O tsunami japonês aconteceu em 11 de março de 2011 mas suas consequências estão longe de ter acabado. Cerca de 25 milhões de toneladas (você leu certo) de escombros do terremoto vagueiam pelo Oceano Pacífico. Fotos: Japão, um ano após o tsunami
Professores do Peninsula College dizem que os escombros incluem qualquer coisa que possa flutuar: pedaços de casas, móveis, navios, carros e mesmo restos humanos (sapatos podem ajudar os corpos a flutuar).
Todo esse material ocupa uma área equivalente ao tamanho do estado da Califórnia e 25% desses escombros chegarão à costa da Califórnia. Outros 25% afundarão, 25% vão vaguear pelo mar e retornar ao Japão e apenas 25% irão para o depósito de lixo. (vi no @HuffingtonPost)
Esse blog foi criado em 2007 para divulgar a ciência dos Terremotos. Divulgando quando necessários os tremores no Brasil e temas importantes sobre a sismologia!
quinta-feira, 23 de fevereiro de 2012
Academics Not Productive Enough?
"One hundred academics at the University of Sydney, Australia, have this week been told they will lose their jobs for not publishing frequently enough. The move is part of a wider cost-cutting plans designed to pay for new buildings and refurbishment to the university. Letters were posted to researchers on Monday 20 February, informing them their positions were being terminated because they hadn't published at least four 'research outputs' over the past three years. It is unclear which research fields the academics work in. Another 64 academics were told they had a choice between leaving and moving to a teaching-only position, he said."
Já imaginou virar 40 horas!!Seria uma boa!!
fonte: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/23/1341200/academics-not-productive-enough-sack-em
Já imaginou virar 40 horas!!Seria uma boa!!
fonte: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/02/23/1341200/academics-not-productive-enough-sack-em
terça-feira, 14 de fevereiro de 2012
segunda-feira, 13 de fevereiro de 2012
sugestão - 3-D laser map shows earthquake zone before and after
UC Davis
Geologists have a new tool to study how earthquakes change the landscape down to a few inches, and it’s giving them insight into how earthquake faults behave. In the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science, a team of scientists from the U.S., Mexico and China reports the most comprehensive before-and-after picture yet of an earthquake zone, using data from the magnitude 7.2 event that struck near Mexicali, northern Mexico in April 2010.
“We can learn so much about how earthquakes work by studying fresh fault ruptures,” said Michael Oskin, geology professor at the University of California, Davis, and lead author on the paper.
The team, working with the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), flew over the area with LiDAR (light detection and ranging), which bounces a stream of laser pulses off the ground. New airborne LiDAR equipment can measure surface features to within a few inches. The researchers were able to make a detailed scan over about 140 square miles in less than three days, Oskin said.
Oskin said that they knew the area had been mapped with LiDAR in 2006 by the Mexican government. When the earthquake occurred, Oskin and Ramon Arrowsmith at Arizona State University applied for and got funding from the National Science Foundation to carry out an immediate aerial survey to compare the results.
Co-authors John Fletcher and graduate student Orlando Teran from the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) carried out a traditional ground survey of the fault rupture, which helped guide planning of the aerial LiDAR survey and the interpretation of the results.
From the ground, features like the five-foot escarpment created when part of a hillside abruptly moved up and sideways are readily visible. But the LiDAR survey further reveals warping of the ground surface adjacent to faults that previously could not easily be detected, Oskin said. For example, it revealed the folding above the Indiviso fault running beneath agricultural fields in the floodplain of the Colorado River.
“This would be very hard to see in the field,” Oskin said.
Team members used the “virtual reality” facility at UC Davis’ W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences to handle and view the data from the survey. By comparing pre- and post-earthquake surveys, they could see exactly where the ground moved and by how much.
The survey revealed deformation around the system of small faults that caused the earthquake, and allowed measurements that provide clues to understanding how these multifault earthquakes occur.
The 2010 Mexicali earthquake did not occur on a major fault, like the San Andreas, but ran through a series of smaller faults in the Earth’s crust. These minor faults are common around major faults but are “underappreciated,” Oskin said.
“This sort of earthquake happens out of the blue,” he said.
The new LiDAR survey shows how seven of these small faults came together to cause a major earthquake, Oskin said.
Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author on the paper, made the first use of airborne LiDAR about 10 years ago to document surface faulting from the Hector Mine earthquake. But “pre-earthquake” data were lacking. Since then, NCALM has carried out LiDAR scans of the San Andreas system (the “B4 Project”) and other active faults in the western U.S. (a component of the EarthScope Project), thereby setting a trap for future earthquakes, he said.
“In this case, fortunately, our CICESE colleagues had set such a trap, and this earthquake fell right into it and became the first ever to be imaged by ‘before’ and ‘after’ LiDAR. It is a thrill for me to be on the team that reached this important milestone," Hudnut said.
The post-event dataset collected by the team is publicly available through http://opentopography.org/.
Other authors on the paper are, at UC Davis: graduate student Austin Elliott and researcher Peter Gold; J. Ramon Arrowsmith, Arizona State University; Alejandro Hinojosa Corona and J. Javier Gonzalez Garcia, CICESE, Mexico; Eric Fielding, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena; and Jing Liu-Zeng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico) and NASA.
Geologists have a new tool to study how earthquakes change the landscape down to a few inches, and it’s giving them insight into how earthquake faults behave. In the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science, a team of scientists from the U.S., Mexico and China reports the most comprehensive before-and-after picture yet of an earthquake zone, using data from the magnitude 7.2 event that struck near Mexicali, northern Mexico in April 2010.
“We can learn so much about how earthquakes work by studying fresh fault ruptures,” said Michael Oskin, geology professor at the University of California, Davis, and lead author on the paper.
The team, working with the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), flew over the area with LiDAR (light detection and ranging), which bounces a stream of laser pulses off the ground. New airborne LiDAR equipment can measure surface features to within a few inches. The researchers were able to make a detailed scan over about 140 square miles in less than three days, Oskin said.
Oskin said that they knew the area had been mapped with LiDAR in 2006 by the Mexican government. When the earthquake occurred, Oskin and Ramon Arrowsmith at Arizona State University applied for and got funding from the National Science Foundation to carry out an immediate aerial survey to compare the results.
Co-authors John Fletcher and graduate student Orlando Teran from the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) carried out a traditional ground survey of the fault rupture, which helped guide planning of the aerial LiDAR survey and the interpretation of the results.
From the ground, features like the five-foot escarpment created when part of a hillside abruptly moved up and sideways are readily visible. But the LiDAR survey further reveals warping of the ground surface adjacent to faults that previously could not easily be detected, Oskin said. For example, it revealed the folding above the Indiviso fault running beneath agricultural fields in the floodplain of the Colorado River.
“This would be very hard to see in the field,” Oskin said.
Team members used the “virtual reality” facility at UC Davis’ W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences to handle and view the data from the survey. By comparing pre- and post-earthquake surveys, they could see exactly where the ground moved and by how much.
The survey revealed deformation around the system of small faults that caused the earthquake, and allowed measurements that provide clues to understanding how these multifault earthquakes occur.
The 2010 Mexicali earthquake did not occur on a major fault, like the San Andreas, but ran through a series of smaller faults in the Earth’s crust. These minor faults are common around major faults but are “underappreciated,” Oskin said.
“This sort of earthquake happens out of the blue,” he said.
The new LiDAR survey shows how seven of these small faults came together to cause a major earthquake, Oskin said.
Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and co-author on the paper, made the first use of airborne LiDAR about 10 years ago to document surface faulting from the Hector Mine earthquake. But “pre-earthquake” data were lacking. Since then, NCALM has carried out LiDAR scans of the San Andreas system (the “B4 Project”) and other active faults in the western U.S. (a component of the EarthScope Project), thereby setting a trap for future earthquakes, he said.
“In this case, fortunately, our CICESE colleagues had set such a trap, and this earthquake fell right into it and became the first ever to be imaged by ‘before’ and ‘after’ LiDAR. It is a thrill for me to be on the team that reached this important milestone," Hudnut said.
The post-event dataset collected by the team is publicly available through http://opentopography.org/.
Other authors on the paper are, at UC Davis: graduate student Austin Elliott and researcher Peter Gold; J. Ramon Arrowsmith, Arizona State University; Alejandro Hinojosa Corona and J. Javier Gonzalez Garcia, CICESE, Mexico; Eric Fielding, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena; and Jing Liu-Zeng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico) and NASA.
About UC Davis
For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $684 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.segunda-feira, 6 de fevereiro de 2012
Strong quake in Philippines, 43 dead
DPA
A strong earthquake has jolted central Philippine islands, killing at least 43 people and triggering landslides that left about 40 people missing.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake had a magnitude of 6.9 and was felt at the strongest intensity of 7.0 on the central island of Negros. The epicentre was located five kilometres northwest of Tayasan town in Negros Oriental province.
Governor Noel Degamo said at least 13 people were killed in his province and 40 were missing in the village of Planas in Guihulngan town, where a landslide occurred. An army commander later confirmed at least 43 dead.
"The military and police are leading search-and-rescue operations in the affected areas," Degamo told a Manila radio station. "At least three main bridges are not passable so we cannot reach some areas."
Another landslide in the village of Solongon in nearby La Libertad town buried about 100 houses, said Colonel Francisco Zosimo Patrimonio.
He said rescue operations were ongoing and no bodies or survivors had been found. He warned the death toll would likely climb because of the landslide. A nine-year-old girl was killed by a collapsed wall inside her school in Tayasan town, and an 11-year-old girl who was killed when the wall of a chapel collapsed in Jimalalud town.
The quake struck at 11.49am (1449 AEDT) on Monday and was felt in at least seven central provinces, according to the institute.
More than 200 aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of magnitude of 6.2, the institute said. It had issued a tsunami alert level 2 immediately after the quake but lifted the warning more than three hours later.
The Office of Civil Defence said a three-storey building fell down in La Libertad town, while five cottages in a nearby beach resort were destroyed by a sudden rise in seawater following the quake. Work in government offices and classes in schools were suspended in Iloilo and Negros Oriental.
The Philippines, located in the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", suffered its worst earthquake in 1990 when a 7.7-magnitude tremor killed nearly 2000 people on the northern island of Luzon.
A strong earthquake has jolted central Philippine islands, killing at least 43 people and triggering landslides that left about 40 people missing.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the quake had a magnitude of 6.9 and was felt at the strongest intensity of 7.0 on the central island of Negros. The epicentre was located five kilometres northwest of Tayasan town in Negros Oriental province.
"The military and police are leading search-and-rescue operations in the affected areas," Degamo told a Manila radio station. "At least three main bridges are not passable so we cannot reach some areas."
Another landslide in the village of Solongon in nearby La Libertad town buried about 100 houses, said Colonel Francisco Zosimo Patrimonio.
He said rescue operations were ongoing and no bodies or survivors had been found. He warned the death toll would likely climb because of the landslide. A nine-year-old girl was killed by a collapsed wall inside her school in Tayasan town, and an 11-year-old girl who was killed when the wall of a chapel collapsed in Jimalalud town.
The quake struck at 11.49am (1449 AEDT) on Monday and was felt in at least seven central provinces, according to the institute.
More than 200 aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of magnitude of 6.2, the institute said. It had issued a tsunami alert level 2 immediately after the quake but lifted the warning more than three hours later.
The Office of Civil Defence said a three-storey building fell down in La Libertad town, while five cottages in a nearby beach resort were destroyed by a sudden rise in seawater following the quake. Work in government offices and classes in schools were suspended in Iloilo and Negros Oriental.
The Philippines, located in the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire", suffered its worst earthquake in 1990 when a 7.7-magnitude tremor killed nearly 2000 people on the northern island of Luzon.
Simulação de terremoto em Tóquio envolve 10 mil pessoas.
No Brasil era para ter treinamento para prédios - Eles estão caindo!
------------------------------------------------------
DA EFE
Folha on line
Cerca de 10 mil pessoas, entre voluntários, bombeiros, policiais, Guarda Costeira e até membros da Marinha americana, participaram nesta sexta-feira de uma grande simulação de terremoto nas principais estações de metrô de Tóquio.
O treinamento, realizado a pouco mais de um mês do primeiro aniversário do terremoto e o posterior tsunami que assolou o nordeste do país em março de 2011, começou às 10h locais (23h de Brasília) e simulou um terremoto de 7,3 graus na escala Richter.
No total, 138 empresas participaram da simulação, que teve como objetivo prioritário a evacuação das pessoas que, diante da suspensão das comunicações e dos transportes, ficaram presas nas estações de metrô e em escritórios.
Cada participante recebeu uma bolsa com o material que é utilizado em casos deste tipo, além de folhetos com um questionário sobre seus dados pessoais.
O teste juntou 5 mil voluntários na estação de metrô de Shinjuku, uma das mais transitadas do mundo, e outras 2,5 mil na estação central de Tóquio e na de Ikebukuro, segundo informou a organização.
Além disso, se reuniram na baía de Tóquio centenas de pessoas procedentes das estações de metrô para ser evacuadas pela Guarda Costeira e a Marinha americana.
O Japão se encontra sobre o chamado Anel de Fogo do Pacífico, uma zona de elevada atividade sísmica, e por isso registra terremotos frequentes.
Desde o grande terremoto de 11 de março, que deixou quase 20 mil mortos e provocou a pior crise nuclear em 25 anos, o Japão sofreu mais de 660 réplicas de mais de 5 graus na escala Richter.
------------------------------------------------------
DA EFE
Folha on line
Cerca de 10 mil pessoas, entre voluntários, bombeiros, policiais, Guarda Costeira e até membros da Marinha americana, participaram nesta sexta-feira de uma grande simulação de terremoto nas principais estações de metrô de Tóquio.
O treinamento, realizado a pouco mais de um mês do primeiro aniversário do terremoto e o posterior tsunami que assolou o nordeste do país em março de 2011, começou às 10h locais (23h de Brasília) e simulou um terremoto de 7,3 graus na escala Richter.
No total, 138 empresas participaram da simulação, que teve como objetivo prioritário a evacuação das pessoas que, diante da suspensão das comunicações e dos transportes, ficaram presas nas estações de metrô e em escritórios.
Cada participante recebeu uma bolsa com o material que é utilizado em casos deste tipo, além de folhetos com um questionário sobre seus dados pessoais.
O teste juntou 5 mil voluntários na estação de metrô de Shinjuku, uma das mais transitadas do mundo, e outras 2,5 mil na estação central de Tóquio e na de Ikebukuro, segundo informou a organização.
Além disso, se reuniram na baía de Tóquio centenas de pessoas procedentes das estações de metrô para ser evacuadas pela Guarda Costeira e a Marinha americana.
O Japão se encontra sobre o chamado Anel de Fogo do Pacífico, uma zona de elevada atividade sísmica, e por isso registra terremotos frequentes.
Desde o grande terremoto de 11 de março, que deixou quase 20 mil mortos e provocou a pior crise nuclear em 25 anos, o Japão sofreu mais de 660 réplicas de mais de 5 graus na escala Richter.
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