Saint-Jude Mayor Yves de Bellefeuille said town and provincial officials decided to evacuate the nine homes nearby as a precaution.
"Last year's loss of an entire family was not easy and we told ourselves that we did not want to lose any others. We aren't taking any chances," said Bellefeuille, mayor of the town of 1,000.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/04/21/saint-jude-homes-evacuated-landslide-risk.html

Strong earthquake rocks Indonesia’s Sulawesi, causes damage

KENDARI, INDONESIA

A strong earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on early Monday morning, seismologists said, causing some damage but no casualties.

The 6.0-magnitude earthquake at 7.07 a.m. local time (2307 GMT Sunday) was centered about 75 kilometers (46 miles) south-southeast of Kendari, the capital of South East Sulawesi province. It struck about 18 kilometers (11 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to Indonesia's Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG).

Most recently, on October 25, 2010, a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck just off the Mentawai Islands off the western coast of Sumatra. As a result, a wall of water killed at least 435 people on the islands and impacted more than 20 villages.

http://channel6newsonline.com/2011/04/strong-earthquake-rocks-indonesias-sulawesi-causes-damage/

Earth Recovered from Prehistoric Global Warming Faster Than Previously Thought

When faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air. This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle -- though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, said Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study.

"We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought," said Bowen, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. "We still don't know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110421151919.htm

World's Biggest Tsunami

On the night of July 9, 1958 an earthquake along the Fairweather Fault in the Alaska Panhandle loosened about 40 million cubic yards (30.6 million cubic meters) of rock high above the northeastern shore of Lituya Bay. This mass of rock plunged from an altitude of approximately 3000 feet (914 meters) down into the waters of Gilbert Inlet (see map below). The impact generated a local tsunami that crashed against the southwest shoreline of Gilbert Inlet. The wave hit with such power that it swept completely over the spur of land that separates Gilbert Inlet from the main body of Lituya Bay. The wave then contiuned down the entire length of Lituya Bay, over La Chaussee Spit and into the Gulf of Alaska. The force of the wave removed all trees and vegetation from elevations as high as 1720 feet (524 meters) above sea level. Millions of trees were uprooted and swept away by the wave. This is the highest wave that has ever been known.

http://geology.com/records/biggest-tsunami.shtml

Sutter Buttes—The Lone Volcano in California’s Great Valley

The volcanic spires of the Sutter Buttes tower 2,000 feet above the farms and fields of California’s Great Valley, just 50 miles northnorthwest of Sacramento and 11 miles northwest of Yuba City. The only volcano within the valley, the Buttes consist of a central core of volcanic domes surrounded by a large apron of fragmental volcanic debris. Eruptions at the Sutter Buttes occurred in early Pleistocene time, 1.6 to 1.4 million years ago. The Sutter Buttes are not part of the Cascade Range of volcanoes to the north, but instead are related to the volcanoes in the Coast Ranges to the west in the vicinity of Clear Lake, Napa Valley, and Sonoma Valley.

The Sutter Buttes stand as a remarkable geographic and geologic feature of California’s Great Valley, and they remain a subject of scientific interest and research. One curious feature is the presence at the surface in the castellated core of a huge block, one-quarter mile across, of crystalline rock (Cretaceous granite) characteristic of the Sierran basement. This is one of many puzzles remaining for geologists to solve in future studies.

http://geology.com/usgs/sutter-buttes/