ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Migratory Patterns And Disaster Precursors - Bizarre Deep Sea Fish Found Off Victoria Coast, Australia; And Dead Whale Found In Waters Off Zambales, Philippines?! [PHOTOS]

The bizarre deep sea creature is the second in the past few weeks to be caught in Australian waters

February 21, 2016 - EARTH - The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the appearance of rare creatures.

Bizarre deep sea fish found off Victoria coast, Australia

A bizarre deep sea creature with bug eyes and dozens of needle-like teeth has been pulled ahsore - the second sea monster to appear in Australian waters in less than a week.

The outlandish creature was caught off the Victoria state coast by a fishing trawler, the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association said.

Growing to 38cm, this species can be found around the south-eastern and western margins of Australia's continental shelf in waters ranging from 275-500m deep

Experts said the animal may be an Endo's Goosefish - Lophiodes endoi, also known by some people as 'monkfish' - is a deepwater member of the anglerfish family.

Growing to 38cm, this species can be found around the south-eastern and western margins of Australia's continental shelf in waters ranging from 275-500m deep. Angler fishes possess some of the most impressive teeth and ensure that once prey enters their mouths, there is no chance of escape.

Last week, another peculiar deep sea creature which looks like a cross between a crocodile and a dolphin washed ashore on the banks of an Australian lake. - Daily Mail.

Dead whale found in waters off Zambales, Philippines

A pygmy sperm whale that beached in San Narciso, Zambales, on Sunday died on Monday. © OCEAN ADVENTURE

A dead whale was found in the waters off the coastal town of Candelaria in Zambales province on Saturday morning, local police said.

Residents of Barangay (village) Dampay discovered the carcass of the whale floating some 100 kilometers from the coastline at 9 a.m., said SPO4 Tomas Mejos, team leader of a unit deployed by the Candelaria Police Station.

"The whale was about the size of a minibus," Mejos said in a telephone interview.

The species of the whale has yet to be identified, Mejos added.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in Central Luzon has sent a team to determine the cause of the whale's death, said Nelson Bien, chief of the agency's fisheries resources and management division.

As of 1 p.m., residents were still towing the animal to the shore, Mejos added. - Inquirer.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Strong 6.0 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Western Philippines - No Tsunami Warning Or Casualties Reported! [MAPS + TECTONIC SUMMARY]

USGS earthquake location

January 11, 2015 - THE PHILIPPINES - A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 struck late Saturday off San Antonio in the province of Zambales in the western Philippines, local seismologists said.

The quake occurred 43 kilometers (26.7 miles) from San Antonio at the depth of 85 kilometers (52.8 miles) under the South China Sea, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

There has been no tsunami warning or casualties reported, following the earthquake.

USGS shakemap intensity

Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are weak or almost imperceptible, while magnitude 7 earthquakes and over potentially cause serious damage over larger areas, depending on their depth.

In October 2013, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the central part of the Philippines, killing 220 people and injuring thousands. Over 13,200 houses were destroyed.  - Sputnik.

Tectonic Summary - Seismotectonics of the Philippine Sea and Vicinity

The Philippine Sea plate is bordered by the larger Pacific and Eurasia plates and the smaller Sunda plate. The Philippine Sea plate is unusual in that its borders are nearly all zones of plate convergence. The Pacific plate is subducted into the mantle, south of Japan, beneath the Izu-Bonin and Mariana island arcs, which extend more than 3,000 km along the eastern margin of the Philippine Sea plate. This subduction zone is characterized by rapid plate convergence and high-level seismicity extending to depths of over 600 km. In spite of this extensive zone of plate convergence, the plate interface has been associated with few great (Magnitude greater than 8.0) ‘megathrust’ earthquakes. This low seismic energy release is thought to result from weak coupling along the plate interface (Scholz and Campos, 1995). These convergent plate margins are also associated with unusual zones of back-arc extension (along with resulting seismic activity) that decouple the volcanic island arcs from the remainder of the Philippine Sea Plate (Karig et al., 1978; Klaus et al., 1992).

South of the Mariana arc, the Pacific plate is subducted beneath the Yap Islands along the Yap trench. The long zone of Pacific plate subduction at the eastern margin of the Philippine Sea Plate is responsible for the generation of the deep Izu-Bonin, Mariana, and Yap trenches as well as parallel chains of islands and volcanoes, typical of circum-pacific island arcs. Similarly, the northwestern margin of the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the Eurasia plate along a convergent zone, extending from southern Honshu to the northeastern coast of Taiwan, manifested by the Ryukyu Islands and the Nansei-Shoto (Ryukyu) trench. The Ryukyu Subduction Zone is associated with a similar zone of back-arc extension, the Okinawa Trough. At Taiwan, the plate boundary is characterized by a zone of arc-continent collision, whereby the northern end of the Luzon island arc is colliding with the buoyant crust of the Eurasia continental margin offshore China.

USGS plate tectonics for the region.

Along its western margin, the Philippine Sea plate is associated with a zone of oblique convergence with the Sunda Plate. This highly active convergent plate boundary extends along both sides the Philippine Islands, from Luzon in the north to the Celebes Islands in the south. The tectonic setting of the Philippines is unusual in several respects: it is characterized by opposite-facing subduction systems on its east and west sides; the archipelago is cut by a major transform fault, the Philippine Fault; and the arc complex itself is marked by active volcanism, faulting, and high seismic activity. Subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate occurs at the eastern margin of the archipelago along the Philippine Trench and its northern extension, the East Luzon Trough. The East Luzon Trough is thought to be an unusual example of a subduction zone in the process of formation, as the Philippine Trench system gradually extends northward (Hamburger et al., 1983). On the west side of Luzon, the Sunda Plate subducts eastward along a series of trenches, including the Manila Trench in the north, the smaller less well-developed Negros Trench in the central Philippines, and the Sulu and Cotabato trenches in the south (Cardwell et al., 1980). At its northern and southern terminations, subduction at the Manila Trench is interrupted by arc-continent collision, between the northern Philippine arc and the Eurasian continental margin at Taiwan and between the Sulu-Borneo Block and Luzon at the island of Mindoro. The Philippine fault, which extends over 1,200 km within the Philippine arc, is seismically active. The fault has been associated with major historical earthquakes, including the destructive M7.6 Luzon earthquake of 1990 (Yoshida and Abe, 1992). A number of other active intra-arc fault systems are associated with high seismic activity, including the Cotabato Fault and the Verde Passage-Sibuyan Sea Fault (Galgana et al., 2007).

Relative plate motion vectors near the Philippines (about 80 mm/yr) is oblique to the plate boundary along the two plate margins of central Luzon, where it is partitioned into orthogonal plate convergence along the trenches and nearly pure translational motion along the Philippine Fault (Barrier et al., 1991). Profiles B and C reveal evidence of opposing inclined seismic zones at intermediate depths (roughly 70-300 km) and complex tectonics at the surface along the Philippine Fault.

Several relevant tectonic elements, plate boundaries and active volcanoes, provide a context for the seismicity presented on the main map. The plate boundaries are most accurate along the axis of the trenches and more diffuse or speculative in the South China Sea and Lesser Sunda Islands. The active volcanic arcs (Siebert and Simkin, 2002) follow the Izu, Volcano, Mariana, and Ryukyu island chains and the main Philippine islands parallel to the Manila, Negros, Cotabato, and Philippine trenches.

Seismic activity along the boundaries of the Philippine Sea Plate (Allen et al., 2009) has produced 7 great (Magnitude greater than 8.0) earthquakes and 250 large (Magnitude greater than 7) events. Among the most destructive events were the 1923 Kanto, the 1948 Fukui and the 1995 Kobe (Japan) earthquakes (99,000, 5,100, and 6,400 casualties, respectively), the 1935 and the 1999 Chi-Chi (Taiwan) earthquakes (3,300 and 2,500 casualties, respectively), and the 1976 M7.6 Moro Gulf and 1990 M7.6 Luzon (Philippines) earthquakes (7,100 and 2,400 casualties, respectively). There have also been a number of tsunami-generating events in the region, including the Moro Gulf earthquake, whose tsunami resulted in more than 5000 deaths. More information on regional seismicity and tectonics
- USGS.

DELUGE: Deadly Floods In Asia - Landslides, Floods Kill At Least 19 In Northern Philippines; And Floods Claim 45 Lives In Thailand And Vietnam!

September 25, 2013 - ASIA  - Heavy monsoon rains have left at least 19 people dead, most of them children, in the northern Philippines, state media reported.

Landslides, Floods Kill At Least 19 In Northern Philippines.

A pedicab driver wades through a flooded street in Manila on Monday.

Four other people are still reported to be missing, and many towns are flooded.

Most of the people were killed by landslides set off by the rain in the province of Zambales on Luzon, the largest island in the archipelagic nation, the government-run Philippines News Agency (PNA) said, citing the regional disaster management council.

The landslides killed 16 people in the town of Subic, the council said. At least 10 of the victims were aged 12 or younger.

An 84-year-old man died of hypothermia in nearby Castillejos, PNA reported, and two people drowned in the neighboring province of Bataan.

A landslide engulfed a house in San Marcelino, Zambales, on Sunday night and four of its inhabitants, including three young children, remain missing, authorities said.

Monsoon rains cause flooding and deaths in the Philippines each year.

The disaster management council said that as of Tuesday morning, parts of Zambales, Bataan and two other provinces, Pampanga and Bulacan, are still under as much of four feet (1.2 meters) of water.

More than 11,000 people have been displaced by the effects of the monsoon rains, the national disaster management council said. - CNN.

Floods Claim 45 Lives In Thailand And Vietnam.

Residents sit on a boat as a man pulls it through a flooded street at Srimahaphot district in Prachin
Buri province, east of Bangkok yesterday.

Floods triggered by heavy rains claimed at least nine lives in Thailand this month and affected up to 1.5mn people, officials said yesterday.

Flooding was reported in 23 of the kingdom’s 77 provinces, the Disaster Prevention and Relief Department said.

Nine people have drowned over the past week in the north-eastern provinces of Surin and Sisakhet, it said.
The meteorological department has forecast heavy rains for the remainder of the month, especially in the northern provinces.

“The overall picture in the north-east has improved,” said Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi, who is in charge of water management.

He warned people living on the banks of the Chao Phraya River to expect some flooding as authorities were pumping water into the main waterway to reduce flooding in the central plains.

Authorities said the country is not in danger of being inundated by another massive flood, similar to the 2011 disaster.

Much of the central plains and parts of Bangkok were flooded two years ago, forcing six large industrial estates and hundreds of factories to close for several months.

The 2011 floods left 813 dead and caused an estimated 1.4tn baht ($45.2bn) in damages, according to World Bank estimates.

Heavy monsoon rains exacerbated by Typhoon Usagi have pounded parts of Vietnam and Cambodia killing at least 36 people, authorities said yesterday, with many swept to their deaths in floods. Despite not being directly hit by Usagi—the world’s most powerful storm this year—parts of Southeast Asia have seen a worsening of their annual rainy season as the typhoon barrelled through the Philippines and China in recent days.

Central and southern Vietnam have been hit by bad weather since early last week, inundating fields and villages, with 24 dead and six missing, according to a 10-day update from the country’s flood and storm control department.

In Cambodia, officials said low pressure from the typhoon caused heavy rains, swelling the Mekong river with floods sweeping across several provinces.

At least 12 people, including six children under six years old, have died in the deluge, said Keo Vy of the National Disaster Management Committee.

Typhoon Usagi killed at least two people in the Philippines and some 25 people in southern China as it swept across the region over the weekend. Strong winds and torrential rain lashed the Chinese coast after making landfall in Guangdong province northeast of Hong Kong on Sunday evening. As the typhoon bore down on Hong Kong, operators shut down one of the world’s busiest sea ports and nearly 450 flights were either cancelled or delayed on Sunday.

At least 18 further deaths have been reported in the Philippines in monsoon rains worsened by the typhoon, which also unleashed landslides and power outages across southern Taiwan at the weekend as it ploughed through the Luzon Strait with ferocious winds and heavy downpours. - Gulf Times.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Seismic Swarm - Prelude to the Big Bang, Seven Quakes Hit the Philippines!

At least seven earthquakes, including three aftershocks of a magnitude-6 temblor, hit Pangasinan, Metro Manila, Zambales and Surigao in Mindanao in the Philippines, yesterday, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology reported.

Phivolcs said a magnitude-5.3 shook parts of Pangasinan province and was felt in Metro Manila at 8:26 a.m. It was tectonic in origin. “Its epicenter was in the West Philippine Sea but it was not powerful enough to cause damage,” Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum Jr. said in a radio interview. He said small aftershocks are possible. Phivolcs said the epicenter was traced to 140 kilometers southwest of Agno, Pangasinan. It was felt at Intensity 2 in Quezon City, Manila, Mandaluyong City and Obando, Bulacan. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6. It said the epicenter was traced to 152 km west-northwest of Olongapo, 154 km west-southwest of Dagupan, 171 km west-northwest of Angeles City, 230 km west-northwest of Manila.

Meanwhile, three aftershocks rocked Luzon an hour after a magnitude-6 quake hit the area yesterday morning. Phivolcs said the first aftershock at magnitude-3.1 was at 8:41 a.m., with the epicenter at 94 km northwest of Palauig, Zambales. A second aftershock, magnitude 2.95, was recorded at 9:07 a.m., with the epicenter at 103 km northwest of Palauig. The third aftershock, magnitude 3.8, was recorded at 9:27 a.m., with the epicenter at 90 km southwest of Palauig. No damage or aftershock was expected from the three subsequent tremors, Phivolcs said. In Mindanao, three quakes rocked the Surigao area in a span of 30 minutes early Wednesday. No damage or casualty was reported. The first quake, at magnitude 2.62, was recorded at 6:29 a.m., with the epicenter 20 km northeast of Burgos, Surigao del Norte. A second quake, recorded at 6:32 a.m., measured magnitude 4.54, with the epicenter 51 km northeast of Burgos. The third quake measured magnitude 3.6 and was recorded at 6:53 a.m. Its epicenter was 81 km northeast of Burgos. - Journal Online.