Indian Ocean due huge quake 'in next 30 years'

Indian Ocean due huge quake 'in next 30 years'

JAKARTA] The Indian Ocean could be due another massive earthquake within the next 30 years — one that could rival the magnitude of the one that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

Researchers made the prediction after studying corals, which show rings of growth from which past sea levels can be inferred. Earthquakes push the land up, depressing the sea level in the area and preventing corals from growing upwards. Sea levels then rise as the land subsides, leaving the history of the earthquake imprinted in the coral growth patterns.

The scientists analysed coral growth over the last 700 years in the shallow reefs along the 700-kilometre 'Sunda megathrust' fault — a boundary between tectonic plates off the Mentawai islands in western Sumatra, Indonesia.

This section of the Sunda fault had been inactive for at least 50 years until a magnitude 8.4 earthquake in September 2007. Using the coral data the scientists found three previous sets of large earthquakes. If the cycles continue to be consistent — beginning every 200 years — the next earthquake is due within the next few decades.

Danny H. Natawidjaja, an author of the paper and a senior researcher at the Research Center for Geotechnology of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, told SciDev.Net the probability of a large earthquake in western Sumatra in the next 30 years is more than 70 per cent. MORE

WEATHER NOTE

Results Are In: Great Southern California ShakeOut Successful, Sets U.S. Record!

Los Angeles - It's working! On November 13, 2008 more than 5.47 million people in southern California participated in The Great Southern California ShakeOut, now officially the largest earthquake drill in the Nation's history - and according to some community leaders, a success that should be practiced every year.

"This is the best single effort in emergency preparedness in my nearly 20 years in the business," wrote Mike Martinet, Executive Director, South Bay Office of Disaster Management (Area G). "I hope that we can continue to use this scenario or some variations thereof for years to come."
The Great Southern California ShakeOut was a week of events, including the drill, all based on the 7.8 Magnitude San Andreas Fault earthquake scenario.

All the resources, tools and information are still readily available at http://www.shakeout.org/. Much of the concept and organization came out of the Earthquake Country Alliance, a public-private partnership, which includes the US Geological Survey, Southern California Earthquake Center, California Office of Emergency Services, Caltech, State Farm, City of Los Angeles, Art Center College of Design, and many other partners.

When organizers of The ShakeOut concluded the historic week of earthquake preparedness events, including millions taking part in the "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" drill, they convened a meeting of emergency managers and community leaders to examine value of the effort. When asked what could be done better, the participants overwhelmingly supported the idea of turning it into an annual day or week of disaster preparedness activities.

"We didn't know when we set out to do this, if anyone would participate," said Lucy Jones, Chief Scientist of the USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project. "They did, and we're now getting calls to do something annually."

The requests to continue the effort have been so constant over the past month that the Earthquake Country Alliance has agreed to look into expanding into a statewide organization. "We certainly have heard many ideas of how we can get more people involved - and we'd like to do just that!" said Mark Benthien, Executive Director of the Earthquake Country Alliance and Outreach Director for the Southern California Earthquake Center. "We hope that an annual ShakeOut-like drill will be part of an expanded statewide earthquake awareness program for many years." MORE

MARITIME NOTE

Abandoned Vessels: Threat to Nigeria’s Maritime

About 90 per cent of world trade is facilitated through seas and oceans. The case of Nigeria is not exceptional. However, incessant pirate attacks have constituted major threat to the country’s maritime trade and investment. Shipwrecks and abandoned vessels on the nation’s territorial waters have been identified as another risk to huge maritime investments.

Gboyega Akinsanmi writes Nigeria’s waters are replete with all manners of obstacles that threaten maritime investment. Aside from incessant pirate cases, her territorial waters are clogged and littered with shipwrecks and abandoned vessels. There was little or no effort geared at clearing the country’s waterways and maritime routes to ensure free movement of vessels and safe investment in the entire area.This, according to experts, has a lot of implications for maritime investment and trade.

It hinders free movement of vessels with potential to cause ship mishap, thus leading to loss of lives, cargoes and multi-billion investments. If continued, it portends unsafe and unsecured maritime routes against the best practice, and Nigeria will definitely so much incur loss in revenue.Also, shipwrecks on Nigeria’s waters provide hideouts for criminals in the country. For instance, abandoned vessels have constituted base for pirates, sea robbers and miscreants to attack legitimate vessel operators and fishing trawlers. This has threatened vessels, maritime trade and investment worth of several billions of dollars. Fishing trawlers have lost about N25 billion to piracy and sea robberies.

The clog on Nigeria’s maritime routes and waterways is increasing concerns and fears of investment in the maritime sector. Like other maritime actors and stakeholders, the management of Nigerdock Nigeria Plc expressed profound worries about heaps of shipwrecks and abandoned vessels on the maritime routes and waterways because they provide hideouts for pirates and sea robbers. MORE

RS

Chasing 'Thundersnow' Could Lead To More Accurate Forecasts

Chasing 'Thundersnow' Could Lead To More Accurate Forecasts

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2009) — The job of one University of Missouri researcher could chill to the bone, but his research could make weather predicting more accurate.

Patrick Market, associate professor of atmospheric science in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is chasing storms in the dead of winter in order to release weather balloons that will produce data about the little-known phenomenon of thundersnow.

"One of the things we don't understand is how the cloud becomes electrified," Market said. "We hope to determine how the atmosphere is becoming unstable."

Market and his storm-chasing students are searching for winter storms in order to release weather balloons into the storm every 90 minutes over a 24-hour period. The balloons carry boxes with a barometer to measure pressure, a thermometer to measure temperature, and a hydrometer to measure humidity.

Market uses a GPS to monitor wind speed and direction of the balloons. This information covers the five things that are most important for a meteorologist to know for accurate predictions, according to Market.

"It has been decades since a detailed study with modern weather balloons has been done to see how the atmosphere destabilizes for summer thunderstorms, much less the winter storms," Market said. "So we are taking this tried-and-true tool of the meteorology trade and applying it to the very specific instance of heavy snowfall in the winter."

Once the weather balloons are launched, they provide detailed readings of every layer of the atmosphere. More detailed readings and data provide better and more accurate forecasting."We get thunderstorms in all seasons. That means something is making the atmosphere unstable," Market said. "Thunderstorms are often associated with heavy rainfall or heavy snowfall. It's just as important to get it right in the spring, summer or winter."

The phenomenon known as thundersnow is not understood very well. It is defined as a snowstorm with thunder and lightning that can bring heavy snowfalls of 8 to 12 inches. Tracking such storms can be quite a challenge.

"Often, these winter storms cause us to travel through inclement weather in order to get to the area where the weather balloons should be launched," Market said. "During travel, the heater in the vehicle cannot be on because the instruments need to be kept cold."

WEATHER NOTE

Record Shows Disasters Kill Most

Freetown — Acting director of disaster management department in the office of national security (ONS) has said in Freetown that disasters amount to greater percentage of the causes of death of the world's population.

John V. Rogers told participants at the opening ceremony of the training of trainers' clinic on disaster risk reduction for schools that though they cannot stop disasters from happening yet they can with their knowledge on disaster risk reduction and early warning signals.

"Man's negative interaction with his environment has often produced harmful effects with devastating consequences on human existence," he said.

Rogers said this sad chapter can only be reversed through learning and implementation of best practices as demonstrated in other areas of the world.

"Some of the disaster related incidences in Sierra Leone are due to illiteracy and ignorance. It has often been stated that a well informed public is a protected one," he said.

He said it has been the ardent desire of government to enhance the capacity of teachers that have played tremendous role in the disaster management school outreach programmes in the country.

The acting director noted that children were among the most vulnerable population group during a disaster especially those attending school at the time of the crisis. "Therefore learning about disaster risk reduction in schools can put teachers and children in a better position to play important role in saving lives and protecting members of the community in time of disaster."

He added that the clinic would provide the necessary tools to teachers and students in educational institutions to prepared, mitigate and respond to disasters.

On behalf of the national security coordinator, ONS chief of staff Larry Bassie said increase number of gravity of disaster with grave consequences that undermines the survival and dignity of livelihood in communities was a concern.


MARITIME NOTE

New EPIRB processing practices to reduce false distress alerts
Coast Guard says response to actual emergencies to improve
The following is the text of a feature story submitted by the U.S. Coast Guard:

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Melissa Hauck(ALAMEDA, Calif.) -- The Coast Guard and other emergency personnel who respond to distress calls will soon see an improvement in their ability to locate people during search and rescue cases.

This improvement centers around an emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB), a device that when activated can act as a virtual lifeline from people in distress to rescue crews by sending out a transmitted signal via air, sea or land.On Feb.1, 2009 Cospas-Sarsat, an international satellite-based search and rescue (SAR) system established by the U.S., Canada, Russia and France will cease satellite processing of 121.5/243 MHz analog EPIRBs and will begin processing only the 406 MHz digital radio beacon signals, making it illegal to use the obsolete 121.5/243 MHz beacons.

The newest 406 MHz beacons incorporate global positioning system (GPS) receivers that transmit highly accurate positions of distress almost instantly to SAR agencies via the Geostationary Earth Orbit Local User Terminals (GEOSAR) satellites.

The digital frequency has been designated internationally for use only for distress. Other communications and interference, such as on 121.5 MHz analog signals, is not allowed.The change is expected to result in a substantial reduction in wasted SAR resources on false alerts while simultaneously increasing the responsiveness of the system for real distress cases."

The 121.5 MHz analog beacons produce a high incidence of false alarms and a host of other limitations that include poor signal strength, search areas that can be as large as 12 to 15 miles in radius and unreliability," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Craig Mercier, an operations specialist stationed at the District 11 command center on Coast Guard Island here."

The distress signals from the 406 MHz beacon are much more accurate than the analog beacon. Each digital beacon has a unique ID encoded within its signal that can quickly confirm that the distress is real, who they are looking for and where they should look, which will ultimately save lives," he said.When a 406 MHz signal is received, SAR authorities can retrieve information from law-required registration data that includes beacon owner contact information, emergency contact information and identifying characteristics of the vessel."

Digital EPIRBS also provide position accuracy that narrows the vessel's position to less than two miles in radius and decreases the amount of time SAR teams must search. This results in quicker response times, and is a major advantage over the 121.5 MHz beacons," he said.

The decision to stop satellite processing of 121.5 / 243 MHz signals was announced by Cospas-Sarsat nearly two years ago stating problems in the frequency band which overwhelm search and rescue authorities with poor accuracy and numerous false alerts, negatively impacting the effectiveness of lifesaving services.

The Coast Guard strongly recommends mariners obtain the new 406 MHz EBIRB and file a float plan with a friend or family member on land, with an approximate time of return and location prior to getting underway.

A float plan template can be found at http://www.floatplancentral.org/.

EPIRB owners can register their equipment in the U.S. 406 MHz Beacon Registration Database at:http://www.beaconregistration.noaa.gov/ or by calling 1-888-212-SAVE.

Beacon registration is required to be updated with accurate information every two years or when emergency contact or other information changes.

For more information on EPIRBS and the Cospas-Sarsat program visit http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/.

Enjoy this Rollercoaster!





RS

Hazards Of Severe Space Weather Revealed

Hazards Of Severe Space Weather Revealed

ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2009) — A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth.

The National Academy of Sciences in Washington conducted the study.

The resulting report provides some of the first clear economic data that effectively quantifies today's risk of extreme conditions in space driven by magnetic activity on the sun and disturbances in the near-Earth environment. Instances of extreme space weather are rare and are categorized with other natural hazards that have a low frequency but high consequences.

"Obviously, the sun is Earth's life blood," said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"To mitigate possible public safety issues, it is vital that we better understand extreme space weather events caused by the sun's activity."

Besides emitting a continuous stream of plasma called the solar wind, the sun periodically releases billions of tons of matter called coronal mass ejections.

These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. Such space weather can affect the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems.

Space weather can produce solar storm electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and affecting communication cables that support the Internet. Severe space weather also produces solar energetic particles and the dislocation of the Earth's radiation belts, which can damage satellites used for commercial communications, global positioning and weather forecasting. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.

A catastrophic failure of commercial and government infrastructure in space and on the ground can be mitigated through raising public awareness, improving vulnerable infrastructure and developing advanced forecasting capabilities. Without preventive actions or plans, the trend of increased dependency on modern space-weather sensitive assets could make society more vulnerable in the future.

NASA requested the study to assess the potential damage from significant space weather during the next 20 years. National and international experts from industry, government and academia participated in the study. The report documents the possibility of a space weather event that has societal effects and causes damage similar to natural disasters on Earth.

"From a public policy perspective, it is quite significant that we have begun the extremely challenging task of assessing space weather impacts in a quantitative way," said Daniel Baker, professor and director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Baker chaired the panel that prepared the report.

"Whether it is terrestrial catastrophes or extreme space weather incidents, the results can be devastating to modern societies that depend in a myriad of ways on advanced technological systems," said Baker. "We were delighted that NASA helped support bringing together dozens of world experts from industry and government to share their experiences and begin planning of improved public policy strategies."

The sun is currently near the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. It is expected that solar storms will increase in frequency and intensity toward the next solar maximum, expected to occur around 2012.

The Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington provided funding for the study. The division seeks to understand the sun, its solar processes and the interaction of solar plasma and radiation with Earth, other planets and the universe.

Understanding the connections between the sun and its planets will allow better prediction on the impacts of solar activity on humans, technological systems and even the presence of life itself in the universe.

The National Academies are chartered by Congress to provide independent technical and scientific advice to the federal government.

For images related to the study and more information about the Heliophysics Division, visit: http://nasascience.nasa.gov/heliophysics

To view the National Academy of Sciences' complete report, visit: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html

WEATHER NOTE

Satellites Used To Measure Inland Floods

ScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2008) — Satellites that were designed to measure sea level over the world's oceans can serve a valuable purpose over land, a new study has found. Researchers used NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon satellite and the European Space Agency's ENVISAT satellite to measure the height and extent of flooding in North America, South America, and Asia.

The study shows that satellites can supplement the measurements that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) gathers from flood gauges on the ground -- at little or no cost, said C.K. Shum, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

"After a flood, we can look back at the satellite data to pinpoint when the flood began, and find out how far the flood waters extended, which is really important for flood modeling," he said.

Satellites such as TOPEX/Poseidon measure the height of land or water by bouncing radio signals off of surfaces and measuring how long the signals take to return.

Rough surfaces scatter some of the signal in other directions, and cause errors in a satellite's on board tracking system. This often happens over land. Scientists use "re-tracking" software to fix the errors, and make the satellite's measurements more precise.

That's what the Ohio State software does -- it re-tracks the satellite data, but in a way that enables detailed measurements of water on land.

The key to the software is an algorithm that can tell the difference between water and snow cover. Ohio State postdoctoral researcher Hyongki Lee developed the algorithm and graduate student Manman Zhang applied the algorithm for her doctoral thesis.

Zhang presented the work in a poster session at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Shum, Zhang, and their colleagues used the software to process TOPEX/Poseidon data from the 1997 Red River flood in the upper Midwest of the United States, an area with abundant farmland and wetlands. They detected flooded regions within four river basins: the Red River Basin in North Dakota and Minnesota; the Missouri River Basin in North Dakota and South Dakota; and the Minnesota River Basin and the Mississippi River Basin, both in Minnesota and Iowa.

The flood happened in April of that year, as winter snows began to melt. Zhang's algorithm differentiated between the scattered radar signal produced by water and by areas still covered by snow. As the floodwaters began to move down the Red River, the satellite measurements provided estimates of flood levels.

After re-tracking, the satellite data agreed with USGS ground measurements taken at the time. For example, the software determined that flood waters in Grand Forks, North Dakota, rose 20 feet (6 meters), which matched data recorded from flood gauges there.

The researchers did the same for the June 2008 Iowa City flood that killed three people and damaged 2 million acres of farmland. They found that they could track the ebb and flow of that flood over a scale of several hours. For that part of the study, they worked with Carrie Huitger, a USGS hydrologist who supplied the flood gauge data. They performed similar studies with TOPEX/Poseidon data for a flood in the Amazon River Basin, and with ENVISAT data for a flood in southwestern Taiwan -- both with similar results.

The satellites can't be used to forecast a flood because the data isn't processed very quickly and the spatial coverage of the satellite measurements is limited, Shum explained. Even preliminary processing takes hours. But after a flood, such data can add to data collected on the ground, to help scientists better understand how floods happen.

Next, the researchers want to automate the software so that it can build an archive of flood data. Since the satellites are already in orbit collecting the data, there would be little cost beyond building the database and enabling scientists to access it.

In the future, a new satellite may enable more extensive and detailed measurements. Ohio State scientists lead an international team that has proposed the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. The SWOT satellite will feature dual antennas that will gather high-resolution data over a much wider surface of the earth than is possible with today's satellites.

Collaborators on this project include Doug Alsdorf, associate professor of earth sciences, and Frank Schwartz, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Hydrogeology.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Hail tornado severe storms lightning video Australia



MARITIME NOTE

Thousands urge rescue boat return

The crew of a Devon rescue boat is sending out its own SOS to get its vessel reinstated. A petition of 5,000 signatures is being handed in to parliament on Wednesday, saying lives are being put at risk.

The story made headlines last summer when the crew used the boat to rescue a teenage girl at Hope Cove.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which had warned the crew that the boat was unsafe, impounded it. The MCA is due to hold talks on the issue.

The MCA later brought the boat back, with a restriction that it could be used within a certain distance from the beach in the South Hams area of Devon.

But two months ago the boat was locked away again, this time until a consultation was carried out.

The crew has said the boat is safe and fears lives are being put at risk.
MP Anthony Steen said: "The rescue boat had been successfully operated by four men who were able to launch the boat at a moment's notice in the event of an emergency since they worked locally.

"Now a large stretch of the south Devon coastline is suddenly without adequate sea rescue coverage."

The MCA said Hope Cove was covered by the nearby Salcombe lifeboat.
It said in a statement: "We will be consulting with stakeholders soon to discuss beach safety provision in the South Hams."

FROM HOLLAND AND KNIGHT

Singapore – comments sought re draft amendments to MARPOL Annex I The Singapore Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) issued a circular stating that it is seeking comments from owners, operators, masters, and others regarding draft interim guidelines and draft amendments to MARPOL Annex I adopted by the recent session of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC). The draft documents relate to: (1) the method of calculation of the energy efficiency design index for new ships; (2) the Supplement to the IOPP Certificate; (3) prevention of pollution during transfer of oil cargo between oil tankers at sea; (4) amendments to Regulations 1, 12, 13, 17, and 38; (5) the IOPP Certificate; and (6) the Oil Record Book. The draft amendments are expected to be adopted at the next session of the MEPC, scheduled for July 2009. Shipping Circular No. 5 of 2009 (1/6/09).

UK – report on container ship-fishing vessel collision The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) issued the summary of its preliminary examination of a collision between a container ship and a fishing vessel that occurred in good weather off Lizard Point on 18 September 2008. Visibility from the bridge of the container ship was impaired. Neither vessel was maintaining a good lookout or making proper use of their radar. (1/6/09).

UK – contract awarded for MSC NAPOLI wreck removal The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) issued a press notice stating that a contract has been awarded for removal of the stern section of the wreck of the MSC NAPOLI. The scrap is to be delivered to a recovery facility in the Netherlands. (1/6/09).

RS

Major Southern California quake drill reveals significant gaps in preparations

Major Southern California quake drill reveals significant gaps in preparations

The Nov. 13 'shakeout' showed officials that in the event of a 7.8-magnitude temblor they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.

By Jia-Rui Chong December 27, 2008

The largest earthquake drill in U.S. history, held last month in Southern California, found some serious gaps in local earthquake planning, prompting utility companies, emergency managers and others to rethink their planning for a major temblor.The Great Southern California Shakeout was the first time so many agencies and earthquake officials teamed up to examine what would happen if a huge quake struck the region, in this case a 7.8 magnitude temblor. Many Shakeout participants said they have gone through earthquake drills before, but never with a scenario so detailed.

Based on the results of the Nov. 13 experiment, in which each agency estimated damage and emergency services requirements based on detailed quake scenarios developed by supercomputers, officials said they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.Fire protectionFor local fire officials, one of the most worrisome estimates from the drill was the 1,600 fires expected to ignite with lamps overturning, electrical wires shorting and natural gas lines bursting open. Many fires would grow out of control as firefighters struggle to get fire engines across damaged roads and water stopped coming out of their hoses, experts found.

An estimated 200 million square feet of property would be damaged in the blazes. The fires would cause more than 900 deaths -- about half of the total for the earthquake."To hear it quantified like that, it more than got my attention," said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman. "This was really the worst-case scenario for us. Today, if this were to happen, we would need outside assistance."Unfortunately, Freeman said, they probably would not get help for quite some time because neighboring fire agencies would be fighting fires in their own districts and departments from Northern California would have to make their way around damaged highways.

Because they can't afford to multiply their staffs, several fire agencies are looking into training more members of the community to be first responders, learning such skills as basic first aid and turning off gas lines.Freeman said the county is also looking into ways to better draw water from other sources during a disaster, such as pools or storm drains that are collecting runoff from broken pipes.Water suppliesBut the drill also raised troubling questions about how much water would be available after a major quake. Of all utilities, water would take the longest time to restore, experts found. Some communities might have to wait six months for taps to flow again.

The Shakeout helped officials at East Valley Water District in San Bernardino County estimate that they would see about 1,000 leaks in their 450 miles of pipe because about 40% of their pipes are made from a material that is particularly brittle in earthquakes, said Gary Sturdivan, the district's safety and regulatory manager. All 78,000 of its customers would lose water for some period because all of the agency's reservoirs are on one side of the fault and all of its wells and distribution systems are on the other.As a result, the district plans to stock more replacement pipe parts in repair sheds near those areas and store more bottled water for their employees, employees' families that might stay at their facilities and their customers who need water, Sturdivan said.

The water agencies are also retooling their mutual-aid agreements so they can figure out how to prioritize different agencies' needs and distribute replacement parts or water from other states fairly, he said."I think our agency, like a lot of water agencies, was pretty prepared, but it was glaring that we have a long way to go," Sturdivan said. "It was a little overwhelming."Electrical suppliesThe 7.8 temblor modeled by the test would leave large swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties without power, according to estimates by a working group that included utility companies representatives. Breaks in natural gas pipelines could add delays because many plants use gas to generate electricity.

It probably would take about 10 days to restore power to 90% of customers, the estimates found.But Jim Kelly, senior vice president of transmission and distribution for Southern California Edison, said even that is an optimistic forecast."The problem is harder than people initially think," he said. Although Edison already uses equipment designed to be safer in earthquakes, such as transformers with low centers of gravity, Kelly worried about other utilities and parts vendors that would probably be having problems at the same time.

"If we lose bridges or roadways, how are we going to get people or materials to the job site," Kelly asked. "We don't know if rail transit will be available if we don't have roadways."

When Kelly added these potential problems together, he estimated it would take two to four weeks to restore power to the vast majority of Edison's 12 million customers."The scenario's value to us was in identifying that we have to look broader than just our stuff," he said.

Lucile Jones, the U.S. Geological Survey seismologist who served as the chief scientist for the Shakeout, said she hopes the drill gave agencies concrete data that will help them better prepare."People don't need to be convinced an earthquake can happen," she said. "They need concrete statements so they know what to do about it."The effort to develop the scenario cost about $500,000, engaged some 300 experts and took two years to complete.

Geophysicists wanted to plot a plausible event, so they started the earthquake at a part of the San Andreas that has not moved for more than 300 years. They decided the energy stored in that part of the fault could cause a 200-mile rupture moving northwest from Bombay Beach, at the Salton Sea. Quakes of this size are possible, Jones explained, because they rocked San Francisco in 1906 and Fort Tejon in 1857.Seismologists used the supercomputers to calculate the shaking, generating data for 25,000 points of a grid laid out over Southern California.Geologists, engineers, utility managers and other experts used the data to estimate the damage, which included more than 10,000 landslides, more than 50 sewage spills and more than 100,000 addresses losing phone and Internet service for two or more days. Motorists would have to wait one to two weeks to use arterial roads in cities such as Los Angeles and seven months to use damaged highways.

Public health experts estimated some 1,800 people would die and 50,000 would be seriously injured. The economic costs of the disaster, including the business interruption, would total about $213 billion.

The scientists purposefully avoided a worst-case scenario but wanted to analyze an earthquake far more damaging than the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.7. "We wanted people to understand how bad it could be," Jones said. "Some people think, 'I've been through Northridge,' but getting through Northridge is not enough."

WEATHER NOTE

FEMA uses multimedia to document Ike response
By AMY MOORE
December, 23, 2008



The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is allowing access to footage of recovery efforts during Hurricane Ike while staying on the cutting edge of multimedia technology, offering online "webisodes" of the Ike response and recovery missions in Texas.

In step with several other federal agencies, the emergency agency is producing video shorts for its online multimedia site at www.fema.gov/media/multimedia/ to bring the efforts of the agency and recovery information directly to the public.

Using social media tools such as YouTube.com, FEMA is able to capture the various recovery efforts in the areas surrounding the upper Texas Gulf Coast and making it available on some of the most active Internet sites.

The agency has produced 14 videos that highlight urban search and rescue, mitigation efforts, volunteerism, community relations, debris management, private sector outreaching, temporary housing and other human interest stories.

These "webisodes" demonstrate the behind-the-scenes, real-life dramas occurring in the response and recovery efforts after Hurricane Ike.

Other online multimedia resources can be found at:
www.youtube.com/fema - includes vignettes about Hurricane Ike recovery efforts and FEMA programs.

www.twitter.com/femainfocus - lets users get the latest FEMA information and participate in forums addressing issues.

www.fema.gov/radio/index.jsp - features mp3 files of recent radio news and Public Service Announcements.

www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/index.jsp - includes FEMA's extensive collection of photos from current and previous disaster operation.

MARTIIME NOTE

Independent investigation into the lifeboat incident on board the
Hong Kong flag bulk carrier Ma Cho at Devonport, Tasmania
9 December 2002
Released

SUMMARY

On 8 December 2002, Ma Cho arrived in Devonport, Tasmania, to discharge a part cargo of fertiliser at number four berth on the western side of the river. On 9 December, the master made the decision to conduct an abandon ship drill before the vessel was due to depart for Geelong. The drill commenced at about 1540 and the starboard lifeboat was prepared for lowering to the water.

At approximately 1548 the mate reported that the crew inside the lifeboat were seated and had fastened their safety belts. Lowering of the boat then commenced with one of the crew operating the davit winch brake from the deck.When the boat had been lowered approximately two metres from the davit head the after on-load release hook suddenly opened, releasing the after fall. The lifeboat’s stern fell to leave the boat suspended vertically by the remaining forward fall with its stern swinging approximately five metres above the water. The boat crew were shaken by the incident but remained secured in their seats inside the now vertical lifeboat. The second mate had sustained a small cut over his left eye.

After the crew had disembarked, the lifeboat was lowered to the water to allow the onload release system to be inspected. It was found that the cable operating the after hook was not properly secured by the saddle clamp under the operating unit. Each time the actuating handle was operated, lost motion was induced by the cable sliding through the clamp and this meant that the after hook was not resetting fully. The cable clamp was temporary repaired and then the lifeboat was housed in its davit. MaCho was subsequently cleared to complete the voyage to Geelong.

The report conclusions include:

• The cable clamp securing the aft hook’s operating cable adjacent to the operating mechanism had been modified which resulted in lost motion within the cable.

• As a result of the lost motion in its operating cable, the after hook had not been fully reset when the previous lifeboat drill was conducted on 2 November 2002.• The design of the on-load release system was flawed with respect to the hook locking mechanism.

• The ship’s safety management system was deficient with respect to both the operating and maintenance instructions and to crew training on the on-load release system.

The report makes a general recommendation to ISM Code accreditation authorities regarding ship safety management systems as they relate to on-load release systems. The report also recommends that the lifeboat manufacturer and classification societies review the design of the on-load release system.

Have a really wonderful weekend!
RS

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

Deep Sea Expedition Sets Sail

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2008) — Setting sail on the Pacific, a University of Delaware-led research team has embarked on an extreme adventure that will find several of its members plunging deep into the sea to study hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

The team, which will be conducting research in environments that include scalding heat, high pressure, toxic chemicals and total darkness, is part of the National Science Foundation-funded "Extreme 2008: A Deep-Sea Adventure."

The scientists are being joined by students from around the world on dry land who have signed up for an exciting virtual field trip. More than 20,000 students from 350 schools in the United States, Aruba, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Great Britain and New Zealand are participating.

The expedition, led by Craig Cary, professor of marine biosciences in the University of Delaware's College of Marine and Earth Studies, left Monday, Nov. 10, aboard the research ship Atlantis from a port in Manzanillo, Mexico, with an expected return date of Dec. 1.*

Team members – researchers and graduate students – are from the University of Delaware, the University of Colorado, University of North Carolina, University of Southern California, J. Craig Venter Institute, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

The team is heading to destinations at two hydrothermal hot spots: Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California and a group of vents in the eastern Pacific Ocean about nine degrees north of the equator.

Once above the vents, the researchers will take the submersible Alvin down from one to nearly two miles below the surface. Built to withstand crushing pressures and to pierce the utter blackness of the deep, Alvin will let the scientists observe life around the steaming vents and collect samples for analysis. Both Atlantis and Alvin are owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The scientists' focus will be marine viruses and other tiny life called protists. These organisms prey on bacteria, the primary food for vent dwellers ranging from ghost-white vent crabs to bizarre-looking tubeworms.

"For many years, the vents have been explored with little to no attention to viruses and protists," Cary says. "Yet because these organisms eat bacteria, they have the most dramatic effect on the bacterial communities that support the vent system. Our research programs are among the first to focus on these remarkable scavengers."

Eric Wommack, an associate professor with joint appointments in both the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Marine and Earth Studies, will join Cary in leading the UD contingent.

Wommack, who is based at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, is an expert on marine viruses and will be deploying specialized equipment to capture them for analysis in the shipboard lab.

Wommack says hydrothermal vents, although characterized by caustic chemistry, hot temperatures and high pressure, are oases of life in the deep sea. The vents provide an ecosystem for ancient and unusual microbes that are capable of extracting energy from volcanic rather than solar energy, and are home to viruses.

"As a group, viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and contain its largest reservoir of unknown genes," Wommack says. "We know that bacteria at the deep-sea hydrothermal vents are intimately associated with relatively abundant populations of viruses. Our goal is to explore the wilderness of viral genes existing at the vents."

David Caron, professor of biological sciences in the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California, will be studying protozoa, a class of protists that feed on other organisms and that may form a crucial bridge between bacteria and animal life.

If Caron is correct, the samples from the deep will show that protozoa feed on bacteria or on the products of bacterial activity and are in turn eaten by larger life forms. The most surprising thing about the theory may be the lack of evidence for it. While other studies have found a protozoan-animal link in surface waters, the analogous middle step in the deep ocean has been overlooked.

"Protozoa are everywhere and they're in virtually every environment. They play this intermediate food web role in a number of these environments, and there's no reason to believe that they aren't doing the same thing in the vents. It simply hasn't been looked at to any degree," Caron said.

As the scientists work at sea, they will be connected to students via an interactive Web site, where blogs, dive logs, video clips, photos and interviews will be posted daily. Students also will be able to write to the scientists, design experiments and participate in a virtual science fair.

A capstone experience for selected schools will be a "Phone Call to the Deep," linking classrooms with researchers working live in the submersible Alvin on the seafloor.

The University of Delaware and the National Science Foundation are sponsoring the expedition. Additional support is being provided by Olympus and by MO BIO Laboratories.

* For those interested in following the scientists, they will blog regularly about the voyage at the Extreme 2008 Web site . The program, coordinated by the Office of Communications & Marketing, is the sixth in UD's popular "Extreme" series, which has won state and national awards for public education.

WEATHER NOTE

Indiana Department Of Homeland Security Implements GIS-Based Disaster Response System

November 8, 2008

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) recently embarked on an ambitious campaign that provides a communication network built using ESRI geographic information system (GIS) software. The system takes advantage of a Web portal for linking local resources with state and federal stakeholders in the event of a large-scale emergency. This two-way stream of information flow is vital to disaster response. "We wanted to leverage resources already in place with other state agencies and in the universities across the state," says Roger Koelpin, GIS/critical infrastructure planner, Indiana Department of Homeland Security. "We are able to work with those partners as resources for our internal disaster recovery strategy and continuity of operations planning. Ultimately, we hope to turn this into a viable process for bottom-up reporting of data to meet federal data calls and to keep our federal partners informed as part of our routine, authoritative, common operating picture."

IDHS selected ESRI for its GIS software and services. ESRI Professional Services staff worked with IDHS staff to incorporate ESRI software, including ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo, into its disaster response system. The system's technology framework involves ESRI business partner ESi and its WebEOC Web-enabled crisis management system. In addition, FME from Safe Software, Inc, was selected to help extract data from stakeholders' Web feature services and transform the data to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security data model.

The enterprise disaster response system provides several functions. First, it is used for mitigation, with state agencies identifying high-risk populations, infrastructure, natural resources, and other assets. Second, it provides instant-response capabilities. When a disaster strikes, real-time situational awareness occurs. Commanders make quick decisions on where to send law enforcement, fire personnel, emergency medical services staff, and other responders. They can instantly see available resources, prioritize activities, and monitor events in real time as they unfold. This capability also helps with long-term recovery.

A major component of the system comes from Indiana university partners who are already using GIS and related technologies to publish IndianaMap: a single, statewide geospatial resource for Indiana that includes a wide variety of information in a format that is accessible to both expert GIS users and the general public. IDHS is currently working with county stakeholders to more fully integrate their GIS efforts with its own. Presently, 23 counties offer data in support of the IDHS disaster response system. Roughly one-third of Indiana's 92 counties host their own GIS software and databases. Another third of the counties have vendors hosting their data in proprietary 911 call-center applications. Some of these counties are working with their vendors so that they may help maintain the IDHS common operating picture. Some of the counties in the remaining third are using grants to bolster GIS operations, either with vendor support or on their own.

IDHS is also working to extend the system with more applications and data than are currently available.

About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.

SOURCE: ESRI

MARITIME NOTE

Poor communication cited in tall ship training fatality

By Canadian OH&S News

FEDERAL (Canadian OH&S News) -- A Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) investigation into the sailing death of Laura Gainey has determined that insufficient crew communication and inadequate ship safety features were among the factors that lead to her death.

Gainey, the daughter of Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey, was swept off the deck of the Picton Castle tall ship by a large wave during a fierce storm on December 8, 2006. The foreign-registered ship had departed Lunenburg, Nova Scotia three days earlier and was en route to Grenada in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The body of Gainey, a deckhand on the vessel, was never recovered despite search and rescue efforts.

Gainey was carrying out a ship check — likely at the port breezeway section of the ship — when the wave struck. She was probably unaware of a temporary order to steer clear of the breezeway, which had been implemented because of the rough seas, the TSB notes in a final report released on October 30.

“A number of [past] TSB investigations have highlighted the fact that accidents are often the product of ineffective, incomplete, untimely, or misunderstood communications,” board investigators write.

The TSB also notes that important safety equipment was either missing or was not properly used on the Picton Castle.

“Despite the large amount of water being shipped on deck, safety nets were not rigged above the bulwarks of the main deck and breezeway,” the board states. It adds that “safety lines had been rigged inboard on the main deck, but their effectiveness was diminished because safety harnesses were not worn. The absence of established fastening points to which safety harnesses could be attached also negated the effectiveness of wearing a harness.”

Given unfavourable long-range weather forecasts, the ship’s departure from Nova Scotia should have been delayed, the TSB suggests. Heeding the forecasts would have been particularly advisable considering the “limited training of the crew in emergencies and the limited experience of the trainees.” The report says that time and financial considerations contributed to the decision to set sail.

Fatigue among Picton Castle crew members was another issue identified by the TSB. It notes that under the storm conditions, the crew — including Gainey — was unable to rely on the 16 trainees onboard. “Consequently, the crewing level became inadequate — with the result that crew members had to rely on each other to perform duties during off-watch periods.”

A general concern noted by the board is that neither Canada northe Cook Islands (where the Picton Castle is registered) require tall ship operators to have safety management systems in place. “Effective safety management requires all organizations, large or small, to be cognizant of the risks involved in their operation, to be competent to manage those risks, and to be committed to operating safely,” the TSB states.

New volunteer standards may be ineffective: TSB

Though the federal transportation department, Transport Canada, is in the process of updating voluntary safety standards related to tall ship construction and operation, this “may not result in the adoption of effective safety management systems,” the board worries.

Maryse Durette, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, notes that the department has 90 days to review and respond to the TSB findings. The department, she adds, is already developing “a policy with respect to registration, crew training/certification, and requirements for foreign-registered sail training vessels entering and operating in Canada.”

Simon Fuller, president of Ottawa-based Bytown Brigantine Inc, a charitable organization that operates two tall ships, says that although Canadian-registered ships are not required by regulation to have formal crew training and safety programs, they typically do.

Nonetheless, Fuller, who is also secretary of the Canadian Sail Training Association, says he would support the formalization of crew training and safety program requirements through the creation of a legislated standard. “Let’s define once and for all what a responsible sail training program should look like and what it should comprise,” he says.

RS

Will the Opening of the Northwest Passage Transform Global Shipping Anytime Soon?

Will the Opening of the Northwest Passage Transform Global Shipping Anytime Soon?

With the melting of Arctic Ocean ice, the fabled waterway between Europe and Asia has been open to shipping the past two summers--or has it?

It is said that the Inuit have many words for snow, but when it comes to the Northwest Passage only one type of frozen water matters: multiyear ice. It can slice through the hull of a ship like a knife through butter and it persists in the passage's waters despite unprecedented warming in the Arctic Ocean, thwarting shippers in search of a shortcut between Europe and Asia.

The fabled Northwest Passage has made headlines ever since it thawed last year for the first time. For three centuries the quest for an expedited route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans rivaled today's space race, with European superpowers vying for the prize. Hundreds of sailors and countless expeditions ventured into Canada's Arctic waters, including such naval luminaries as Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook and the ill-fated Henry Hudson, who left his name—and lost his life—on the Canadian bay that marks its entrance.

Slide Show: View satellite images of the possible Northwest Passage

Now, with the Arctic's sea ice shrinking at a rate of 10 percent per decade, this coveted shipping lane has opened for business—but shippers are not rushing to use it. The reason: as fate would have it, global warming appears to also be increasing the amount of potentially deadly multiyear ice chunks lurking in the newly opened pathway.

Sea of Ice
"The thing is, the Canadian Arctic has a totally different ice regime than the Arctic Ocean," says Stephen Howell, a climatologist at the Interdisciplinary Center on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

In fact, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago acts as a "drain trap" for ship-wrecking multiyear ice, Howell says. This year, for example, when the first-year ice in the passage had melted, it opened the way for multiyear ice (MYI) from the Queen Elizabeth Islands to flow into and clog the Northwest Passage. "We call it a 'MYI invasion' and that's going to be the threat as we transition to an ice-free summertime Arctic," he says.

"The first-year ice, that's sort of like Swiss cheese and you can just plow through it," Howell says. This ice freezes over a winter and is seldom thicker than three feet (one meter). Often, first-year ice melts the summer after it's frozen, but if it doesn't, it becomes thicker the following winter and becomes multiyear ice. "The multiyear ice isn't like Swiss cheese; it's solid and trouble" for ships that collide with it, he says.

"In places it was three meters (nearly 10 feet) thick, but in other places we had a five-meter (16.5-foot) drill bit and we still did not reach the bottom," says Bruno Tremblay, an atmospheric and oceanic scientist at McGill University in Montreal, who was taking ice cores of multiyear ice in the Canadian territory of Nunavut's Viscount Melville Sound last year.

"It's very dangerous," adds Ivana Kubat, an engineer at the National Research Council's Canadian Hydraulics Centre in Ottawa. "If a lower type of vessel hits a piece of multiyear ice, then the vessel can sink depending on the speed and damage." One study showed that multiyear ice was to blame for 74 percent of the damage suffered by ships traveling in the Canadian Arctic between 1976 and 2007.

A Route to Dodge Danger?
Still, there are several ways through the Northwest Passage. The southern, shallow and circuitous route through Peel Sound in Nunavut has been open the past three summers, thanks to warmer temperatures. "That's because that region is mostly first-year ice so with warmer temperatures it melts and it clears," Howell says.

But the northern route, which runs through the McClure Strait in a straight shot from Baffin Bay west of Greenland to the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, is another story. "Everyone wants the McClure route because it's quicker, it saves money," he says.

The McClure route opened last year, and once before that, in 1998. The European Space Agency reported that the strait opened up this year—open water was visible from space—although it wasn't safe for ship crossings.

"You could in principle navigate through it [this year], avoiding ice floes, and looking for the narrow opening, but the wind can move the ice around within hours so it can be a bit tricky," says Christian Melsheimer, a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen in Germany, whose research group produces daily maps of sea ice. "Some interpret this as 'the passage is open'; some would rather wait until the ice concentration is near zero percent across the whole passage."

The minimum sea ice cover in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago shrunk by 6.6 percent and the hazardous multiyear ice by 8.6 percent each decade between 1979 and last year. So the amount of sea ice in the region is indeed decreasing, just not in the right way for the Northwest Passage to become a viable alternative to the Panama Canal anytime soon.

"Obviously, if the climate is warming then you would have less first-year ice," says Kubat. "But, based on our analysis of our work, there is ice [in the passage], and with some melt of first-year ice you have more multiyear ice in the shipping lanes."

Global Impact
Climate models predict that even as sea ice disappears from the Arctic Ocean in the summer, the northern part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago will remain a stronghold for multiyear ice. That means hard, ship-wrecking multiyear ice in all the channels of the Northwest Passage.

"Even in 2040, when there is no more summer ice in the Arctic, the archipelago will still be clogged with ice," Tremblay says.

As a result, ships may be able to sail plumb across the Arctic Ocean to Eurasia before they can navigate the Northwest Passage to ply the waters along North America's Arctic coast safely. But by that time any gains from a shipping shortcut will have been dramatically offset by potential losses elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere due to the effects of climate change. "There are certainly some positive benefits at least in the short term economically," says Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., "but the negative impacts, I think, ultimately outweigh that."

The U.S. Southwest, for instance, will dry up; ocean circulation, jet streams and storm tracks will probably all change, he says. "There definitely will be impacts on all the U.S. and Europe and Asia," Meier notes, "and at least [on] all of the Northern Hemisphere due to the loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic."

WEATHER NOTE

Bad Weather Makes for a Long Day

A strong jet stream can add or subtract microseconds from a day

By Keren Blankfeld Schultz

Do you ever feel like some days drag on longer than others? That feeling may be psychological, but actual day length really does fluctuate--by a fraction of a millisecond. (A millisecond is one thousandth of a second)

The length of a day, which is measured by the time it takes Earth to rotate once on its axis, can be measured to an accuracy of about 10 microseconds, or 10 millionths of a second. Earth's rotational rate depends on the distribution of mass across its surface. This includes the roiling aggregation of gases that comprise the atmosphere, the solid earth itself, its fluid core, and the sloshing ocean. For example, when a major earthquake shifts the planet's mass, it can slow or speed the day by as much as a few thousandths of a second.

In fact, the Indonesian Sumatra earthquake in December 2004 that spawned a deadly tsunami moved so much water that it slightly changed our planet's shape and sped its rotation by 2.68 microseconds, or nearly three millionths of a second.

This change in rotational speed, though it is minimal, has been observed for centuries. In 1695 English astronomer Sir Edmund Halley (who also discovered the eponymous periodic comet) hypothesized that the moon was accelerating in its orbit. In reality, Earth's rotation was slowing down, making it appear that the moon was gathering speed.

Since then, scientists have used various methods to measure our planet's rotation, including astronomical devices such as the sundial as well as satellites and lunar observations. And these days scientists have placed thousands of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers around the world that can track Earth's orientation to within a few millimeters, says geophysicist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. JPL keeps an in-house database of Earth's rotation dating back to 1962.

Gross says that the most important processes affecting day length are changes in the weather, especially unusual variations in the strength and direction of the winds, which bring on alterations in the global circulation of the atmosphere and ocean. In particular, the vast, high-altitude wind currents known as jet streams, which arise from the differences in temperature between the warm tropics and cooler high latitudes, are responsible for shortening or speeding the day.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that global warming may actually speed the day, a fact noted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In one study published in Geophysical Research Letters in 2007, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, estimated the mass redistribution resulting from ocean warming would shorten the day by 120 microseconds, or nearly one tenth of a millisecond, over the next two centuries.

Such changes—whether caused by global warming or earthquakes—remain too small to be reliably detected at present, Gross says. After all, there are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day and billions of microseconds. Even with GPS, predicting changes in day length remains as difficult as forecasting the weather.

On April 17, 2008, for instance, the day lasted 1.1686 milliseconds longer than the norm According to Gross, the excess varies: Just a few years ago, days were about three milliseconds longer. And all those milliseconds add up: Over the course of a year, scientists estimate that the fluctuations add about a second.

But don't worry, scientists are on top of the phenomenon. The National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., occasionally adds a "leap second" to the atomic clocks used to standardize time. The last such update took place on January 1, 2006. There's plenty of time to adjust your calendars: "If the excess length of day continues to be about 1.2 milliseconds, another leap second won't be needed for about three years," Gross wrote in an e-mail.

MARITIME NOTE

Coast Guard Rescues 2

ALAMEDA, Calif. - The Coast Guard rescued a man and a woman stranded onboard a 17-foot pleasure craft at Chipps Island. At approximately 6:50 a.m., Coast Guard Sector San Francisco received a cell phone call from the owners of a pleasure craft that their vessel was disabled and run aground. The people reported they were not in distress but were unsure of their location and needed assistance.

From descriptions by the passengers onboard, the Coast Guard was able to determine their location. At approximately 9 a.m., Coast Guard Sector San Francisco lost communication with the stranded people, and immediately launched an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, from Air Station San Francisco, to the scene. By 9:35 a.m., the helicopter crew arrived on scene, located the stranded passengers and hoisted them to the helicopter.(Coast Guard video shot by Air Station San Francisco)

At approximately 9 a.m., Coast Guard Sector San Francisco lost communication with the stranded people, and immediately launched an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, from Air Station San Francisco, to the scene. By 9:35 a.m., the helicopter crew arrived on scene, located the stranded passengers and hoisted them to the helicopter.

See more videos at Great Americans

RS

5 Most Dangerous U.S. Earthquake Hot Spots Beyond California

5 Most Dangerous U.S. Earthquake Hot Spots Beyond California

California isn't the only state with a serious earthquake hazard. There are several lesser-known fault zones lurking in other parts of the country that are just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than the famed San Andreas Fault.

Some of these faults are capable of producing quakes bigger than the 1906 San Francisco quake, but because the time between major jolts is longer than in California, many people who live near these faults don't even know they are there.

Here's a closer look at five of the country's most hazardous seismic hot spots outside of California.

Map: USGS

A computer simulation of the 1700 Cascadia earthquake tsunami after 10 hours / USGS.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST:

The biggest earthquakes in the country are not in California. A much greater hazard, at least in terms of sheer magnitude, exists to the north of the San Andreas Fault where the ocean crust is being forced beneath the North American continent.

Known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone, this 680-mile long stretch of colliding land mass 50 miles offshore of Oregon, Washington state and southern British Columbia is capable of generating magnitude 9 earthquakes 30 times more powerful than the worst the San Andreas can dish out.

"There are lots of other earthquakes that may happen first, but they won't be as big," said marine geologist Chris Goldfinger of Oregon State University in Corvallis.

An earthquake of this size would completely devastate the region, which includes Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. There could be thousands of deaths and unprecedented damage for a quake in this country. Major travel routes will be impassable. The shaking could last a full four minutes, which would damage or bring down structures that could have survived a shorter duration.

On top of the danger from shaking, within minutes, a tsunami would likely inundate the low-lying coastal areas. Cascadia is the same type of fault that caused the 2004 Sumatra quake and tsunami.

Fortunately, these mega quakes only come around once every few hundred years. Unfortunately, the fault may be due for another big one any day now.

The last monster quake that ruptured the entire length of the Cascadia fault occurred in 1700 and was around a magnitude 9. It created a tsunami that crossed the entire Pacific Ocean and caused damage along parts of the Japanese coast.

Scientists had calculated an average time between these major quakes of around 530 years. But Goldfinger's recent research on marine landslides caused by earthquakes over the last 12,000 years has revealed many magnitude 8 earthquakes on the southern portion of the fault in the intervening years, bringing the average down to 270 years.

"It's been 308 since the last one so the probability is much higher," Goldfinger said. In fact, is new research on landslides puts the probability of a magnitude 8 or greater quake as high as 75 percent in the next 50 years.

Making matters worse, the region isn't prepared.

"Portland has lots of unreinforced masonry buildings" that are likely to collapse in a major quake, Goldfinger said. "The retrofitting has barely begun."

"It's going to be a mess."

NEW MADRID:

Most of the major earthquakes in the world occur at tectonic plate boundaries where land masses are colliding or pushing past one another. But in the middle of the country lurks a geological enigma near New Madrid, Missouri, that has produced some of the largest quakes on record for the United States but has yet to be fully explained by scientists.

"It's a big mystery," said geologist Eugene Schweig of the U.S. Geological Survey, who has studied the area for 23 years. "New Madrid is about as far from a plate boundary as you can get."

In 1811 and 1812, a swarm of at least three massive earthquakes struck near New Madrid, the largest of which exceeded a magnitude 8 and caused violent, damaging shaking in an area 10 times larger than did the 1906 earthquake. The quake was felt over an area of two million square miles — nearly two-thirds of the country.

During the quakes, the ground rose and fell, trees were bent, deep cracks opened up in the ground, large landslides swept down hills, huge waves washed boats out of the Mississippi River and river banks, islands and sand bars gave way.

Damage was widespread, but only a few people died thanks to the sparse population in what was then the Louisiana Territory but today is near the junction of Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. Were another magnitude 8 earthquake to strike the region today, the toll would be much, much higher.

By analyzing deposits of sand that squirted out of the ground during past major quakes, Schweig and others estimate an average time between earthquakes of 500 years. But earthquakes are impossible to predict, and because scientists aren't even sure why major quakes occur away from plate boundaries, it is even more difficult to estimate a probability for New Madrid.

The USGS's best estimate is that there is a seven to 10 percent chance of a major earthquake between magnitude 7.5 and 8 in the next 50 years. While the probability of a major quake on any given day in the New Madrid region is far less than that of the Bay Area in California, the potential for disaster if a quake does strike is greater due to the size of the area that could be violently shaken.

Another factor is the lack of awareness and preparedness in the area. It is nearly impossible to live in the San Francisco or Los Angeles areas without knowing there is an earthquake hazard. Small quakes remind residents of that every few months or weeks. But 1812 was a long time ago, so earthquakes aren't anywhere near the top of most people's concerns in New Madrid. And most buildings in the area haven't been retrofitted.

"We have buildings that have been sitting around for 200 years," Schweig said. "It's just bricks sitting on top of bricks. There are schools and police stations built like that."

Image: 1904 photo of trees bent during the 1811/1812 New Madrid earthquakes / USGS

SALT LAKE CITY:

The forces that have built Utah's incredibly scenic landscape are also the source of a very serious and potentially deadly seismic hazard. Running along the base of the western edge of the Rocky Mountains, the 240-mile Wasatch Fault lies underneath Salt Lake City and the state's urban corridor, home to 1.6 million people.

Though the Wasatch Fault has not delivered a major quake since the Mormon settlers arrived in 1847, geologists have found evidence that it is capable of unleashing jolts as big as magnitude 7.5. It is one of the world's longest "normal" faults, where the land on one side of the fault drops down relative to the other side during an earthquake. During prehistoric times, the fault slipped as much as 10 feet during a single quake.

"That's basically the process that formed the Wasatch Range," said geologist Chris DuRoss of the Utah Geological Survey. Over the last 17 million years, the fault has experienced almost seven miles of slip, raising the mountains above the adjacent valley floor.

The fault has distinct segments that act independently, each with its own history of earthquakes. On average, every 300 to 350 years, one of the central segments, which underlie the most populated areas including Salt Lake City and Provo, has had a major earthquake. The last big one was 300 years ago.

"We're basically due for an earthquake," said DuRoss, who has studied evidence of ancient quakes in trenches dug across the different segments of the fault. "We're really getting right into that zone when we'd expect to see one."

The prognosis gets even more grim with a closer look at the segment that underlies Salt Lake City and the segment just to the north. Both average a big quake every 1,300 years. The Salt Lake City segment last ruptured just about 1,300 years ago, and the last big quake to the north was around 2,100 years ago.

The danger from a major earthquake is heightened in the Salt Lake Valley because it sits atop an ancient lake bed made of softer sediments that tend to amplify seismic waves. This is bad news for an area that has around 185,000 vulnerable buildings made of unreinforced masonry that isn't built to survive an earthquake. Most of these are homes, but some are schools and other public buildings.

Video: Utah Geological Survey

The Seward highway in Alaska after the 1964 earthquake / USGS

ALASKA:

The second-largest earthquake ever recorded struck Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1964. The magnitude 9.2 quake killed 128 people, most by the resulting tsunami.

In some places, the ground was uplifted almost 38 feet, and in others it dropped more than seven feet. The tsunami reached heights of around 220 feet locally, and killed 11 people 1,650 miles away in Crescent City, California.

The "mega-thrust" quake was the product of the collision of two tectonic plates, the oceanic plate being forced beneath the continental plate. Those plates are still moving and accumulating stress that will eventually be released in another big quake. The geologic record shows gaps of 350 to 900 years between monster quakes, which would seem to put the Alaskan coast in the clear.

But there could be several smaller magnitude 8 quakes filling those gaps that aren't quite big enough to show up in the geologic record, said geologist Peter Haeussler of the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage. "There's enough question that we just really don't know."

And Alaska has plenty of other sources of earthquakes to contend with. The oceanic plate bends and sinks as it is pushed beneath the continent, which can cause quakes potentially up to magnitude 7. And there are plenty of active faults on dry land as well.

"The big Kahuna for Alaska is the Denali Fault," Haeussler said, which had a 30-mile-long rupture in a magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 2004.

Alaska's biggest vulnerability is its transportation infrastructure. Virtually everything and everyone that goes anywhere in the state passes through Anchorage. The airport sits on ground that could suffer liquefaction — where sediments behave like a liquid when shaken in an earthquake — that could seriously damage runways and isolate the rest of the state.

HAWAII:

Hawaii is well known for its volcanic hazard, but the islands are also susceptible to major earthquakes such as a magnitude 7.9 quake in 1868 that killed 77 people. Evidence of prehistoric quakes is hard to come by in Hawaii, making it especially difficult to guess when the next big one will strike.

The Hawaiian Island chain was formed by a massive plume of extra-hot magma rising through the molten mantle between Earth's crust and core. The plume forced its way through the ocean crust, creating a volcano. As the Pacific plate slowly moved over the stationary plume, new volcanic islands were formed as older ones went dormant — the Big Island is where the magma is currently breaking through.

"All our earthquakes are ultimately associated with the processes that form the volcanoes," said earthquake seismologist Cecily Wolfe at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Loading the ocean crust with massive volcanoes — the from ocean floor to peak, the Big Island is the tallest feature on — causes it to flex, which can produce earthquakes. Even more dangerous are the quakes caused by the expansion of the volcano as new magma pushes out from below. These jolts can be very large and cause destructive tsunamis as well. More than half of the people killed by the 1868 died in the ensuing tsunami.

With only the historical earthquake record to go by, scientists have little data to help them estimate the probability of another big quake in the future. The most recent giant quake was a magnitude 7.2 in 1975, 107 years after the previous one. Does this mean Hawaii can relax for another 70 years or so? It's impossible to say. And since 1868, there have been seven quakes of magnitude 6.2 or greater, most recently a 6.7 in 2006 that caused $250 million in damage.

Hawaii is fortunate that most of its biggest earthquakes occur on the relatively sparsely populated Big Island. And the most active part of the Big Island is the south flank, which would send a tsunami out to sea instead of toward the other islands. But big ones that do sometimes strike the west flank of the island could send a tsunami to the much more populated shores of Maui and Oahu.

"I'm sure that many people are completely unaware of the local tsunami hazard on the other islands," Wolfe said.

In the past, some of the earthquakes caused by the flexing of the crust under the weight of the islands have struck near Maui, including a magnitude 6.8 in 1938. And Hawaii has plenty of older buildings that won't survive major shaking, particularly many homes that are not bolted down to a solid foundation.

"Those buildings can literally walk off their blocks during an earthquake," Wolfe said.

WEATHER NOTE

America Dealing with Strongest Hurricanes on Record

A study of data from the National Hurricane Center shows an increase in activity.

By KTRH's Alan Scaia

Thursday, October 23, 2008

An analysis of data from the National Hurricane Center shows the United States has entered a period that is producing the strongest tropical systems on record. Research shows that while the intensity of hurricanes is increasing, the storms' effects are also reaching further inland.

"If the future is like the past, we probably have another ten, 15 or 20 years left in this active period," says Colorado State University atmospheric science professor Bill Gray.

Gray says the increase in activity is the result of changes in currents in the Atlantic Ocean. He believes variations in the ocean's salinity are leading to more favorable conditions for tropical development.

"There's been too much said and too many people trying to jump in and say it's human-induced global warming," Gray adds.

Other scientists disagree. The Union of Concerned Scientists' Brenda Ekwurzel acknowledges that natural factors play a role, but she says human activity has increased the temperature of the oceans, and warmer oceans can produce more tropical systems.

"We're looking at lots and lots of tropical storms," Ekwurzel says. "When one does turn into a hurricane, it's more likely to be a very, very intense storm."

Numbers from the National Hurricane Center show 207 named storms in the Atlantic since 1995. That figure represents a 68 percent increase from the previous 13 years. The data also show a 75 percent increase in hurricanes over the same period.

MARITIME NOTE

All hands on deck in simulated oil spill exercise

Kurt Bugeja Coster

Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi.

Mariners looked on curiously as the police and armed forces yesterday showed off their speedboats while ships congregated some miles off Valletta to take part in an oil recovery response exercise.

The exercise, organised by the Malta Maritime Authority and European Maritime Safety Agency, simulated the detection of a heavy oil slick off Valletta, "reported" by a fishing boat to the authority's Vessel Traffic Services (VTS).

The first call was made to the Harbour Master at 5.30 a.m. and the response was initiated through VTS calls to everyone concerned. The authority's Control Centre was fully manned by 6 a.m.

Meanwhile, vessels arrived on the scene to deploy oil-retaining booms and skimming equipment to recover the slick.

Weather conditions were favourable as the MT Santa Maria swept and skimmed the oil off the surface, in coordination with vessels from the agency's pollution response network.

When an EU member calls for help, these vessels can be deployed to help in the clean-up and response operations.

Harbour Master Capt. Richard Gabriele explained that although the exercise is a simulated one, the conditions were very real.

"The response has to be timely and coordinated and everyone has to strictly abide by the instructions," he said.

Commenting on the outcome of the exercise, Capt. Gabriele said he was confident the situation would be tackled successfully in the event of a real spill.

These recovery exercises are held every year by the authority and relevant stakeholders to sharpen the island's capabilities to deal with various types of oil pollution.

From the blog: UP Ibalon Bicol

A Sorry Maritime Safety Record Indeed In The Philippines

Few question that currently Sulpicio Lines holds the most notoriety among local shipping companies. But as I have pointed out in a previous article ["The Blame Game and Other Musing", 7/13/08] the combined WG&A is not too far behind Sulpicio, going by actual statistics.

Maybe due to the sheer number of incidents, a few of these gets left out. Or we may not be too meticulous in keeping records (the Maritime Industry Authority [MARINA] doesn't even have its ship database in order). Or far-flung incidents sometimes does not catch the attention of them national media (except when casualties are simply too many).

Few would remember that in May 1980, the Sulpicio ship MV Dona Paulina struck bottom. The same thing happened to Don Victoriano I in April 1982. Both ships were declared total losses. These two incidents happened before the infamous Dona Paz and Dona Marilyn accidents in 1987 and 1988 (see Totie Mesia's article, "RP's Maritime Disasters: A Harvest of Shame and Blame", 11/08/08). Aside from these, Sulpicio Lines' ships were also involved in minor incidents like grounding, collision, ship fire and engine breakdowns that did not involve loss of life or the total loss of the ship.

Maybe to break its string of "bad luck" (the local euphemism for loser's fate), Sulpicio Lines changed the name of their ships into Princesses. For a while it probably broke Sulpicio's jinx but on December 1997, it lost MV Philippine Princess (a former flagship) to fire and subsequent sinking followed by the sinking of the MV Princess of the Orient (another former flagship) in September 1998. Finally, "bad luck" caught up with a reigning flagship, the MV Princess of the Stars, which capsized recently.

In the same period, some other obscure incidents happened to ships not connected to Sulpicio. In the early '90s the following ships were lost:

1. MV Emerald which capsized according to MARINA records.

2. MV Ruby I of Alexis Shipping: a RO-RO that sunk just off the port of Calapan due to a holed bottom.

3. A SuperCat (a catamaran) of Aboitiz was lost due to another holed bottom between Mindoro and Batangas.

4 . MV Manila City of William Lines: a Manila-Cebu ship that caught fire while under drydock in Cebu City and was totally lost.

From the mid-'90s and 2000, the following ships were lost to fire:

1. MV Viva Antipolo 7 which caught fire in 1995 according to MARINA records. This ship was totally lost.

2. MV Gretchen which caught fire in 1996 according to MARINA records.

3. MV Kalibo Star of Maypalad Shipping which caught fire in 1997.

4. MV SuperFerry 7 of WG&A: caught fire on March 1997 just after unloading passengers in North Harbor, Manila and was lost.

5. MV Rosalia II of Lapu-lapu Shipping: a Cebu-Cataingan ferry that caught fire a few kilometers before Cataingan port, on August 1999. Three passengers were killed.

6. MV SuperFerry 6 of WG&A: caught fire on October 2000 just off Batangas and was lost. Its nearness to major sea lanes and ports assured the survival of all the passengers.

In this decade, the following steel ferries of minor shipping lines met major accidents. The details of these incidents are not complete:

1. MV Penafrancia which caught fire according to MARINA records.

2. MV Ruperto Jr. of Tamula Shipping: a Camiguin ferry which caught fire.

3. A Super Shuttle Ferry ship of Asian Marine Transport capsized.

4. MV Joy-Ruby of Atienza Shipping: sunk just off the port of Coron, Palawan.

5. MV Pulauan Ferry of George&Peter Lines: a Siquijor ferry that sunk off Cebu City.

Additionally, the following major incidents happened in the last 6 years:

1. MV Princess Camille of Shipshape Shipping: took in water while unloading passengers in Odiongan, Romblon and capsized.

2. MB Mae-Ann 5 of Lobrigo Shipping: overwhelmed by waves off Masbate City on May 12, 2005 while Typhoon Caloy was blowing. 27 people died.

3. MV Princess of the World of Sulpicio Lines: caught fire off Zamboanga del Norte coast on July 2005 and was totally burned.

4. MV Dona Ramona of Basilan Shipping: a bomb exploded while docked in Lamitan, Basilan, on August 8, 2005. Three died.

5. MV Butuan Bay of Gothong Shipping: its engine exploded just after leaving Cebu City on May 16, 2007. Three crewmen died.

6. MV Blue Water Princess of Blue Water Princess Shipping: bad weather and strong waves caused it to capsized off Bondoc Peninsula, Quezon on July 12, 2007 where 12 persons died.

7. MV Northern Samar of Bicolandia Shipping capsized in the height of a typhoon while docked in Tabaco port. Big waves moved the ship against a rock and the bottom was holed.

Additionally, an explosion and a fire happened on August 2002 while MV Tacloban Princess of Sulpicio Lines was drydocked. Two people were killed.

These 22 major incidents are separate from those mentioned in Totie Mesia's article. Proving that marine safety is indeed poor in this country.

Have a super weekend!

RS