Maierato landslide-aftermath

Fig.1. The Maierato-landslide today. LINK and LINK2

Landslide in Calabria

Landslide in Calabria (South-Italy), town of Maierato (38°42`29``N 16°11`33``E) - 15.02.2010:

UPDATE 17.02.2010: Video of landslide-aftermath

UPDATE 16.02.2010: Mass evacuation of all 2.300 inhabitants of Maierato, a town in the province of Vibo Valentia: an entire side of the mountain which is located near the town collapsed yesterday morning and caused a huge landslide. The landslide - says the mayor Sergio Rizzo - threatens an important part of town and we have unfavourable weather conditions, so we decided not to risk. The first 300 people were evacuated from their homes yesterday evening, but this morning began the evacuation of the entire town. Rainy weather and resulting mass wasting has caused problems also in other parts of Calabria and Sicily.

Fig.2. Carta Geologica della Calabria Foglio 241 1:25.000 (click to enlarge)

The landslide developed in Pliocene-Miocene marls and argillaceous deposits, and showed first signs of reactivation 10 days ago.

Fig.1. Extract of the geological map of Maierato, by Dr. E. Bonino. M= Miocene, P= Pliocene, d= recent deposits. Area of landslide red contour. See also this WebGIS application.

UPDATE: Map of MAIERATO with preliminary risk zonation and delimination of landslides

VIDEO (16.10.2010)

VIDEO released 15.02.2010:

Sea-Level Highstand disproves ice-age CO2 connection?

The ice ages on Earth could be influenced by CO2 levels differently than previously believed. The study of speleotherms in the cave of Vallgornera situated on the Spanish island of Mallorca revealed that the polar caps were as small as today 81,000 years ago - despite lower CO2 levels.
A team of scientists of the University of Iowa has studied aragonitic and calcitic mineral deposits from five caverns situated; depending of the sea level - itself varying by the amount of “captured” water in ice caps up to 130m - the caves were inundated and different mineralogical deposition occurred.

The dated samples suggest that the sea level around 81,000 years ago was about a meter above the current value. "We have reconstructed the sea level with really high precision," says researcher Doral to the German newspaper “SPIEGEL ONLINE”.Co-author Bogdan Onac from the University of South Florida explains that Mallorca is ideal for this kind of research because tectonically stable and the observed variations should be “true” variations of sea level, not falsified by geological movements or isostatic rebound.

If the sea level 81,000 years ago was actually where the researchers suggest, an interesting problem arises: it doesn’t support the calculated 100.000-year cycle of glacial advances. Also it contradicts the direct ice-CO2 connections - despite low CO2 concentrations, and weaker greenhouse effect, the ice caps on earth were not as great as previously tough, and in dimensions comparable to modern conditions.

So are climate denialists right, and is there no such thing as anthropogenic greenhouse effect?

No, the authors want to take the results in a scientific context: the research doesn’t make claims about the global temperature during this time, only about the possible ice volume, and the amount of ice is not only controlled by temperature, but also for example by insolation of the sun, stronger 80.000 years ago then today. "What happened 80,000 years ago, is not the same as what happened today," said Onac.

REFERENCES:

DORALE et al. (2010): Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca. Science Vol.327(5967): 860 - 863

Climate hoax

What if climate change is the greatest hoax ever archieved:

from Atheist Movies

The day after tomorrow ?

Snow across Great Britain

... anyway - Europe is still inhabited...

Martian spillway

On images of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter -MRO- a british research team has discovered possible "spillway" of ancient martian lakes.
The pits in the equatorial region of Ares Vallis were first explained as remains of evaporating water ice, but the discovered channels seems to connect different basins, much more like thermokarst- lakes connected by small rivers. The estimated age of the features is with only 3 billion years surprisingly young.

References:

Altes Seensystem auf dem Mars entdeckt. SpiegelOnline 06.01.2010
WARNER et al. (2009): Hesperian equatorial thermokarst lakes in Ares Vallis as evidence for transient warm conditions on Mars. Geology 38:71-74

Did volcanoes kill the Mammoth?

The cause(s) of the Pleistocene Megafauna extinction is(are) still unclear. Various explanations were proposed, ranging from human activity (hunting or disease spreading) to climate change or sea level rise, and since the last year, a possible extraterrestrial impact. But an important factor until now was less considered - volcanism. Volcanoes can have an impact on climate and ecosystems, for example ash can block the sunlight, and poison large territories.
A short, but intriguing paper by Dmitry A. Rubam summarizes and analyze the idea that intensified volcanism at the end of the last glacial period maybe triggered the biotic crisis. The volcanic activity of the last 50.000 years can be reconstructed by ash layers and geochemistry of ice cores, and compared to extinction patterns on the different continents.

The data show a higher frequency of eruptions near the end of the Pleistocene, but the demise of the fauna doesn’t coincide exactly with this period, especially the extinction in Australia happened previously. However it is possible that only a certain "sum" of volcanic events finally triggers a biotic response.

Fig. 1 - Temporal relationships between the volcanic eruption frequency and extinction events. Volcanism intensifications are highlighted by grey circles (from RUBAN 2009).

The preliminary results show that intensified volcanism cannot provide a better explanation of the crisis than other triggers; however none of the possible triggers alone provide an ultimate explanation.

The evidence makes it plausible, that an intensification of volcanism just before the end of the Pleistocene was able at least to contribute to the extinction of megafauna in America and Eurasia.

References:
RUBAN, D.A. (2009): A possible contribution of volcanism to the end-Pleistocene megafaunal etinction. Natura Nascosta 39:26-32