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Magnitude 7.6 PAKISTAN Saturday, October 08, 2005 at 03:50:38 UTC Preliminary Earthquake Report U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred about 95 km (60 miles) north-northeast of Islamabad, Pakistan at 9:50 PM MDT, Oct 7, 2005 (Oct 08 at 8:50 AM local time in Pakistan). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at this time; however, this...

A very strong class X17.1 solar flare exploded on the Sun at 17:40 UTC (1:40 pm EDT). This is a significant event. Very few solar flares ever reach the X-class rating, and far fewer ever exceed an X10 level. Only a few solar flares each solar cycle (a 10-year period) exceed an X10 rating. An X17 solar flare is 17 times more intense in x-rays than a class X1.0 (which is, by itself, a very energetic event). This particular event was strong enough to saturate one of the x-ray sensors on the GOES spacecraft and very nearly saturated both sensors....

ABSTRACT Information obtained through 31 August 2005 shows that we have already experienced 110 percent of the average full season Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC)4 activity. In an average year, 33 percent of the seasonal average NTC of 100 occurs before the end of August. Our September-only forecast calls for five named storms, four hurricanes, two major hurricanes and NTC activity of 80 which is much above the mean September-only average value of 48. Our October-only forecast calls for three named storms, two hurricanes, one major hurricane and NTC activity of 30 which is much above the mean October-only average value...

TROPICAL STORM EMILY DISCUSSION NUMBER 5 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 11 PM EDT MON JUL 11 2005 THE CONVECTIVE PATTERN HAS IMPROVED SIGNIFICANTLY DURING THE PAST 6 HOURS...AND THE EARLIER EXPOSED LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION ON THE EAST SIDE THAT HAD BEEN ROTATING NORTHWARD AROUND THE LARGER CIRCULATION HAS WRAPPED INTO THE CENTER UNDERNEATH A WELL-DEFINED MID-LEVEL CIRCULATION CENTER. SATELLITE INTENSITY ESTIMATES ARE A CONSENSUS T2.5/35 KT FROM ALL THREE AGENCIES...AND A 3-HOUR AVERAGE OBJECTIVE T-NUMBER IS 3.0/45 KT FROM UW-CIMSS. BASED ON THIS INFORMATION AND THE MUCH IMPROVED INFRARED SATELLITE SIGNATURE...THE INTENSITY WAS INCREASED TO 35 KT ON THE...

TO - TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM PARTICIPANTS IN ALASKA/BRITISH COLUMBIA/WASHINGTON/OREGON/CALIFORNIA FROM - WEST COAST AND ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS SUBJECT - TSUNAMI WARNING BULLETIN - INITIAL BULLETIN NUMBER 1 ISSUED 06/15/2005 AT 0256 UTC ...A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL AREAS FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO THE NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER I.-BC. INCLUSIVE... ...A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL AREAS FROM THE NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER I.-BC. TO SITKA-AK... ...AT THIS TIME THIS BULLETIN IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY FOR OTHER AREAS OF ALASKA... EARTHQUAKE DATA PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE - 7.4 LOCATION - 41.3N 125.7W - 90...

If a giant magnitude 9 earthquake strikes someday along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, or if, against all odds, an errant asteroid plunges into the ocean many miles off California, a monstrous tsunami could drown low- lying lands all up and down the continent's western edge -- and now a UC Santa Cruz scientist has calculated the sweep of such an event..... ...To model the event's effects, Ward assumes that in a huge quake on the Cascadia subduction zone, the two crustal plates would abruptly slip apart vertically by at least 50 feet in three successive blocks from south...

PUBLIC SEVERE WEATHER OUTLOOK NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 1100 AM CDT SAT JUN 04 2005 VALID 041600Z - 050000Z ...OUTBREAK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS EXPECTED OVER PARTS OF THE CENTRAL PLAINS AND MISSOURI VALLEY TODAY AND TONIGHT. THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER IN NORMAN OK IS FORECASTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FEW STRONG TORNADOES AND VERY LARGE DAMAGING HAIL OVER PARTS OF THE CENTRAL PLAINS AND MISSOURI VALLEY LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT. THE AREAS MOST LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE THIS ACTIVITY INCLUDE SOUTHWEST IOWA EASTERN KANSAS WESTERN MISSOURI SOUTHEAST NEBRASKA SURROUNDING THE HIGH RISK AREA...THERE IS A MODERATE RISK OF...

The number of wars has been declining sharply since the end of the Cold War. There were about fifty wars going on in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Ten years later, there were half as many. Even after the 911 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq, the number of wars continued to decline. Today, it is about twenty. We track sixteen as active (Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Sudan, Colombia, Kashmir, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Congo, Somalia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Chechnya, Burundi and Thailand.), plus about a dozen that are really low level, just ended (and still liable to restart) or...

WASHINGTON -- Northern metropolitan Los Angeles is being squeezed at a rate of five millimeters [0.2 inches] a year, straining an area between two earthquake faults that serve as geologic bookends north and south of the affected region, according to NASA scientists. The compression of the Los Angeles landscape is being monitored by a network of more than 250 precision global positioning system (GPS) receivers, known as the Southern California Integrated Global Positioning System Network (SCIGN), as well as by measurements from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). Information from these two sources...

MIAMI -- Many residents along the East and Gulf coasts don't plan to take simple steps to protect themselves and their homes from hurricanes, despite the devastation caused by five hurricanes that struck the United States last year, according to a poll released Monday. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said they felt ``not too'' or ``not at all'' vulnerable, according to a Mason-Dixon poll. And one in four would do nothing to prepare for a storm, even after a watch or warning was issued. ``We can't afford to wait for a hurricane to get close to prepare,'' said Max Mayfield,...

Deceit vs. valor, murder vs. mercy, courage vs. cowardice, faith vs. uncertainty. Throw in a horrendous case of leprosy, brutal sword fights, the cross of Christianity, and the crescent moon of Islam, and you have a glimpse into Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven — a 130-million-dollar epic about the Crusades. Set in 1184, between the second and third of eight crusades, the film focuses on a time of uneasy truce in Jerusalem when Christians, Muslims, and Jews were able to worship and pray at their holy sites. Not intending to be a documentary, Kingdom of Heaven is an elegant drama...

The deep, cobalt-blue waters of Lake Tahoe can mean different things to different people. For residents and tourists of the popular resort destination in the western United States, the lake’s waters are a primary component of the area’s serenity and beauty. For scientists, the lake’s depth and rich color are an impediment to studying several important geological characteristics beneath the lake’s basin. Now, a team led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has used a novel combination of scientific instruments to produce the first estimates for earthquake activity of several faults in...

BBC and the Discovery Channel produced a new docudrama and documentary about Yellowstone. The BBC version was shown in March and the Discovery Channel version will be shown on April 10th. The docudrama Supervolcano dramatically explores the impact of a large caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone. The scale of the portrayed eruption is similar to the eruption of the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff at Yellowstone 2.1 million years ago. The movie is realistic insofar as depicting what could happen if an eruption of this magnitude were to occur again. Although the drama is set in the future, it does an acceptable job...

We foresee an above-average hurricane season for the Atlantic basin in 2005. Also, an above-average probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is anticipated. We have adjusted our forecast upward from our early December forecast and may further raise our prediction in our later updates if we can be sure El Niño conditions will not develop. PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS: 1) Entire U.S. coastline - 73% (average for last century is 52%) 2) U.S. East Coast Including the Florida Peninsula - 53% (average for last century is 31%)...

Eleven days ago, a team of earthquake experts published a scientific paper precisely describing how the titanic tsunami-generating earthquake off Sumatra on Dec. 26 greatly raised risks of a fresh offshore earthquake. The earthquake they described was almost exactly like the one that struck yesterday. The paper's authors and other experts had calculated how the December shock increased stress on the adjacent section of the Sunda Trench, a seam in the earth's crust where one plate dives beneath another. The pressure greatly increased the chance that the seam would fail, they said. The new earthquake was generated when the plates...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Nature, not mankind, is to blame for a period of increased hurricane activity that could last for another 20 or 30 years, tropical weather expert William Gray said Thursday. The Colorado State University professor, known for his annual predictions, will be the closing speaker Friday at the 27th annual National Hurricane Conference. Hurricane activity began increasing 10 years ago after a slack period of about 25 years. "We think it's the ocean circulation patterns," Gray said in an interview. "It's not human-induced global warming. It's related mainly, as we see it, to the global ocean conveyor...

SONIC BOOM NR TAMPA, FLORIDA Saturday, March 12, 2005 at 00:41:55 UTC Preliminary Earthquake Report U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver Magnitude 0.0 Date-Time Saturday, March 12, 2005 at 00:41:55 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time Friday, March 11, 2005 at 07:41:55 PM local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 27.95N 82.46W Depth 5.0 kilometers Region SONIC BOOM NR TAMPA, FLORIDA Reference NEAR Tampa, Florida 30 km (20 miles) NE of St. Petersburg, Florida 330 km (205 miles) SSE of TALLAHASSEE, Florida 330 km (205 miles) NW of Miami,...

Mount Spurr Volcano, about 80 miles west of Anchorage across the Cook Inlet, has grown restless in recent months. Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) first noticed the unrest in early July when hundreds of small earthquakes occurred 3 to 4 miles beneath Spurr's summit. Aerial reconnaissance in mid-July and early August documented recent small flows of mud and rock and a recently formed “ice cauldron” in the summit ice cap. The ice cauldron is a collapse feature possibly caused by an increase in heat coming from deep beneath the summit. Using sensitive instruments, scientists flying around the volcano...

At first glance, Bratislava might not seem like the most glamorous place for the presidents of the United States and Russia to meet. From the stolid castle where the talks will take place on Thursday, the most striking view is south, across the Danube, to a housing project where apartment blocks stands one behind the other until their rooftops meet the horizon under a brown winter sun. But no city in Europe better reflects President George W. Bush's faith in the providential hand of liberty in human affairs. Prague can boast of its golden domes and philosopher kings; Budapest and...

Hang on to that plywood — Florida may be in for yet another angst-filled summer. Mere months after the ill-fated hurricane season that sent Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne flying through the state like back-to-back-to-back-to-back hand grenades, the world's weather patterns again appear to be aligning against us. El Nino, which could deter the storms from spawning, is waning. A decade-long trend of warmer, hurricane-friendly temperatures continues in the North Atlantic's waters. And, perhaps most worrisome for Florida, the Bermuda High still lurks in the western Atlantic. The subtropical ridge of high pressure became infamous in 2004 as one of...