A Landslide in Columbia - In a Landfill!

Landslides are so interesting! I subscribe to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Landslide Blog and get a report every morning detailing some kind of landslide around the world. This morning, there is news of landslide in Bogota, Columbia in a landfill. See here.

If you would like to subscribe to the AGU's Landslide Blog, see the link here.

The Latest Image from Hubbell

The giant red nebula, NGC 2014, and its smaller blue neighbor, NGC 2020, part of the Large Magellanic Cloud in the Milky Way, about 163,000 light years away, in this new image by the Hubble Space Telescope.Credit...By NASA, ESA and STScI

The Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere on Earth.

The Incredible Story of the White Island (New Zealand) Volcanic Eruption of December, 2019

Screen capture from video taken offshore during the eruption

Outside Magazine has published a detailed and informative first-hand account of the fatal steam blast eruption of New Zealand's White Island that occurred in December, 2019. You can access the story here. Warning - the story is quite graphic about rescuers arriving on scene inside the crater after the blast. Please be sure to click on the video link provided in the story detailing the photographic journey of one Brazilian tourist who was there.

It was December 9 and a beautifully clear New Zealand day. At 2:11 PM, the volcano let loose. GNS Science is New Zealand's provider of Earth and geoscience information and hosts GeoNet. Here is a description of the White Island volcano from GeoNet. If you are going to visit New Zealand and are interested in geology, GeoNet is a fantastic resource for all things geologic.

The Australian Summer Leads to Extreme Coral Bleaching Event

This past Southern Hemisphere summer has led to an extreme coral bleaching event at Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef. You can read about the preliminary findings here. This is the 3rd bleaching event on the Reef in the last five years. From the graph above, it appears that most of the severe bleaching has occurred along the southern half of the 1,600 mile-long series of reefs. Coral reefs and bleaching events can be good indicators of warming climates (as if there is a need for additional indicators).

The Pale Blue Dot Revisited

On Valentine's Day, 1990 the Voyager space craft. some 3 billion miles from Earth, snapped a picture of our planet. NASA has updated the photo and the complete story is here.

Yep. As Carl Sagan wrote of this image: "That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.”

The "here" is the tiny blue dot inside the sunbeam that runs up and down the photo.

Speed Record in Grand Canyon Remains Intact

A group of eight persons rowed through the Grand Canyon in just under 38 hours, missing the speed record by a few hours. My wife Helen hiked down to Phantom Ranch to see them pass Bright Angel Creek. Read about it here.

Tim Means, Legendary Baja California Conservationist, Passes

Tim Means, who saved Isla Espiritu Santo from commercial development, passed away recently. He began Baja Expeditions in 1974. Read about it here.