PLANETARY TREMORS: 6.0 Quake Hits Northern Xinjiang, China!

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake has struck Northern Xinjiang, China at a depth of 27.9 km (17.3 miles). The quake hit at 00:21:28 UTC (8:28 a.m. Local time), Tuesday 01st November 2011 and was located at 43.633°N, 82.383°E.

USGS Map of the earthquake.

The epicentre was 95 km (59 miles) southeast of Yining, Xinjiang, China; 289 km (179 miles) southwest of Karamay, Xinjiang, China; 302 km (187 miles) southwest of Shihezi, Xinjiang, China; and 2837 km (1762 miles) northwest of Beijing, Beijing, China.

EMSC Seismicity of the region.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) registered the tremor as a magnitude 6.1, with several stations recording it as high as 6.9 and others at a low of 5.4. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has issued a Yellow Alert with the following note:

Alert Information: 
Yellow alert level for economic losses. Some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localized. Estimated economic losses are less than 1% of GDP of China. Past events with this alert level have required a local or regional level response. Green alert level for shaking-related fatalities. There is a low likelihood of casualties.

Meanwhile, another quake struck the region bordering Sichuan and Gansu provinces at 6 a.m. at a magnitude of 5.5.

A moderate earthquake in remote northwestern China has destroyed dozens of houses and damaged many more, but there have been no reported casualties, government officials and state media said Tuesday. More than 50 houses collapsed and hundreds of homes were damaged after the 5.4-magnitude quake jolted the border area of Yining and Gongliu counties in Xinjiang, the local earthquake bureau said on its official microblog.

The quake, which the US Geological Survey revised down to 5.4 from an initial reading of 6.0, struck at 8:21am (0021 GMT) around 96 kilometres (59 miles) east of the city of Yining, at a depth of 27 kilometres. The China Earthquake Administration said the quake was believed to have caused "major damage" and "strong shaking" was felt in neighbouring counties, the official Xinhua news agency reported. A special working group had been dispatched to the area to assess the damage and coordinate relief efforts, it added. Xinjiang is a vast region with a population of around 20 million, of which roughly nine million are Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking mainly Muslim ethnic minority. - AFP.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Monumental Earth Changes - Turkey Quake, 601 Dead, 4,100 Injured, 8,500 Buildings Damage & 1,309 Aftershocks!

The death toll from an earthquake that struck eastern Turkey a week ago was at 601 as of Sunday, the Turkish state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

More than 4,100 people were injured in last Sunday's 7.2-magnitude quake, which struck Turkey's Van province. At least 455 people died in the town of Ercis, where rescue efforts have been under way throughout the week, a crisis center in Van province reported Saturday. However, some 231 people have been found alive in the rubble, despite temperatures nearing the freezing mark at night, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said Saturday, according to Anatolia. Two teenagers were pulled out of the rubble alive late Thursday and early Friday, more than 100 hours after the quake. Eighty-four buildings have collapsed in Ercis and six more in the city of Van, Atalay said.

Relief crews have distributed 40,721 tents -- including 6,088 from abroad -- and 159,360 blankets to survivors, authorities said. A total of 1,309 aftershock quakes have occurred since Sunday's main temblor, officials said. Turkey's government plans to present a new law to parliament by the end of December which would see the evacuation of settlements in areas at high risk of natural disaster, Anatolia reported. Laws governing construction and property management would also be revised under the so-called Urban Transformation Law, the agency said. The United States and China are the latest countries to offer help to Turkey's quake survivors. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the U.S. European Command to provide humanitarian relief supplies including blankets, cots, sleeping bags and hygiene kits, the Pentagon said Friday. - CNN.

WATCH: Turkish workers begin clearing debris.

EARTH CHANGES: A Season of Storms Ahead for Queensland!

In the following interview, conducted by Jenny Woodward of ABC News Australia, Climatologist of the University of Southern California, Professor Roger Stone indicates that the patterns suggests that a season of storms is ahead for the already disaster-ravaged Queensland region of Australia.

Flooding experienced in Queensland, earlier this year.

JENNY WOODWARD:So the pattern that's emerging at the moment, what impact do you think that's going to have on Australia as a whole over the coming season?

ROGER STONE: Well the coming few months to start with, varying impacts. Some areas getting excessive rain, others not so bad for a start because as we mentioned this pattern is probably still evolving to a fair extent. We should update this as we get closer to summer but it's worth pointing out that some of the more sophisticated models from the US and the UK that are based on the pure dynamics of what is happening in the atmosphere and the ocean, are suggesting quite a high risk of rain over Eastern Queensland and a lot of eastern Australia as we go into the core summer months: December, January and February and so on. So I think that period yet again is one for us to be very wary of and to take a fairly cautious approach as we say to risk management. This is all about risk management. These same models this time last year were showing five times the normal risk of having excessive rain. This time they're showing two or three times the normal risk of having excessive rain. Not quite as high as last year but that risk is still there.

JENNY WOODWARD:We've had some wild weather around Queensland in the last week or two and now torrential rain up in the tropics. What's that all about?

ROGER STONE:I think it's part of that transition phase that we were talking about beforehand. I think the development of this la Nina is partly responsible for the excessive rain in North Queensland. This is about the time when one would expect this to occur and exactly where it's occurring as well is right, if you like, in the danger zone, where la Nina tends to first hit in Australia that's the north east Queensland coast, the sugar regions of Queensland are probably right in the bull's eye of where the impact of this particular pattern can move. So yes, it's part of this developing la Nina pattern and I think it's a reasonable foretaste, if I can put it that way, of the coming months and certainly as we get into summer certainly part of the cause of the excessive rain is due to this developing pattern in the Pacific Ocean, this return of la Nina. - NewsOnABC.

WATCH: Full interview with Roger Stone.

PLANETARY TREMORS: 6.0 Quake Hits Rat Islands, Alaska!

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake has struck the Rat Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska at a depth of 160.4 km ( 99.7 miles). The quake hit at 07:16:21 UTC, Monday 31st October 2011.

USGS map of the earthquake.

The epicentre was 40 km ( 24 miles) northeast of Kiska Volcano, Alaska; 67 km (41 miles) northwest of Little Sitkin Island, Alaska; 2963 km (1841 miles) west of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada; and 3518 km (2185 miles) northeast of Tokyo, Japan.

Seismicity of the region.

The magnitude of the tremor was later reduced to 5.8 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who also issued a Green Alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses, with a low likelihood of casualties and damage. There were no tsunami warnings issued and there are currently no reports of any damage or injuries.

Several stations showing a magnitude as high as 6.8.

MASS OYSTER BED DIE-OFF: Mysterious Deaths in Florida Panhandle!

State scientists will head to the Florida Panhandle this week to check on East Bay oyster beds where oystermen are reporting a die-off.

Oyster season opened Oct. 1. Oystermen have reported pulling up dead oysters from beds that had been filled with large, healthy oysters at the end of the last harvest season on June 30. "We're finding very few alive," Pasco Gibson, a main supplier of the East Bay oysters, told the Pensacola News Journal (http://on.pnj.com/t1Ziy7). "This time of the year, we should be catching 500 to 1,000 pounds per boat a day. We're not even catching a hundred pounds." Gibson's six oyster boats are mostly idle, and some of his freelance oystermen are heading to Apalachicola to look for work. He said the meager harvests have cost him 40 percent of his income.

Depending on what's killing the oysters, once they start growing back, it could take up to three years to grow them large enough to harvest, he said. "Something happened in August, and it had to be massive because some of these beds are 10 miles apart," Gibson said of the beds scattered near the shorelines of East Bay. Scientists from the Department of Agriculture's Division of Aquaculture will check the oyster beds this week. Oyster die-offs are not unusual, said Leslie Palmer, director of the Aquaculture Division in Tallahassee. A variety of causes could potentially be responsible, including drought, extreme heat, warmer-than-normal water temperatures, or high salinity and low oxygen in the water, she said. Diseases and parasites also can wipe out an oyster bed. Storm water runoff from Tropical Storm Lee, which hit the area Labor Day weekend, could have pushed silt over the beds, smothering the oysters, said Robert Turpin, Escambia County's marine resources manager. "That could be easily confirmed by jumping into the water and checking out the beds to see if it is silt or something else," he said. - Miami Herald.

EXTREME WEATHER: High Temperatures Spark Fears in Zimbabwe!

Last week Zimbabwe experienced record breaking temperatures, not felt since 1962, prompting climate change scholars to claim that this was a sure sign that global warming had indeed set in.

In recent years, climate change has become an increasing phenomenon with scholars arguing that temperatures had gone up by as much as two degrees on average and this spelt doom for developing countries in particular. Some of the signs of climate change, scholars say, are increased famines and flooding in some areas. Glaciers in the Atlantic regions are also expected to thaw, increasing flooding risks and endangering polar wildlife. Several meetings have been held to come up with a global response to the threat posed by climate change, but so far a consensus has been elusive. Zimbabwe has been at the throes of continuous droughts and others claim that this is a sure sign that climate change has set in. Recent flooding in the Okavango Delta in Botswana seems to have affirmed the climate change theory, as the delta last flooded in the 1970s, but burst its banks recently.

An expert, however, warned last year, that scholars should be wary of declaring climate change as the reason for the extreme weather patterns. Piotr Wolski, a hydrology expert based in Bostwana said he was able to accurately predict the flooding of the Okavango, as this was part of a 30-year cycle that moved from extreme dryness to flooding over a defined period. The expert defined this phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation, as a shift between phases of warmer and cooler surface temperatures half a world away in the Pacific Ocean. “There has been no cyclicity change,” Wolski noted. “A change in climate would be a modification of the cycle, and so far we have not seen that.” Wolski did not deny the existence of climate change, but rather called for further inquiry into the area. So in this case the extreme heat being experienced in Zimbabwe and most of southern Africa could be a result of cyclic weather patterns, but further studies into this phenomenon still need to be carried out. As the meteorological department pointed out that this is the hottest October since 1962, 49 years ago, it fits perfctly into the oscillation phenomenon that has a range of between 20 to 50 years for a cyclic weather pattern. However, critics of climate change are often labeled as dissidents and denialists, raising need to further study into the global warming phenomenon. - The Standard.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: DEADLY NOR'EASTER ANOMALY - At Least 3 Deaths, Over 2 Million Lose Power As Storm Slams Northeast, Breaks Record In New York With Earliest Snowfall Since the Civil War!

"This is absolutely a lot more snow than I expected to see today. I can't believe it's not even Halloween and it's snowing already."

An unusually early and powerful nor'easter dumped wet, heavy snow Saturday from the mid-Atlantic to New England, toppling leafy trees and power lines and knocking out electricity to more than 2 million homes and businesses.

Communities inland were getting hit hardest, with eastern Pennsylvania serving as the bull's-eye for the storm. West Milford, N.J., about 45 miles northwest of New York City, had received 15.5 inches of snow by Saturday night, while Plainfield, Mass., had gotten 14.3 inches. New York City's Central Park set a record for both the date and the month of October with 1.3 inches of snow. More than 2.3 million customers lost power from Maryland north through Massachusetts, and utilities were bringing in crews from other states to help restore it. More than half a million residents in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut were without power, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. By late Saturday, the storm had vacated most of Pennsylvania and was tracking northeast.


Throughout the region, officials had warned that the early storm would bring sticky snow on the heels of the week's warmer weather and could create dangerous conditions. New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts declared states of emergencies, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for 13 counties. At least three deaths have been blamed on the storm. "It's a little startling. I mean, it's only October," said Craig Brodur, who was playing keno with a friend at Northampton Convenience in western Massachusetts, which had received about 4 inches of snow by Saturday night. And the storm was expected to worsen as it swept north. The heaviest snowfall was forecast for later in the day into Sunday in the Massachusetts Berkshires, the Litchfield Hills in northwestern Connecticut, southwestern New Hampshire and the southern Green Mountains. Wind gusts of up to 55 mph were predicted especially along coastal areas. Some said that even though they knew a storm was coming, the severity caught them by surprise. "This is absolutely a lot more snow than I expected to see today. I can't believe it's not even Halloween and it's snowing already," Carole Shepherd of Washington Township, N.J., said after shoveling her driveway.


The storm disrupted travel along the Eastern Seaboard. Philadelphia International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport all had hourslong delays Saturday. Amtrak suspended service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., and commuter trains in Connecticut and New York were delayed or suspended because of downed trees and signal problems. Residents were urged to avoid travel altogether. Speed limits were reduced on bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A few roads closed because of accidents and downed trees and power lines, and more were expected, said Sean Brown, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation...


In eastern Pennsylvania, snow caused widespread problems. It toppled trees and a few power lines and led to minor traffic accidents, according to dispatchers. Allentown, expected to get 4 to 8 inches, is likely to break the city's October record of 2.2 inches set on Halloween in 1925. Philadelphia was seeing mostly rain, but what snow fell coated downtown roofs in white. The city was expected to get 1 to 3 inches, its first measurable October snow since 1979, with a bit more in some suburbs, meteorologist Mitchell Gaines said. The last major widespread snowstorm to hit Pennsylvania this early was in 1972, said John LaCorte, a National Weather Service meteorologist in State College. In southeastern Pennsylvania, an 84-year-old man was killed when a snow-laden tree fell on his home while he was napping in his recliner. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says one person died in a Colchester traffic accident that he blamed on slippery conditions. In Massachusetts, a 20-year-old man died in Springfield after being electrocuted by a power line downed by high winds and wet, heavy snow. Capt. William Collins says the man stopped when he saw police and firefighters examining downed wires and stepped in the wrong place.


Parts of New York saw a mix of snow, rain and slush that made for sheer misery at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York City, where drenched protesters hunkered down in tents and under tarps as the plaza filled with rainwater and melted snow. Technically, tents are banned in the park, but protesters say authorities have been looking the other way, even despite a crackdown on generators that were keeping them warm. "I want to thank the New York Police Department," said 32-year-old protester Sam McBee, decked out in a yellow slicker and rain pants. "We're not supposed to have tents. We're not supposed to have sleeping bags. You go to Atlanta, they don't have it. You go to Oakland, you don't have it. And we got it." October snowfall is rare in New York, and Saturday marked just the fourth October day with measurable snowfall in Central Park since record-keeping began 135 years ago, the National Weather Service said. - Huffington Post.

WATCH: Rare October Storm.

CELESTIAL CONVERGENCE: Monumental Solar System Changes - Very Bright and Highly Unusual Cloud Spot Observed on Planet Uranus?!

“The low latitude is unusual. Previous exceptionally bright cloud features on Uranus were at close to 30° North,..."

There’s nothing like a dynamic solar system… and right now another planet is being heard from. According to various sources, a bright spot – possibly a developing storm – has been spotted on Uranus.

“Professional observers this morning (October 27) reported a very bright cloud on Uranus, using the Gemini telescope, and need amateur confirmation if possible, to obtain a rotation period.” says John H. Rogers, Jupiter Section Director, British Astronomical Association. “Near-infrared filters may have the best chance of detecting it. It was recorded in the 1.6 micron band, which is further into the IR than amateurs can reach, but your usual near-IR filters might be successful. I think that methane filters are not especially promising, as these clouds on Uranus are overlaid by a methane-rich layer of atmosphere, but would be worth trying anyway. Anyone who has a 1-micron filter should have a go too.” At this point in time, information is limited, but professional images taken using the 8.1-metre Gemini Telescope North on Hawaii have recorded a region said to be ten times brighter than the planetary background. The bright spot is believed to be attributed to methane ice. ““This is an H-band image, centered at 1.6 microns, close to the wavelength of maximum contrast for such features. Its contrast will decrease with decreasing wavelength, and will likely not be detectable by amateur astronomers, except possibly at the longer CCD wavelengths where the Rayleigh scattering background can be suppressed.” says Larry Sromovsky, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Looking with a methane band filters at 890 nm might be productive, especially if the feature continues to brighten.”

“The feature is not very large; instead its prominence is due to its high altitude, placing it above the intense absorption of methane in the deeper atmosphere. This is much higher than the 1.2-bar methane condensation level and thus it is expected to be predominantly composed of methane ice particles.” Dr Sromovsky added: “The latitude of the feature is approximately 22.5° north planetocentric, which is a latitude nearly at rest with respect to the interior. So it should rotate around Uranus’ axis with nearly a 17.24-hour period. At the time of the image, the feature’s longitude was 351° West. That could change slowly in either direction. “The low latitude is unusual. Previous exceptionally bright cloud features on Uranus were at close to 30° North, both in 1998 (Sromovsky et al. 2000, Icarus 146, 307-311) and in 2005 (Sromovsky et al. 2007, Icarus 192, 558-575). The 2005 feature oscillated ±1° about its mean latitude. The new feature might also oscillate in latitude, in which case its longitudinal drift rate might also vary with time.” - Universe Today.

PLANETARY TREMORS: New Madrid Seismic Zone - Geologists Closely Monitoring Surge in Arkansas Quakes, A Larger Tremor is Imminent?!

"I'm not saying that's what it is. I don't want to scare people and I don't want to say it's going to happen. It's just something we're looking at."

The Arkansas Geological Survey says it is stepping up its monitoring of seismic activity in central Arkansas after dozens of small earthquakes in the region.

Six minor quakes were recorded Friday near Quitman, the latest of more than 50 temblors in October. The Friday tremors began with a 2.0-magnitude quake around 7:45 a.m. and peaked with a 2.5 quake later in the morning. The shaking follows more than 1,000 earthquakes centered between Guy and Greenbrier from September 2010 to July of this year, when the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission ordered four gas disposal wells shut down and voted to create a large moratorium area in which no future disposal wells could be drilled. Geologists said the activity - which involves injecting pressurized liquid into the ground - was likely contributing to the shaking.


The quakes between Guy and Greenbrier tailed off significantly in August, but more quakes began occurring in October closer to Quitman. It sits about 10 miles northeast of Guy. That distance is potentially concerning, warned Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey. The Quitman quakes are occurring along the same line as the Guy-Greenbrier ones, but there's a miles-long gap between Guy and Quitman in which no quakes have been recorded. That might suggest that the tension is building, possibly leading up to a larger quake centered on that gap along the fault. A similar-sized gap occurred on the southern end of the Guy-Greenbrier fault and it in February unleashed a 4.7-magnitude quake, the largest of any of the recent tremors. Anytime there is a gap in seismicity along an active fault, it "bears watching," Ausbrooks said. "I'm not saying that's what it is," he said. "I don't want to scare people and I don't want to say it's going to happen. It's just something we're looking at."


The 4.7 tremor was felt across Arkansas and in neighboring states, though no injuries or major damage was reported. It and the other hundreds of smaller quakes that rumbled the area helped convince the Oil and Gas Commission to take action. So why is the shaking continuing if the drilling has stopped? Ausbrooks has a few ideas, though he said the phenomenon is still very much under investigation. Officials have already placed one temporary quake-monitoring station near Center Ridge and he said another will likely be placed elsewhere in the region in the next two weeks. "We're kind of beefing back up because of this renewed seismicity," he said. Ausbrooks said the shaking could be purely natural. Earthquakes continued for years after drilling ended at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, where an injection well is thought to have initially triggered seismic activity. The continuing shaking could also be related to ongoing drilling activity about 8 miles outside of Quitman, Ausbrooks said, though he noted that's a significant distance. Or it might be tied somehow to the plugging of one of those four shuttered wells. Ausbrooks said he couldn't preliminarily pinpoint how the plugging of a well would induce quakes, but the shaking in Quitman started just days after the northernmost of the four closed wells was plugged. "Right now, we'll just say it's a coincidence," he said. - Arkansas Online.

Several weeks ago, scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) explored an earthquake zone southwest of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ).

USGS Media Release:

Between Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tenn., scientists have found evidence of an earthquake source capable of magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes located at the southwestern end of the ancient Reelfoot Rift. This is the same geologic structure that hosts the New Madrid seismic zone which is responsible for the major earthquakes that occurred in the midcontinent almost 200 years ago.  

The geologic proof includes large, visible sand blows formed by strong ground shaking, and subsurface geophysical imaging of faulting nearby. Field observations and radiocarbon dating suggest that the sand blows formed as the result of two to four earthquakes between 4,800 and 10,000 years ago.

As part of the Eastern Section of the Seismological Society of America meeting in Little Rock, Oct. 17-18, scientists from around the world will examine this evidence of the prehistoric earthquakes exposed in a trench that was excavated across one of the prominent sand blows. Geological techniques used to map sand blows, feeder dikes, and related ground failure to characterize faulting will also be shared.

When:     Sunday, Oct. 16, 12 p.m.

Who:     Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and other earthquake experts from around the world.

Where:      Lee Road 232, Marianna, Ark., GPS coordinates 34.705229,-90.801787: a site of large and weathered sand blows that formed between 4.8 and 10 thousand years ago in the Marianna area. The site is approximately 1.5 hours from Memphis and 2 from Little Rock. Please contact Heidi Koontz at hkoontz@usgs.gov for exact directions.

Why:      Major earthquakes have occurred in the New Madrid area for centuries. Scientists are studying geologic and geophysical clues to better understand what has occurred prior to the historic record of earthquakes in order to better understand what is likely to occur in the future.

These stories seems to be pointing towards an imminent and monumental geological upheaval along the New Madrid Seismic Zone, doesn't it?

GLOBAL ALERT: New Developments at the Canary Islands - Geological Upheaval, Could a New Canary Island Be Forming Close to El Hierro?

The risk of large, explosive eruptions in the Canary Islands, however, "should not be neglected,"...

What would the island be called? And who would own it? Spewing magma and growing in height, an underwater volcano off the Canary Island of El Hierro has captured the imagination of locals in recent weeks. It could eventually rise from the sea to create a new part of the archipelago.

The emerging underwater volcano

It hasn't yet reached the surface, but residents of the Canary Islands have taken to the internet to suggest names for a potential new islet. There are already more than 500 suggestions. Favorites include "The Discovery," "Atlantis" and "The Best." Meanwhile Spanish newspapers are taking a different approach to the subject, debating who would take responsibility for the new territory. It's an underwater volcano off the coast of El Hierro, the southern-most Canary Island, which has caught the imagination of locals. For three weeks it has been spewing magma into the sea in the first volcanic eruptions on the Canary Islands for 40 years. The lava is already towering 100 meters above the seabed -- another 150 meters and it will protrude above the Atlantic Ocean, creating a new island. For Canarians, it's a welcome new attraction. Whether the eruption near the archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa will ever actually result in new land remains uncertain. But it's clear that the magma reservoir under El Hierro is simmering unchecked, constantly pouring out magma and causing the ground to shake several times a day. Since July, there have been more than 10,000 earthquakes -- mostly imperceptible -- on El Hierro. Volcanologists expect more eruptions, but they don't know where the lava will be released. Even small eruptions on land are possible. The volcanic activity will "probably last for some time," said the Mayor of El Hierro, Alpidio Armas.

Dead Fish.

The effects of the underwater volcanic events are clearly visible: powerful eddies result from explosions in the deep. A sea of ash bigger than El Hierro itself is floating off the island, with gas bubbling up and dead fish scattered in the water. Politicians and scientists are offering daily advice on possible risks to the local population, but their understanding of events under the seabed is far from complete. "Recent volcanism in the Canary Islands is not well known," says a report in the "Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences" journal by researchers at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Barcelona, led by Rosa Sobradelo. Nonetheless, advice on the potential dangers is being dispensed by the authorities on El Hierro as well as in the rest of the Canary Islands. Scientists have stepped up their monitoring; there is even a submarine taking pictures of the ocean floor, showing the new undersea mountain, already 700 meters (2,300 feet) wide. A 150-meter (490-foot) crater can also be seen. There is also fissure three kilometers (two miles) long that is clearly gushing magma.

Disturbing Measurements Recorded.

To the south of El Hierro, the earthquakes suggest persistent outbursts of lava, according to the ITER research institute on Tenerife. They show a pattern that is typical for flowing liquid, a so-called harmonic volcanic tremor. Presumably, there are constant small eruptions on the ocean floor. But the lava usually clogs the fissure quickly after such eruptions, forcing further magma to seek new channels -- exactly what seems to be happening now. In recent days, however, some unsettling measurements have been recorded: The shaking has moved to the north. Because most of the earthquakes in that area have, up until now, occurred at depths of more than ten kilometers, an eruption is not expected in the area, the local authorities have said. The magma seems to be contained in the depths thus far. If the lava was being spewed in shallower water, there would be a danger of large steam explosions, says to Ramon Ortiz, the science advisor to the local government. But there are no fears of large eruptions on land according to Spain's National Geographic Institute (IGN). The only risk is in the immediate vicinity of the eruption site, where there may be lava flows and rocks flung into the air. Still, many of the nearly 600 residents of the fishing village of La Restinga on the southern tip of the island have now returned home after being evacuated two weeks ago.

A Major Eruption?

Seismicity of El Hierro since July of this year.

The risk of large, explosive eruptions in the Canary Islands, however, "should not be neglected," Sobradelo and her colleagues insist in their study. The frequency of their occurrence cannot currently be estimated. But even the most momentous outbursts of the past few centuries remained localised. In 1706, lava from the Pico del Teide volcano hit Tenerife, burying the port town of Garachio in the northwest of the island where massive black boulders now form the remnants of the lava flow. On Lanzarote, lava poured through villages in the north of the island from 1730 to 1740 and again in 1824. La Palma has experienced more than a hundred eruptions in the past 20,000 years; most recently in 1971 when a flow of lava ran into the sea. El Hierro is the youngest of the Canary Islands, appearing above the surface of the sea just over a million years ago. As such, it is likely its magma reservoir may still be very large; geologists suspect it is around ten kilometers below the seabed -- most of the tremors have occurred at this depth. The last confirmed eruption was in 550 BC, although there are also disputable reports of an event in 1793. In the eastern Canaries, on the other hand, supplies of lava have largely run out; they have already been far removed from the magma source. On Lanzarote and Gran Canaria, volcanic activity has already lasted 15 million years, on Fuerteventura 20 million. Although there has not been an eruption on Fuerteventura in the past 20,000 years, the volcano is still considered active -- unlike La Gomera, which seems to have run out of fresh magma. The island is expected to be spared from any future volcanic eruptions. It pays a price for this, however -- without any new lava, La Gomera will be washed away by rain and sea, and eventually, over the course of millions of years, will gradually sink back into the ocean. Only fresh magma secures the existence of the Canaries; it was volcanic eruptions which allowed the islands to grow above the water in the first place. The sea is already at work trying to reclaim the land. Coastal roads have repeatedly had to be moved inland after being battered by floods. But the recent underwater lava eruptions could be creating new land near El Hierro, and residents are waiting eagerly to see if it will grow beyond the surface. - Spiegel.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Peru Earthquake Destroys 134 Homes, Injures 103 People, and Leaves 18th Century Cathedral Seriously Damaged!

Authorities in Peru said Saturday that 134 homes were destroyed and 103 people treated at hospitals for injuries during a 6.9-magnitude quake just off the central coast.

Civil defense chief Alfredo Murgueytio told The Associated Press there were no deaths and most of the collapsed homes were of adobe. Two adobe churches also were seriously damaged, including the 18th century cathedral of the provincial capital of Ica. The cathedral, build by Jesuits, already was weakened by a 2007 earthquake as well as temblors in 1813 and 1942. Both it and another church in Ica were too damaged to safely enter, said Alberto Bisbal, a top civil defense official.

President Ollanta Humana said he was cutting short his stay in Paraguay for the IberoAmerican summit to head directly to the quake zone, where nearly 600 people were killed in an 8.0-magnitude quake in August 2007. Murgueytio said two army engineering battalions were joining police in supporting residents who lost homes or otherwise had property damage. He estimated the number at 1,220. At least nine aftershocks followed the Friday quake. The most significant had a 5.5 magnitude, as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey. - Washington Post.

EARTH CHANGES: Environmental Vulnerability - Climate Change Could Trap Hundreds of Millions of People Worldwide into Disaster Areas!

Hundreds of millions of people may be trapped in inhospitable environments as they attempt to flee from the effects of global warming, worsening the likely death toll from severe changes to the climate, a UK government committee has found.

Refugees forced to leave their homes because of floods, droughts, storms, heatwaves and other effects of climate change are likely to be one of the biggest visible effects of the warming that scientists warn will result from the untrammelled use of fossil fuels, according to the UK government's Foresight group, part of the Office for Science. But many of those people are likely to move from areas affected by global warming into areas even worse afflicted - for instance, by moving into coastal cities in the developing world that are at risk of flood from storms and rising sea levels. "Millions will migrate into, rather than away from, areas of environmental vulnerability," said Sir John Beddington, chief scientific advisor to the UK government, and head of the Foresight programme. "An even bigger policy challenge will be the millions who are trapped in dangerous conditions and unable to move to safety."

The scientists, in a report entitled Migration and Global Environmental Change, found that between 114 million and 192 million more people were likely to be living in floodplains in urban areas of Africa and Asia by 2060, partly as a result of climate change. People who are trapped by warming - either because they cannot move from their homes, or because they have moved but are unable to find better places to live - will represent "just as important a policy concern as those who do migrate", the report concluded. "Environmental change is equally likely to make migration less possible, as more probable." Last year, according to the United Nations, 210 million people - about three per cent of the global population - migrated between countries, and in 2009 about 740 million people moved within countries. - Business Green.

MYSTERY: Symbols of an Alien Sky, Man-Made or Natural Phenomena - The Latest UFO Sightings And Aerial Anomalies Around The World?!

Here are several of the latest unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen recently across the globe.

Mysterious lights interrupts CBS News 8's television coverage in San Diego, California.

"One of our news crews spotted some mysterious lights in the sky during Tuesday's 11 p.m. news, and now we're trying to figure out what it was. A series of glowing reddish lights, almost like floating flames, dominated the sky Tuesday night in University Heights looking east. The unidentified objects soared into the darkness, eventually appearing to burn themselves out, adding to the intrigue. Police say they had no reports of any unusual sky activity, nor did renowned local astronomer Dennis Mammana. "Something like this would have definitely crossed my radar screen," he said. Tuesday night's sighting comes at a time of other popular sky shows, from the Northern Lights to last month's meteor show. - CBS News 8.

WATCH: Mystery Lights Interrupt News 8 Live Shot.

The following constitutes Jaime Maussan's TV report about UFO activity over Russia on Sunday, the 23rd of October 2011.

WATCH: UFO activity over Russia.

Unidentified flying objects were seen and filmed flying over Scottsdale in Arizona this month.

WATCH: UFO activity over Scottsdale, Arizona.

This triangle formation of unknown lights was recorded in the night sky above Xalapa in Veracruz, Mexico on Friday, the 28th of October 2011.

WATCH: Triangle UFO formation over Veracruz, Mexico.

Some kind of triangle formations were recorded in the sky above Merced in California on the 23rd of September 2011.

WATCH: Unidentified flying objects in the night sky above Merced, California.

This video of a huge unidentified flying object was recorded in the sky over Cork in Ireland on Wednesday, the 26th of October 2011 around 10pm.

WATCH: Huge UFO flying over Cork, Ireland.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: THE AGE OF OBAMA and the End of America - Obama Has Declared Record-Breaking 89 Disasters So Far in 2011 And 229 In Just The First Three Years Of His Presidency?!

“So far have they [the United States] strayed into wickedness in those [future] times that their destruction has been sealed by my [father]. Their great cities will burn, their crops and cattle will suffer disease and death, their children will perish from diseases never seen upon this Earth, and I reveal to you the greatest [mystery] of all as I have been allowed to see that their [the United States] destruction will come about through the vengeful hands of one of our very own sons.” - Johanwa Owalo, Kenyan Prophet and the founder of Kenya’s Nomiya Luo Church, 1912.

“There’s no question about it that the increase in the number of disaster declarations is outstripping what we would expect to see, given what we observe in terms of weather...”

From Hurricane Irene, which soaked the entire East Coast in August, to the Midwest tornadoes, which wrought havoc from Wisconsin to Texas, 2011 has seen more billion-dollar natural disasters than any year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

And as America’s hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and wildfires set records this year, so too has President Obama in his response to them. During the first 10 months of this year President Obama declared 89 major disasters, more than the record 81 declarations that he made in all of 2010. And Obama has declared more disasters — 229 — in the first three years of his presidency than almost any other president signed in their full four-year terms. Only President George W. Bush declared more, having signed 238 disaster declarations in his second term, from 2005 to 2009. But while the sheer number of bad weather events played a big role in the uptick in presidential disaster declarations, Obama’s record-setting year may have something to do with politics as well. “There’s no question about it that the increase in the number of disaster declarations is outstripping what we would expect to see, given what we observe in terms of weather,” said Robert Hartwig, the president and economist at the Insurance Information Institute. “There’s a lot of political pressure on the president and Congress to show they are responsive to these sorts of disasters that occur.”

While the president aimed to authorize swift and sweeping aid to disaster victims, Congress was entrenched in partisan battles over how to foot the bill. When Republicans demanded that additional appropriations for a cash-strapped FEMA  be offset by spending cuts, the government was almost shut down over disaster relief funding. Such budget showdowns have become commonplace in Congress, but a similarly slow response to natural disasters by the president has been met with far more pointed and politically damaging criticism.  Former President Bush learned that the hard way after what was seen as a botched initial response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “Ever since that time we’ve seen FEMA try to act more responsively and we’ve seen presidents more engaged in the issues going on with respect to disasters,” Hartwig said. Mark Merritt, who served as deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton Administration, said Obama’s record-breaking number of declarations has less to do with politics and more to do with demographics. People are moving to high-risk areas like beaches and flood plains, more bad weather events are occurring and the country’s infrastructure is “crumbling,” he said. “It’s not being used any more as a political tool today than it has over the past 18 years,”  said Merritt, who is now the president of the crisis management consulting firm Witt Associates. “Everybody can say there’s a little bit of politics involved, and I won’t deny that, but I don’t think it’s a political tool that politicians use to win reelections.”

Politics aside, Obama’s higher-than-ever number of disaster declarations may also have a lot to do with the broad scale of this year’s disasters, which led to more declarations of catastrophes because each state affected by the disaster gets its own declaration. For example, Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, cost upwards of $40 billion in damage, but resulted in only one disaster declaration because the damage was almost entirely confined to one state. Hurricane Irene, on the other hand, pummeled much of the East Coast this summer, causing the president to make 9 disaster declarations, one for each state affected. Although there were 8 more declarations for Irene than for Andrew, the Irene caused about $7 billion in damage, a fraction of the damage caused by Andrew (up to $42 billion in today’s dollars). Each presidential disaster declaration makes the federal government — specifically FEMA — responsible for at least 75 percent of the recovery costs, relieving cash-strapped state and local governments of the billions in damages caused by this year’s hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. Richard Salkowe, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Florida who studies federal disaster declarations and denials, argued that the trend toward more declarations stems from local governments becoming more aware of the availability of federal funds. “The local governments and state governments have become more aware of the process and more efficient in using it,” Salkowe said. “I’d say yeah, there are more states that have overwhelming needs, and that may have lead to the Obama administration declaring more disaster areas.” - ABC News.

PLANETARY TREMORS: 7.0 Quake Rocks Coast of Central Peru!

USGS Map of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Peru.

According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), a magnitude 7.0 earthquake has struck near the Coast of Central Peru at a depth of 15 km ( 9.3 miles). The quake hit at 18:54:32 UTC, Friday 28th October 2011 and was located at 14.457°S, 75.990°W. The epicentre was 52 km ( 32 miles) south from Ica, Peru; 113 km (70 miles) south (172°) from Chincha Alta, Peru; 204 km (127 miles) west (278°) from Puquio, Peru; and 286 km (178 miles) southewast (156°) from Lima, Peru. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has registered the tremor as a 6.9 magnitude. At the time of reporting, no tsunami warning was issued and there are no reports of any injuries or damage at this time.

Seismicity of the region.

A strong but deep earthquake shook a sparsely populated northern jungle region on Wednesday and was felt mildly in the capital. There were no reports of damage or injuries. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 and was centered 50 miles north of the jungle city of Pucallpa, near the border with Brazil, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake occurred at 12:46 p.m. local time (1:46 p.m. EDT; 1746 GMT), and occurred 90 miles underground, the agency said. The deeper the quake, the less it is likely to cause damage. An unidentified local woman interviewed by Peru's Canal N television station said the earth shook "like a hammock." A police official in the regional capital of Pucallpa, Angela Romero, said there were no indications of damage. "We all went out calmly to the street," she said. Peru's Institute of Geophysics registered the quake's magnitude at 7, but an official at the institute said that because of its depth, it only felt like a 5-magnitude quake to Pucallpa's residents. The official was not allowed to be identified by name. Peru is among the world's most seismically active countries. Its most recent deadly quake occurred on Aug. 15, 2007. The 7.9-magnitude temblor killed 596 people and largely destroyed the coastal city of Pisco just south of Lima, the capital. - FOX News.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Geological Upheaval - The Sinking of Bangkok, the Most Severe Flooding in Thailand in the Last 50 Years!

"This trend [anomaly] can be observed on the whole planet which is caused by the growing number of extreme phenomena in the climate..."

Bangkok, the capital of Thailand and a gem of South-East Asia, is sinking due to the most serious flood in the last 50 years. Most of the city’s 50 districts are expected to be flooded in the next three days. The peak of the flood is forecast for Saturday afternoon.

By that time the water level in the Chao Phraya river will exceed the critical point by 15cm. The authorities have already warned that this may be enough to burst the dams and locks. The worst scenario is that Bangkok will be completely flooded. In this case districts along the river and numerous canals may remain under 2m of water. Alexey Kokorin, an expert of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Foundation, describes the reasons for this anomaly: “The same situation occurred in Ireland where a monthly rate of precipitation fell on Dublin in one day. This trend can be observed on the whole planet which is caused by the growing number of extreme phenomena in the climate. Bluntly speaking, we get two downpours instead of ten little rains. When these two downpours coincide and rave for two days on end the result is floods that we can see in Thailand and Ireland. On the whole, the number of the so-called hydro-meteorological phenomena on our planet has doubled over the last 15 years. This includes almost all natural disasters except volcano eruptions and tsunami which are not associated with hydro-meteorology. Double growth is too much and this spreading tendency is alarming, because the next 15-20 years will see another double growth.”

Urgent evacuation is being carried out in Bangkok. People are dragging their belongings to hilltops and sweeping  food and other essential commodities off supermarket shelves. Many entrances to shops and residential buildings are barricaded with sacks of sand and slag-concrete blocks. Roads out of the city are congested with cars moving mostly in the direction of Pattaya. Many people are running on foot past the strings of cars and trishaws, with goods and chattels on their shoulders. While Bangkok is in panic, everything is calm in Pattaya, Ernest Novik, a Russian realtor in Thailand, told The Voice of Russia: “The situation in Pattaya is not different from two months ago. The health resort is enjoying  the sun and the sea. Most tourists know nothing about the flood. The only sign of the calamity in the north of the country is no bottled water in the shops because bottle-making factories have stopped working. The country’s main airport in Bangkok is functioning in normal conditions. All health resorts are crowded with tourists. As for Bangkok, tourists do not stay there.”

Russian tour operators are not planning to cancel any trips to Thailand so far. Meanwhile, the number of casualties in the country is approaching 400 and the number of missing people is not given. Streams of water and mountain mud torrents have washed away at least 800,000 buildings, so the number of casualties can increase. Vladimir Semyonov, an expert of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, gives an unfavourable forecast: “The rainy season, which was to be over in September, is likely to continue in November. It is hard to say what comes next. All guesses can only be speculative and very uncertain. Rain will continue in December but floods are not only caused by rain. They are associated with the condition of the soil and the irrigation system, which is rivers and dams. The flood is likely to continue through November, so Thailand is not the best place for a holiday in the near future.” The Russian Embassy, on its part, recommends Russians to think twice before visiting that country. It is recommended to avoid provinces affected by the flood, which make up almost half of the country’s territory. There is no information about casualties among Russian businessmen, journalists or tourists. The Russian Embassy keeps in touch with the authorities and police of Thailand so as to receive timely information about the developments in the situation and possible casualties among Russians. - Voice of Russia.

WATCH: Bangkok floods spark mass exodus.

WATCH: Slow-moving tsunami like floods across Thailand.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Monumental Earth Changes - Turkey Quake, 575 Dead, 2,500 Injured, 7,700 Buildings Damaged & 550 Aftershocks!

Rescuers, working under floodlights, pulled a 13-year-old boy alive from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building early Friday, over 100 hours after a massive earthquake leveled many buildings in eastern Turkey, killing at least 575 people.

A 13-year-old boy was pulled from a collapsed building without injury on Friday, five days after Turkey's powerful earthquake struck, and state-run TV said he survived by drinking rain water that seeped through cracks in the wreckage around him. The boy, Ferhat Tokay, also used shoes under his head as a pillow and peered through a tiny gap in the wreckage to see when it was day or night outside, his uncle said. Tokay was discovered early Friday morning, soon after rescue workers from Azerbaijan had sent the uncle and other relatives away from the site to get some rest, saying there was no chance of finding the missing boy alive. "He didn't even have a scratch on him!" the uncle, Sahin Tokay, told NTV television. "He was hungry on the first day, but the hunger pangs later disappeared."


The 7.2 magnitude quake leveled about 2,000 buildings in eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 575 people and leaving about 2,500 injured and thousands of homeless. Authorities say another 5,700 buildings are now unfit for habitation. The government's crisis management center said 187 people have been freed from the rubble alive. Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search and rescue efforts were continuing "in small sections" of Ercis, the hardest-hit area. "Hopefully we will be successful in pulling out survivors there too," he told reporters. But news from one of those sites was gloomy. Rescuers recovered the body of a missing father whose 2-week-old baby girl had been pulled alive from the rubble with her mother and grandmother on Tuesday. Ferhat Tokay was working in a shoe shop on the ground floor of a multistory building in the town when the quake hit. State-run Anatolia news agency said he kept alive by drinking water that reached him in the wreckage during heavy rains. - MSNBC.

WATCH: Turkish teenager pulled alive from quake debris.

According to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) the  number of aftershocks since the initial tremor on Sunday is 550.

The latest earthquake list update from EMSC.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Geological Upheaval - The Sinking of Vietnam, Unprecedented Deluge of Rising Sea Water Covers Saigon!

"... umbilical flooding... there the water level rise of one meter... storm surges rise abnormally... unusually high tides rise... "

In the following translated report from Khoahoc, a devastating tale is told of the highly unusual and abnormal wave of water that has engulfed Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam. In previous reports, I have highlighted the geological changes in Vietnam, illustrating in the exponential increase in sinkholes and landslides; the subsidence of land where the usual catalyst of heavy rains and/or widespread flooding was not evident. This report and the pictures that accompanies it, provides further proof of what is developing into a monumental crisis across Vietnam and the Asian continent.

In 2 consecutive days over the "umbilical flooding" on the city suffered storm surges rise abnormally. Thousands of Saigon in a frantic sea phen. Recorded at Luong Dinh Cua (An Khanh Ward, District 2) on 27/10 at 17h pm, rising tides caused heavy flooding both routes. There the water level rise of 1m. During nearly 1km long distances on Luong Dinh means hundreds of stalls, the road to push the wading. Local people said that in two days, the area has suffered three waves of unusually high tides rise. The time of rising tides is also true at peak hours, dedicated workers and students out of the circulation which travel very difficult. Many students are quite small still need to pump the water to find their way home. Some other parents to pick up but also to push the bike.

An Khanh Market Area also had severe, the water level rise of about 60cm which the sale of small business where stagnant. Besides, households living both sides of this road was flooding the house, many people are prepared to prevent the dam from the front, but due to storm surges are the highest ever so still rushing water overflow into the house. According to locals, the water level rise due to surges in the afternoon 27/10 than 2 storm surges a day earlier. Consecutive cars slope Thu Thiem Bridge to the streets of Luong Dinh is working on "River Street" with the same scene the amphibious vehicle speed. During the afternoon rise in intensity this afternoon appeared more motorbike repair team working. The blow ri bu, push the car ... are more preferred. Out of this car to other cars pull into. From scooters to high levels of commercial vehicles often are not the "frontier" with the tide "flooded cord" to 1m deep.

Foreseeing the rising tides caused heavy flooding in the days and may be prolonged, a sales team slippers pipe appeared. Wooden table to right side of the road is filled with all kinds of shoes to cater for those in need "boots on the vehicle suspension." The rising tide is not just happening in District 2 that area at the Phan Dinh Phung Street Ward 2 and Ward 17, Phu Nhuan district also fall into the same situation. There the water was up to half a meter and smelled foul. At least, two hydrophilic vehicle has been dispatched to the area of emergency in order to "prevent flooding." By 19 pm the same day, the traffic crossing at the tide line was "covered" in the country is still reeling. - Khoahoc.

WATCH: Stunning flooding in Vietnam, where roads have become rivers and transportation is done using boats.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: Red Alert Status - Mass Evacuations in Chile as Hudson Volcano in Santiago, Erupts Violently, Triggering Avalanche!

Chile said on Wednesday that it was evacuating residents from around a volcano in the country's far south after it spewed a jet of steam a kilometre into the air and seismic activity triggered an avalanche.

However, the government said the Hudson volcano, which lies around 1 600km south of the Chilean capital Santiago, comes in the wake of a string of eruptions at other volcanoes in Chile. The Hudson volcano last erupted in 1991, melting part of the glacier that sits on the crater and triggering mud flows. “We can't rule out that this volcanic activity could increase in the coming hours and produce an eruption,” said Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter. He said state emergency office ONEMI was on red alert and the government was evacuating around 100 residents from the sparsely populated area as a precaution.

In June, a volcano in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 920km south of Santiago, erupted. It had been dormant for decades. It belched an ash cloud kilometres high that blew over the Andes, carpeted a popular ski resort in neighbouring Argentina and caused havoc for air traffic for months, hurting airline profits. The ash grounded planes as far away as Australia and New Zealand. That eruption in turn came after Chile's Chaiten volcano erupted spectacularly in 2008 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing molten rock and a vast cloud of ash that reached the stratosphere. The ash swelled a nearby river and ravaged a nearby town of the same name. Chile's chain of about 2 000 volcanoes is the world's second largest after that of Indonesia. Between 50 and 60 are on record as having erupted, and 500 are potentially active. - IOL.

Chile's Hudson Volcano released three huge columns of steam and ash that combined in a cloud more than 3 miles high on Friday, threatening a much larger eruption that had authorities in Chile and Argentina on red alert. Chilean officials evacuated 119 people from the immediate area, and other nearby residents prepared to flee as melting snow and ice caused the Aysen river to overflow its banks. The steam and ash was coming from three craters, ranging from 650 feet to 1,600 feet wide, and with earthquakes shaking the mountain, a major eruption could occur within hours or days, Chile's national geology service said. Already, a plume of ash and steam spread 7.5 miles to the southeast, toward Argentina.

The Hudson Volcano has erupted twice in the last 60 years, most recently in August 1991, when it piled ash 18 inches high and killed an estimated 1.5 million sheep on the Argentine side of the Andean mountain chain. The volcano is in Patagonia, 995 miles south of Chile's capital, Santiago, and 470 miles south of the Cordon Caulle volcano that has intermittently grounded thousands of flights in South America since it began erupting months ago. Coihayque is the nearest large town in Chile to the Hudson, and just over the Argentine border, the towns of Los Antiguos and Perito Moreno were mobilizing for the worst. In a major eruption, prevailing winds could blow its ash across the continent, cutting off supply routes and air travel to far-southern Argentina. - FOX News.

WATCH: Steam cloud spews into the air in Chile.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: The Great Deluge - The Aftermath of the Flooding in Italy Reveals Massive Damage to Roads and Buildings!

Much of the floodwater in the Liguria and Tuscany regions of Italy has subsided to reveal massive damage.

The Liguria and Tuscany regions in the north and centre of Italy have been worst hit by the floods, with houses torn apart and cars thrown on top of each other after swollen rivers spewed torrents of muddy water through villages. One village resident said he had initially got onto his roof when the rains came down but had eventually had to brave the water and walk to safety.

"We had a flood that we never, ever saw before. The rain fell and then it was two metres high on the ground, terribly fast, we were on the roof and we had to go down and run elsewhere," said Armando Fabiani from the village of Brugnato in La Spezia. Rescue services have found it difficult to enter the worst hit areas, with roads and bridges washed away and many major thoroughfares blocked. But the search for the missing has already begun and diggers are clearing debris. Officials have said nine people died as a result of the floods. Several people are still missing. - Telegraph.

WATCH: Scenes from the aftermath.

ANCIENT ALIENS: Season 3 - Aliens and the Undead!

Ancient Aliens.

The History Channel continues its popular series on extraterrestrials, alien theorists and ancient civilizations with season three of Ancient Aliens.

The following video playlist constitutes program fourteen, entitled Aliens and the Undead and runs for 44 minutes. It examines whether the mythologies, stories and fairy-tales about soulless entities, vampires, the undead and persons trapped in a realm between life and death; are really references to scientific fact and the activities of extraterrestrials.

"Season 3 continues exploring possible connections between overall UFO phenomena and information included in ancient texts and decoded from ancient artifacts." - The History Channel.

WATCH: Aliens and the Undead.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: One Third of Humanity Faces Biggest Risks From Climate Change - 30 Countries With "Extreme Exposure"!

A third of humanity, mostly in Africa and South Asia, face the biggest risks from climate change while rich nations in northern Europe will be least exposed, according to a report released Wednesday.

Bangladesh, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with "extreme" exposure to climate shift, according to a ranking of 193 nations by Maplecroft, a British firm specialising in risk analysis. Five Southeast Asian nations – Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia – are also in the highest category, partly because of rising seas and increasing severe tropical storms. Maplecroft's tool, the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), looks at exposure to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclones, wildfires and storm surges, which translate into water stress, loss of crops and land lost to the sea. How vulnerable a society is to these events is also measured, along with a country's potential to adapt to future climate change-related hazards. Of 30 nations identified in the new report as at "extreme" risk from climate change, two-thirds are in Africa and all are developing countries.

Africa is especially exposed to drought, severe flooding and wildfires, the report says. "Many countries there are particularly vulnerable to even relatively low exposure to climate events," said Charlie Beldon, co-author of the study. Weak economies, inadequate health care and corrupt governance also leave little margin for absorbing climate impacts. At the other end of the spectrum, Iceland, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Estonia top the list of nations deemed to be least at risk. With the exception of Israel and oil-rich Qatar and Bahrain, the 20 least vulnerable countries are in northern and central Europe. China and the United States – the world's No. 1 and No. 2 carbon emitters – are in the "medium" and "low" risk categories, respectively.

In a parallel analysis of major cities at risk, Maplecroft pointed to Dhaka, Addis Ababa, Manila, Calcutta and the Bangladesh city of Chittagong as being most exposed. Three other Indian metropolitan areas – Madras, Mumbai and New Delhi – were listed as being at "high" risk. "Vulnerability to climate change has the potential to undermine future development, particularly in India," Beldon observed. Recent studies – reviewed in a special report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due out next month – point to strengthening evidence of links between global warming and extreme weather events. Record droughts in Australia and Africa, floods in Pakistan and Central America, and fires in Russia and the United States may all be fuelled in part by climate change, some experts say. Current warming trends are on track to boost average global temperatures by 5.4F (3C) above pre-industrial levels, according to some prediction. - Telegraph.

EXTREME WEATHER: Tornado Hits 2 Negros Towns in the Philippines - Destroying 67 Houses, Damaging 167 Others & Toppling Power Lines!

A tornado hit two central Negros towns in the Philippines Tuesday afternoon, destroying houses and toppling power lines and trees, although there was no casualty or injury, according to the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office.

As of 5 p.m., 67 houses were destroyed while 167 were damaged. PSWDO chief Liane Garcia said the number of damaged houses may increase as they are still consolidating their report. The whirlwind hit barangays San Isidro, M.H. del Pilar, Miranda, Canroma and Buenavista in Pontevedra, as well as Gargato, Anahao and Cambaog in Hinigaran. Pontevedra Mayor Jose Benito Alonzo said the tornado flattened five houses in Pontevedra, toppled trees and power lines, and plunged the town into darkness Tuesday night.

The 97 affected families who were housed in different day care centers, schools and barangay halls, received assistance from the provincial and local governments, as well as Philippine National Red Cross. San Isidro barangay kagawad Bienvenido Henton said the national highway in his area was impassable for more than three hours, because of toppled power lines and trees in the highway. Witnesses said they heard a whizzing sound approaching and saw a vertically rotating column of air, which was estimated at about 50 meters high. It reportedly lasted for about three minutes, but left devastation in its wake. - Malaya.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Magnitude 6.0 Quake Strikes Fiji Region!

Map of the 6.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the Fiji Region.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck the Fiji Region. The quake hit at 00:15:25 UTC, Thursday October 27, and was located at 17.914°S, 179.424°W.

Seismicity of the region.

The epicentre was at 208 km (129 miles) southeast of Lambasa, Vanua Levu, Fiji; 230 km (142 miles) easts of Suva, Viti Levu, Fiji; 312 km (193 miles) northwest of Ndoi Island, Fiji; 2177 km (1352 miles) northest of Auckland, New Zealand.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has issued a Green Alert, for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses, with a low likelihood of casualties and damage. No tsunami warning was issued and there are no reports of any injuries or damage at this time.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: Disappearing Islands in Chesapeake Bay!

"These two factors mean that seas rise a tenth of an inch annually, eroding about 580 acres of Maryland a year."

A combination of geological forces and climate change have raised water levels in the Chesapeake Bay in recent decades, forcing residents to leave once-habitable islands.

Holland Island was one of the largest: Historians say it had more than 360 people around 1910, with two stores, a school and a baseball team that traveled to other islands by boat. But the inhabitants' luck, and their land, would not hold. Sea levels in the Chesapeake, scientists say, are rising faster than they are in some other coastal regions of the United States. One reason is ancient: The land here has been slowly sinking for thousands of years, settling itself from bulges created by the weight of Ice Age glaciers. The weight of glaciers to the north pushed the Earth's crust down, and the crust in this area went up like the other end of a see-saw. Now, the whole region is slowly sinking again.

The other reason is modern: climate change. The Earth's oceans are rising, scientists say, because polar ice is melting, and because warmer water expands. They have noticed the effect of climate change more in the past couple of decades, government scientists say. These two factors mean that seas rise a tenth of an inch annually, eroding about 580 acres of Maryland a year, according to the state. The loss of land is all around the bay but is most noticeable on the low islands. Holland Island was especially hard-hit: Like other Chesapeake islands, it was made of silt and clay, not rock, so its land eroded readily. Today, the ragged piece of marshy land is smaller than Holland's outline in colonial times. "It's just like a dipstick," said Michael Kearney, a professor at the University of Maryland. "The water goes up, it just gets drowned." - Washington Post.

Tangier Island lies in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and is 92 miles (148km) southeast of Washington, DC. This small piece of land is barely above sea level and its 500 residents are fighting for its survival. First settled in 1686, the island at times had over 1,200 residents and during the War of 1812 it served as a staging area for British soldiers. Now fishing restrictions, erosion and rising sea levels have resulted in most of the younger members of this tightly knit community looking for opportunities elsewhere. - BBC.

WATCH: BBC's Franz Strasser went to Tangier Island to see how the remaining islanders are coping with a difficult future.