2011 has been, by far, the worst year, weather wise and geologically that many have seen in a long time. In the early part of this year, we had record setting low temperatures, ice, and snow. And when spring finally decided to grace us with her presence, she brought along with her some pretty ferocious weather. This past spring our beloved country has seen more than it's fair share of tornados. And these weren't your run of the mill F-1, F-2 tornados...these were F-5s...:the big one" that we saw in the movie Twister back in the 90s. These things wiped entire towns off the map, and ended lives. Summer then, made it's grand entrance boasting temperatures of over 100 degrees...and we're not just talking Texas and New Mexico that were seeing these temps...I'm talking about the midwest...Indiana and Kentucky...one day it was actually 115 degrees...not counting the heat index. Like I said...crazy weather.
This brings me to the next topic...seismic activity. As of September 24, there have been 3,318 earthquakes in the United States this year so far. The total for 2009 was 4262. That's for the entire year. And we're already at 3,318 with 3 months left to go for this year.
Perhaps the most devastating of these was the earthquake in Japan and the following tsunami. As if the quake itself weren't bad enough. What also made this quake big news, was the fact that within the quake zone was a nuclear power plant, which was subsequently shut down due to the quake. A radiation leakage followed. It was a disaster, upon disaster, upon a disaster. If a building didn't fall down on top of you, and you didn't drown in the tsunami, the radiation could effect your body and you could die the slow painful death associated with radiation poisoning.
Now for the U.S. As a result of the earthquake discussed in the preceeding paragraph, our Pacific Coast was at risk for tsunamis. The island state of Hawaii and the state thats slipping into the Pacific Ocean a.k. a California, were put on tsunami alert. They did hit, but only with minimal damage.
Most recently, was the quake that occurred in the Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland areas. An earthquake...on the East coast? As if that weren't strange enough, a quake also happened on the same day in Colorado. Scientists say that geologically speaking they aren't related. Washington D.C. and Colorado don't even share a fault line. But...still...it's strange, wouldn't you say?
This brings me to Yellowstone National Park. Um. Yeah. About that. It's CRAZY! Crazy I say! As the home of America's most famous geyser, Old Faithful, it is well known that Yellowstone is a veritable haven of hot springs. Did you also know that in prehistoric times, Yellowstone was a volcano? Did you know that there is a lake in Yellowstone that has a bulge in its center that has been growing rapidly by the year? Did you know that there are entire sections of the park where plants, vegetation, and animals are inexplicably dying? Do you see where I'm going with this?At the risk of sounding like the crazed guy in the movie 2012, IT'S GONNA BLOW!
Now here's the big question. Are all these things, the extreme weather and unusual seismic activity related? Let me ask another question. Have you ever heard of Solar Flares? A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmoshphere is sudenly relased. This causes various kinds of radiation to be emitted...this includes gamma and x-rays The scary part? The amont of energy that can be released is the equivalent of 11 megaton hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously. So you may be thinking...so what? The sun is 93 million miles away from the earth....why do we need to worry about that? Whether you want to believe it or not, these flares can significantly disturb normal weather patterns and greatly increase the risk of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Are you ready for this? The following is a direct quote:
" According to the NASA website, March 9th ended with a powerful solar flare. Earth-orbiting satellites detected anX1.5-class explosion from behemoth sunspot 1166 around 2323 UT. A movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (above) shows a bright flash of UV radiation plus some material being hurled away from the blast site.
In addition, on March 10, 2011 around 0630 UT, a CME did strike a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. This was a result of an M3 flare that occurred late on March 7, 2011." The quake in Japan ocurred exactly 24 hours hours later. Spacequake :
According to NASA, researchers by using NASA's fleet of five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a form of space weather that packs the punch of an earthquake and plays a key role in sparking bright Northern Lights. They call it "the spacequake."
A spacequake is a temblor in Earth's magnetic field. It is felt most strongly in Earth orbit, but is not exclusive to space. The effects can reach all the way down to the surface of Earth itself.
"Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors measure a large earthquake," says THEMIS principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA.
It's an apt analogy because "the total energy in a spacequake can rival that of a magnitude 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first author of a paper reporting the results in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
In general, Earth's magnetic field lines can be thought of as rubber bands stretched taut by the solar wind, which is actually charged particles flowing in all directions from the sun, said study co-author Vassilis Angelopoulos, a space physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles."
I rest my case.
