I’m sure many are anxious about the new baseball season starting next week (go Dodgers!). Ever wondered what the dirt they use is made out of? Interestingly enough, the thought never crossed my mind until I stumbled across this article on About.com.
Definitely a neat read: Drainage is important for an infield skin, but not the way you might think. The clay content of infield mix does not let water percolate through it; instead the field is built with a slight slope, less than 1°, to direct rainwater off to the side.
A few different articles about new studies on the erosion caused by Hurricane Ivan have been floating around the past few days. This one is from CNN:
The erosion caused by Ivan’s waves and storm surge undermined five-story oceanfront condominium buildings, “the largest buildings to fail during a hurricane in United States history,” Sallenger said. He said the average shoreline erosion was 42 feet in the area where Ivan came ashore, roughly between Alabama’s Mobile Bay and Florida’s Pensacola Bay in Florida.
UPDATE by Dave - Looks like this earthquake isn’t an aftershock after all. It’s been upgraded to a M8.7 by the USGS. It also appears that this quake relates to the information from this earlier post. CNN is also reporting a “small tsunami” was detected. A Wikipedia article on the 2005 Sumatran Earthquake has been created. This is also the 8th largest earthquake since 1900.
(Original Entry) A M8.2 aftershock (a large quake by itself) to the December 26th quake struck near Sumatra earlier today at roughly 11PM local time. Authorities in Sri Lanka and Thailand have ordered evacuations. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued this bulletin.
THIS CENTER DOES NOT HAVE SEA LEVEL GAUGES OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC SO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETECT OR MEASURE A TSUNAMI IF ONE WAS GENERATED. AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE DANGER HAS PASSED IF NO TSUNAMI WAVES ARE OBSERVED IN THE REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER WITHIN THREE HOURS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
A new study to be published in Nature shows that some deep-sea earthquakes can be predicted by foreshocks.
For the purposes of the study, the researchers defined a foreshock as any tremor of at least 2.5 magnitude on the Richter scale. Earthquakes were tremors of no less than 5.4 magnitude. The researchers then declared a hypothetical “alarm” for an hour within a 15-kilometer radius of the epicenter of every foreshock. This retroactive and “naпve” early-warning system would have predicted six of the nine major earthquakes that occurred along the two faults between 1996 and 2001, researchers said. The finding suggests that short-term prediction – the ability to forecast an earthquake in the hours or minutes before it hits – may be feasible under certain circumstances.
As noted in the article, this method can only be used for certain types of undersea earthquakes.
I know I haven’t posted much news lately. Been busy with school and then on Spring Break. Anyway, it was 25 years ago that Mount St. Helens begin stirring to life.
Twenty-two quakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater happened in an eight-hour period, shaking avalanches of ice and snow off the sides of the mountain.
The volcano would eventually erupt on May 18, 1980.