Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.2 Earthquake hits the southern Mid-Atlantic ridge.
5.1 Earthquake hits the southern Mid-Atlantic ridge.
5.1 Earthquake hits the Andreanof Islands in the Aleutian Islands.
5.1 Earthquake hits off the east coast of Honshu, Japan.
5.0 Earthquake hits Alaska.
5.0 Earthquake hits northeastern Iran.
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
No current tropical storms.
Newsbytes:
New Zealand – A flood warning has been issued for Auckland, with heavy rain causing chaos across the city. The wettest June hour in history left motorists stranded in their cars, workers trapped in a building and countless properties and businesses flooded and evacuated across Auckland.
Ghana – Over 200 people in Kumasi were displaced over the weekend following a heavy downpour that lasted two hours Friday night. More than 100 houses were flooded. Local authorities attributed the flooding to choked gutters and poor drainage and location of structures in the area.
Amazon: Humans make rainforest more flammable
Human disturbances are making the Amazon rainforest more flammable, according to researchers. This is one of the conclusions of a two-year study of the Brazilian Amazon, which revealed that even protected forest is degraded by human activity. This activity includes selective logging and forest fragmentation, which increase the likelihood of wildfires.
While the Brazilian Amazon is protected from large-scale deforestation, this new study suggests that more effort is needed to safeguard what the scientists called the “hyper-diversity of tropical forests”.
This team set out to measure the effects that humans have on the rainforest – no easy feat in a dense landscape of 5.5 million sq km. They selected 400 plots, on a gradient of forest cover – ranging from pristine to deforested areas.
Selective logging can leave the forest fragmented or punch holes in the canopy, drying out the vegetation below. This, combined with the effects of climate change, is leaving the Amazon much more likely to catch fire.
Many bird species unique to the Amazon were suffering the most from these effects. These endemic species cannot survive in disturbed forests.
Rainforests don’t normally burn, but human activities are making them much more flammable.
Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.5 Earthquake hits Vanuatu.
5.4 Earthquake hits Tajikistan.
5.1 Earthquake hits near the south coast of Papua, Indonesia.
5.1 Earthquake hits Kyrgyzstan.
5.1 Earthquake hits the southern Mid-Atlantic ridge.
5.0 Earthquake hits Alaska.
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
Tropical cyclone (tc) 02a (Two), located approximately 248 nm east of Masirah Island, is tracking south-southwestward at 02 knots.
Newsbytes:
Pakistan – Rain related incidents in Quetta, Pakistan has claimed the lives of at least four people including two children and injured more than 20 others on Monday. A flash flood collapsed the boundary walls of Sandeman Civil Hospital and dozens of mud houses have collapsed and been damaged in slums and downstream areas of the city.
Philippines – At least 1,400 families or close to 7,500 individuals evacuated to higher ground when their homes in the towns of Matalam and Kabacan in North Cotabato were flooded early Tuesday dawn. The Kabacan and Pulangi Rivers swelled and overflowed to low-lying villages. Moderate to heavy rains caused the rivers and other waterways to overflow and send runoff to residential and vast agricultural areas in the low-lying villages of the town. hundreds of hectares of newly planted rice fields were also submerged in flood water.
Light pollution is causing spring to arrive a week early
Light pollution has another side-effect, it can push spring to emerge a week earlier in cities than in the country, a new study has found.
Trees were in bud an average of seven-and-a-half days earlier in well-lit areas than in dark spots. The early budding may cause problems for insects, which feed on leaves, and the birds which then feed on them in turn.
Sycamore, ash, oak and beech trees were all found to bud early under the influence of artificial light. Light had a more significant effect than temperature on when buds emerged, the scientists found.
Caterpillars are timed to hatch to make the most of opportunities to feed from freshly budded leaves, and birds hatch in time to feed off the young caterpillars. If this cascade effect is thrown out of sync, then wildlife is bound to suffer.
The amount of artificial light produced at night is growing by 6 per cent annually, the researchers say. Street lights have been found to confuse many species that prefer dark conditions, such as moths and bats.
Wildfires – California – Update
Search dogs checking neighborhoods incinerated by a 6-day-old wildfire in the Sierra Nevada haven’t found any more bodies, leaving the death toll at two, fire officials reported.
After burning nearly 73 square miles of brush and grass, the blaze was 60 percent contained. Winds that might push the fire were light, and crews continued to protect homes and carve a fire line. Inspectors tallied 257 homes and other buildings destroyed and 17 damaged. More than 1,800 firefighters were on the lines and firefighting costs reached $13 million.
Northeast of Los Angeles, two adjacent fires in the San Gabriel Mountains above foothill suburbs collectively covered 8½ square miles. The San Gabriel Complex was 72 percent contained nine days after the fires erupted. With 481 firefighters on the lines, high temperatures and oppressive humidity from the latest early season heat wave were a concern.
In far northwestern California, a 4½-square-mile fire in Klamath National Forest was 63 percent contained. The fire has been burning 15 miles southwest of Happy Camp in Siskiyou County.
East of San Diego and west of Santa Barbara, fires that each charred more than 11 square miles, were near full containment.
A 1-square-mile blaze that scarred the U.S. 395 community of Lee Vining in Mono County and smaller fires in Orange, San Luis Obispo and Lake counties were 50 to 85 percent contained.
Residents of a rural subdivision 50 miles northeast of Sacramento were evacuated as a wildfire climbed out of a steep canyon along the Middle Fork of the American River and approached homes near the Todd Valley community between Foresthill and Auburn.
Wildfires – Nova Scotia
Crews were battling several wildfires in wooded areas throughout the Nova Scotia on Tuesday, the provincial government said.
Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity
Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia): The volcano produced again several small to moderately-sized ash eruptions during yesterday and today, generating plumes that rose up to approx. 1 km above the crater. The most significant emissions occurred occurred yesterday morning at 08:22 and today at 07:48 local time and were accompanied by a strong tremor signals.
Dallol (Danakil desert, Ethiopia): Help us protect Dallol and have it listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site by contributing to an ambitious and very interesting crowd-sourced project: Dallol is located in the northern Danakil desert of Ethiopia, at the bottom of the African rift. It is a salt dome with a unique and bizarre array of colorful geysers, hot springs, acid lakes and mineral pools encrusted with sulphur and various salt crystals. It is not a volcano in the strict sense, but a very active hydrothermal area that results from the interaction between the salt water from the Red Sea, evaporation deposits and heat from an underlying magma chamber, hidden beneath more than 2 km of salt. This geological and biological heritage is now threatened by a large-scale mining industry plans. World-renowned photographer and director Olivier Grunewald is working on a documentary in order to raise awareness among the Ethiopian authorities and beyond, to urge them to apply for its nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.4 Earthquake hits Oaxaca, Mexico.
5.3 Earthquake hits Kamchatka, Russia.
5.2 Earthquake hits Tajikistan.
5.0 Earthquake hits the Sunda Strait, Indonesia.
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
Tropical cyclone (tc) 02a (Two), located approximately 266 nm east of Masirah Island, is tracking south-southwestward at 04 knots.
Newsbytes:
Thailand – About six hours of heavy rain caused flooding over a large area of Khon Kaen’s Muang district on Monday, and in adjoining Kalasin province national park runoff from three days of rain inundated homes and farmland in Yang Talat district. In parts of downtown Khon Kaen the water was up to a metre deep.
Lightning sparks dozens of new wildfires across Alaska
Thousands of lightning strikes over the weekend, especially in northern Alaska, have given wildfire crews more than three dozen new fires to contain and track, including at least three near Huslia.
According to Sunday posts on the Alaska Wildland Fire Information blog, maintained by the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service, about 18,000 new lightning strikes were reported across the state from Friday through Sunday evening. By 10 p.m. Sunday, there were an estimated 37 new fires reported throughout the state.
10,292 lightning strikes were recorded across Alaska in a 12 hour period between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on June 26, 2016, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Centre.
Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity
Etna (Sicily, Italy): There has been no particular surface activity at the volcano since the violent summit eruptions in late May, but the volcanic tremor amplitude has been gradually rising over the past days. This could [speculation!] indicate a phase of magma migrating to the surface, and possibly herald new activity in the near future. Etna, always good for surprises, will tell.
Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.5 Earthquake hits Guam.
5.5 Earthquake hits off the east coast of Honshu, Japan.
5.1 Earthquake hits the Revilla Gigedo Islands.
5.0 Earthquake hits Tajikistan.
5.0 Earthquake hits Kyrgyzstan
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
Tropical cyclone (tc) 02a (Two), located approximately 249 nm southwest of Karachi, Pakistan, is tracking westward at 07 knots.
Newsbytes:
China – A violent tornado in Jiangsu province in China has claimed the lives of at least 99 people and injured 846 others. The China Meteorological Administration ranked the tornado as an EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with maximum sustained winds greater than 266 km/h which hit along the outskirts of Yancheng around 2:30 p.m. local time on June 23, 2016.
Interesting Images
Stunning picture reveals butterfly thieves stealing ant goo in the Amazon forest.
Earth Report 