Signs of Earth Changes

[NorthernSanctuary]

I thought I'll start this thread to note geophysical changes that are sign posts for increasing changes.

Here's one where new land is forming in Alaska, a 1000 feet section rising 20 ft:

'Uplift' baffles scientists, transforms area beach

http://www.homernews.com/stories/070...ws_1_002.shtml

BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
STAFF WRITER
Like a giant fist punching through the earth, a 1,000-foot long section of the beach below Bluff Point rose up 20 feet from the tidelands sometime last Friday or late Thursday, pushing boulders up from the ocean bottom, cracking sandstone slabs and toppling rocks upside down.

Below Bluff Point, a new fissure opened up at the base of the 800-foot high cliff. The uplift could be a re-activation of a landslide that happened perhaps 12,000 years ago.



Photo by Michael Armstrong

Two men climb an uplift on the beach below Bluff Point on Sunday.

"There was just beach before," said Ron Hess, who lives on Bluff Road above the new uplift. "Now there are tidal pools."
"You can see a rock circle," said Marilyn Hess. "All you used to see was one big rock, and now you can see this uplift of rock."

Scientists don't know exactly what caused the uplift. It would take an earthquake over magnitude 7 to cause an uplift that high, said Peter Haeussler, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage.

"I have no idea," he said when he first learned of the uplift. "This sounds really, really bizarre."

The uplift runs in an arc around a small cove about 1.3 miles east of Diamond Creek Beach, a pleasant day hike accessible from a trailhead near Diamond Ridge Road and the Sterling Highway (see Outdoors, page 16). Where tide-covered boulders had once been, the ground now rises up in a long ridge of gray clay, sandstone, coal and barnacle-covered boulders. In last weekend's heat, rockweed had dried up and mussels rotted. The cobble beach itself seemed higher. Small rockfalls trickled down to the beach.

Visitors to the beach on Friday morning after low tide reported the rockweed remained wet and fresh, suggesting the uplift happened sometime early July 3 or late July 2.

The Hesses said they didn't feel any major earthquakes, and none were measured by USGS. They said they felt some small earthquakes last week.

"They felt like three-pointers to us," Marilyn Hess said. "We thought 'It's probably Redoubt.' They didn't feel like hook-and-shake. They felt like little bumps."

Haeussler ruled out an earthquake causing the uplift.

"You would have felt a huge earthquake if it was earthquake related," he said.

Ed Berg, a naturalist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kenai, visited the site Sunday. He said at first he thought the uplift could have been earthquake related. The west-northwest to east-southeast orientation of the uplift cuts across known earthquake faults that run southwest-northeast.

Bretwood Higman, a Seldovia geologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle, speculated that the uplift could have been caused by reactivation of a 9,000 to 12,000-year-old landslide of Bluff Point. The ancient landslide would have eroded into the current bench below the Bluff Point cliffs.

"It must have been a long time ago. It all had been beveled off into a nicely sloping beach," Berg said.

According to "Bluff Point Landslide: A Massive Rock Failure near Homer, Alaska," a 1979 paper by Dick Reger, a geologist with the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, a 1.5-mile long landslide below the cliffs running below Baycrest Hill happened sometime after the last glaciation, perhaps 9,000 to 12,000 years ago. Wood found in the landslide has been carbon dated at about 1,500 years old, Reger wrote.

Higman said that below the bluff and bench might be a curving zone of weakness, with the curve sloping up toward the beach. A huge land mass above the zone might have slipped, with the underground or beach end rotating up, thrusting the clay and rocks above it and causing the new uplift. The test of his theory would be to look for inland fissures, or scarps, at the base of the bluff. The Hesses said that's what they have seen.

"You can look down and see those crevices," Ron Hess said. "There's no doubt. It's quite noticeable."

"It's a big sand scoop," Marilyn Hess added. "The cracks are big and black."

Why the uplift happened now -- and didn't happen in the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake -- is unknown.

"That's what's really mysterious here is 'Why now?'" Higman said. "There weren't any substantial earthquakes. The ground wasn't really wet."

The area below Bluff Point is undeveloped, with only a few beach cabins and Overlook Park, part of Kachemak Bay State Park. Closer to Homer, though, are a few subdivisions on the bay side of Baycrest Hill.

"It has implications for that big slide block in general," Higman said. "It says things are still loose there. It must have been a substantial movement to push up that big a beach surface. That's relevant to people who live in the area. It's an important thing to investigate."

No field work by state or federal geologists has yet to be done, although Haeussler said he would be interested in examining the site. Berg thought the uplift could begin to erode with the next cycle of high tides and fall storms. The uplift is accessible on low tides and visible on high tides. Unstable ground and deep cracks make walking on the uplift treacherous. There also is a deep hole about 10-feet wide and 7-feet deep on the beach side of the uplift -- wide enough to swallow a four-wheeler.

"It's very intriguing," Higman said. "It certainly threw me for a loop," he added.

Reger's report, from Geologic Report 61, is available at the DGGS Web site at www.dggs.dnr.state.ak.us through the "publications" link.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michaelarmstrong.@homernews.com.

[Starlah]

Here's one for you...

NEW OCEAN FORMING IN AFRICA

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...n1115779.shtml

Photo

Researchers announced that a new ocean could be forming in the northeast region of Ethiopia. The scientists added that it could take up to one million years before the ocean is fully formed. (AP (file))

(AP) Ethiopian, American and European researchers have observed a fissure in a desert in the remote northeast that could be the "birth of a new ocean basin," scientists said.

Researchers from Britain, France, Italy and the United States have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean, said Dereje Ayalew, who leads the team of 18 scientists studying the phenomenon.

The fissure, now 13 feet wide, formed in just three weeks after a Sept. 14 earthquake in a barren region called Boina, some 621 miles north east of the capital, Addis Ababa, said Dereje on Friday.

"We believe we have seen the birth of a new ocean basin," said Dereje of Addis Ababa University. "This is unprecedented in scientific history because we usually see the split after it has happened. But here we are watching the phenomenon."

The findings have been presented at a weeklong American Geophysical Union meeting taking place in San Francisco that ends Friday.

"It's amazing," the BBC quoted one of the Afar researchers, Cindy Ebinger of the Royal Holloway University of London, as saying in San Francisco. "It's the first large event we've seen like this in a rift zone since the advent of some of the space-based techniques we're now using, and which give us a resolution and a detail to see what's really going on and how the earth processes work."

The Ethiopian Afar Geophysical Lithospheric Experiment, involving scientists from Royal Holloway and the universities of Leicester, Leeds and Addis Ababa, is using sensitive instruments to study what is happening deep within the earth.

Dereje said that the split is the beginning of a long process, which will eventually lead to Ethiopia's eastern part tearing off from the rest of Africa, a sea forming in the gap. The Afar desert is being torn off the continent by about 0.8 inches each year.

"The crust under Afar is becoming like the crust found in the Red Sea," said Dereje, head of earth science at Addis Ababa University. "Once the crust is formed you will have water because it is a low area and the water will migrate from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It becomes a basin."

The scientists plan to set up an observatory to watch the split and see how it develops.

Watch this YouTube Video...quite incredible!

__________________________________________________ __________
'I am, therefor I am'...........................................(Many Sources)

[Dantheman62]

EIN GEDI, Israel – Eli Raz was peering into a narrow hole in the Dead Sea shore when the earth opened up and swallowed him. Fearing he would never be found alive, he scribbled his will on an old postcard.

After 14 hours a search party pulled him from the 10-meter-(30 foot-) deep hole unhurt, and five years later the 69-year-old geologist is working to save others from a similar fate, leading an effort to map the sinkholes that are spreading on the banks of the fabled saltwater lake.

These underground craters can open up in an instant, sucking in whatever lies above and leaving the surrounding area looking like an earthquake zone.

The phenomenon, Raz said, stems from a dire water shortage, compounded in recent years by tourism and chemical industries as well as a growing population. "This is the most remarkable evidence of the brutal interference of humans in the Dead Sea," he said.

The parched moonscape, famous as the site of biblical Sodom and Gomorra, is the lowest point on earth and runs more than 60 miles through Israel and the West Bank.

Large sections of the coast are fenced off and signposted in Hebrew and English: "danger, open pits" and "sinkhole area ahead." But it's too expensive to inspect every place for danger. Just two months ago an Israeli hiker wandered into an area that had no warning signs and was critically injured when he fell into a sinkhole.

While such accidents are rare, Raz says there are up to 3,000 open sinkholes along the coast and likely just as many that haven't burst open yet. And they're having a big impact on Israeli development plans.

The collapsing terrain has forced authorities to close a campground, date groves and a small naval base, and to scrap plans for 5,000 new hotel rooms, said Galit Cohen, director of environmental planning at the Ministry of the Environment.

The holes, also found on the Jordanian side of the sea, are the result of the Dead Sea having shrunk by a third since the 1960s when Israel and Jordan built plants to divert water flowing through its main tributary, the Jordan River.

The holes form when a subterranean salt layer that once bordered the sea is dissolved by underground fresh water that follows the receding Dead Sea waters.

The main road along the shore has been torn apart by streams whose energy is increased because they are flowing farther to reach the receding sea, and all construction along the strip between sea and highway is banned, Cohen said.

Both Israel and Jordan evaporate Dead Sea water to extract its phosphates and have built hotels along the coasts for the thousands of tourists who come in search of the curative powers of Dead Sea mud, or simply for the experience of floating unsinkably in its salt-saturated waters.

Only micro-organisms survive in the Dead Sea, but indigenous species of fish, amphibians and snails live in small nearby ponds fed by underground springs, and these could be wiped out as the Dead Sea gets smaller, Raz said.

Many of the changes are masked at the pricey resorts on the sea's southern end, which lie on the banks of a large artificial pond built by the mineral industry. But around Ein Gedi, the kibbutz or communal farm where Raz lives, the Dead Sea's shrinkage is evident.

Twenty-five years ago Ein Gedi built a spa by the sea. Now it's a 1.5-km (one-mile) trolley ride from the water.

"Any visitor that's come back for a second visit in these last 10 years would see a dramatic change," said Gidon Bromberg, Israel director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, an advocacy group. "The sea has run away from the cliffs and it's exposed kilometers of mud and sea floor."

No quick solution is in sight.

The World Bank is studying a proposal to dig a canal from the Red Sea, more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) south, to replenish the Dead Sea's waters. But with costs estimated at up to $15 billion, there's little optimism it will happen.

Without a solution, the sea is expected to shrink to lose another third of its area over the next century.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090621/..._sea_sinkholes

[Dantheman62]

Tue Jul 7, 9:01 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thick older ice shrinking by the equivalent of Alaska's land area, a study using data from a NASA satellite showed.

Using information from NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Satellite (ICESat), scientists from the US space agency and the University of Washington in Seattle estimated both the thickness and volume of the Arctic Ocean's ice cover.

ICESat allows scientists to measure changes in the thickness and volume of Arctic ice, whereas previously scientists relied only on measurements of area to determine how much of the Arctic Ocean is covered in ice.

Scientists found that Arctic sea ice thinned some seven inches (17.8 centimeters) a year, or 2.2 feet (67 centimeters) over four winters, according to the study by NASA and the University of Washington, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans.

They also found that thicker, older ice, which has survived one or more summers, shrank by 42 percent.

"Between 2004 and 2008, multi-year ice cover shrank 595,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers) -- nearly the size of Alaska's land area," a report of the study's findings said.

The Arctic ice cap grows each winter, when the northerly region grows intensely cold as the sun sets for several months.

Then, in the summer, wind and ocean currents cause some of the ice to flow out of the Arctic, while warmer temperatures make much of it melt in place.

Thicker, older ice is less vulnerable than thinner ice to melting in the summer months.

But in recent years, the amount of ice replaced in the winter has not been sufficient to offset summer ice losses, the ICESat study showed.

That makes for more open water in summer, which absorbs more heat, warming the ocean and further melting the ice, the report of the scientists' findings said.

The research team attributed the changes in the overall thickness and volume of Arctic Ocean sea ice to recent warming and anomalies in patterns of sea ice circulation.

"The near-zero replenishment of the multi-year ice cover, combined with unusual exports of ice out of the Arctic after the summers of 2005 and 2007, have both played significant roles in the loss of Arctic sea ice volume," said Ron Kwok of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who led the study.

Data from the study will help scientists to better understand how fast the volume of Arctic ice is decreasing and how soon the region might be "nearly ice-free in the summer," said Kwok.

A study published in April by the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) also showed that the Arctic ice cap is thinner than ever and the maximum extent of Arctic ice was at an all-time low.

The same month, US researchers warned that the Arctic could be almost ice-free within 30 years, not 90 as scientists had previously estimated.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/environmentwarmingusnasa

[333mark333]

Well up here on the Edge of the Hudson Bay not too much is different! the Ice just broke up last week!! last year the ice broke in May! the Bears have just come of the Ice FAT FAT FAT lots of extra time to eat. Summer ( decent weather ) just arrived a few days ago! some residents had not seen a long winter like this in 20 - 30 years!! The Sun Feels very Hot!, very cloudy this year so far. No change in Sea Levels here!! just a cold long winter!! it will be snowing here again in October.

[Dantheman62]

Mysterious tremors detected on San Andreas Fault

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Alicia Chang, Ap Science Writer – Thu Jul 9, 2:01 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.

What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, monitored seismic activity on the fault's central section between July 2001 and February 2009 and recorded more than 2,000 tremors. The tremors lasted mere minutes to nearly half an hour.

Unlike earthquakes, tremors occur deeper below the surface and the shaking lasts longer.

During the study period, two strong earthquakes hit — a magnitude-6.5 in 2003 and a magnitude-6.0 a year later. Scientists noticed the frequency of the tremors doubled after the 2003 quake and jumped six-fold after 2004.

Tremor episodes persist today. Though the frequency of tremors have declined since 2004, scientists are still concerned because they are still at a level that is twice as high as before the 2003 quake.

The team also recorded unusually strong rumblings days before the 2004 temblor.

Results of the research appear in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The work was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey and National Science Foundation.

"The fact that the tremors haven't gone down means the time to the next earthquake may come sooner," said Berkeley seismologist and lead researcher Robert Nadeau.

Nadeau first discovered tremors deep in the San Andreas Fault in 2005. Before that, the phenomenon was thought only to occur in Earth's subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another.

USGS seismologist Susan Hough found the latest observations intriguing, but said it's too soon to know what they mean.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sci_san_andreas_fault

[NorthernSanctuary]

Dead Sea sinkholes swallow up plans
Up to 3,000 open craters along coast having impact on development


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31475786/

EIN GEDI, Israel - Eli Raz was peering into a narrow hole in the Dead Sea shore when the earth opened up and swallowed him. Fearing he would never be found alive, he scribbled his will on an old postcard.

After 14 hours a search party pulled him from the 10-meter-(30 foot-) deep hole unhurt, and five years later the 69-year-old geologist is working to save others from a similar fate, leading an effort to map the sinkholes that are spreading on the banks of the fabled saltwater lake.

These underground craters can open up in an instant, sucking in whatever lies above and leaving the surrounding area looking like an earthquake zone.

The phenomenon, Raz said, stems from a dire water shortage, compounded in recent years by tourism and chemical industries as well as a growing population. "This is the most remarkable evidence of the brutal interference of humans in the Dead Sea," he said.

The parched moonscape, famous as the site of biblical Sodom and Gomorra, is the lowest point on earth and runs more than 60 miles through Israel and the West Bank.

Large sections of the coast are fenced off and sign posted in Hebrew and English: "danger, open pits" and "sinkhole area ahead." But it's too expensive to inspect every place for danger. Just two months ago, an Israeli hiker wandered into an area that had no warning signs and was critically injured when he fell into a sinkhole.

While such accidents are rare, Raz says there are up to 3,000 open sinkholes along the coast and likely just as many that haven't burst open yet. And they're having a big impact on Israeli development plans.

Human interference
The collapsing terrain has forced authorities to close a campground, date groves and a small naval base, and to scrap plans for 5,000 new hotel rooms, said Galit Cohen, director of environmental planning at the Ministry of the Environment.

The holes, also found on the Jordanian side of the sea, are the result of the Dead Sea having shrunk by a third since the 1960s when Israel and Jordan built plants to divert water flowing through its main tributary, the Jordan River.

The holes form when a subterranean salt layer that once bordered the sea is dissolved by underground fresh water that follows the receding Dead Sea waters.

The main road along the shore has been torn apart by streams whose energy is increased because they are flowing farther to reach the receding sea, and all construction along the strip between sea and highway is banned, Cohen said.

Both Israel and Jordan evaporate Dead Sea water to extract its phosphates and have built hotels along the coasts for the thousands of tourists who come in search of the curative powers of Dead Sea mud, or simply for the experience of floating unsinkably in its salt-saturated waters.

Only micro-organisms survive in the Dead Sea, but indigenous species of fish, amphibians and snails live in small nearby ponds fed by underground springs, and these could be wiped out as the Dead Sea gets smaller, Raz said.

Many of the changes are masked at the pricey resorts on the sea's southern end, which lie on the banks of a large artificial pond built by the mineral industry. But around Ein Gedi, the kibbutz or communal farm where Raz lives, the Dead Sea's shrinkage is evident.

Twenty-five years ago, Ein Gedi built a spa by the sea. Now it's a 1.5-km (one-mile) trolley ride from the water.

"Any visitor that's come back for a second visit in these last 10 years would see a dramatic change," said Gidon Bromberg, Israel director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, an advocacy group. "The sea has run away from the cliffs and it's exposed kilometers of mud and sea floor."

[pineal-pilot-in merkabah]

Dead Sea sinkholes swallow up plans
Up to 3,000 open craters along coast having impact on development

hopefully one will open up under the israhelli kenneset building whilst the maniacs are all in it

[cosmictexan]

A massive earthquake last week has brought New Zealand closer to Australia, scientists say. The 7.8 magnitude quake in the Tasman Sea has expanded New Zealand's South Island westwards by about 30cm (12in).
Seismologist Ken Gledhill, of GNS Science, said the shift demonstrated the huge force of the tremor. But correspondents say that with more than 2,250km (1,400 miles) separating the countries, the narrowing will not exactly be visible. Nor, as the New Zealand media have observed, is it likely to bring cheaper air fares.

Tsunami alert

The earthquake causes some landslip in the Fiordland region
The quake was powerful enough to generate a small tsunami with a wave of one metre (3ft) recorded on the west coast of New Zealand. People in coastal areas were for a time advised to move to higher ground. While the south-west of the South Island moved about 30cm towards Australia, the east coast moved only one centimetre westwards, Dr Gledhill said."Basically, New Zealand just got a little bit bigger is another way to think about it," he told AFP news agency. Although it was New Zealand's biggest earthquake in 78 years, it caused only slight damage to buildings and property when it struck in the remote Fiordland region west of Invercargill last Thursday.
"For a very large earthquake, although it was very widely felt, there were very few areas that were severely shaken," Dr Gledhill said. GNS Science is a research organisation run by the New Zealand government. New Zealand frequently suffers earthquakes because it sits on the meeting point of the Australian and Pacific continental plates.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8162628.stm

[NorthernSanctuary]

Sea Level trends. Costal event predicted by Cliff under way?

"
Here the NOAA mean sea level trends chart. You can see everything is going up except for Alaska which has a marked downtrend, possibilbly due to the rising land there from tectonic pressure exerted by the increasing water pressure on the ocean.
"
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/slt...sltrends.shtml

[NorthernSanctuary]

BREAKING! THE MONSTER AWAKES: FIERY IMAGES AS KRAKATOA COMES BACK TO LIFE
Quote


An amateur photographer has captured new images of the re-awakening of the world's most famous volcano.

In a breathtaking series Marco Fulle, who specialises in shots of comets, has photographed the Anak Krakatoa against a backdrop of constellations such as the Big Dipper.

These stunning pictures show the latest activity during the rebirth of the infamous volcano which holds a long-standing record for causing the highest number of human deaths ever - a staggering 36,000 in 1883.

Marco, 51, from Trieste, Italy, last month captured these images of the waking monster and even caught a violent storm passing over the new cone.

The ticking time-bomb can be seen spewing ash into the Indonesian sky between Java and Sumatra where it lies on the Sunda Strait.

Lava can also be seen trickling down the side of the new slopes that have quickly grown to a towering 360 metres. It now measures half of the size of the original mound that ended so many lives.

Marco said: 'These volcanos repeat explosions like that of 1883 many times during their life. The common opinion is that Krakatoa will become again really dangerous when it reaches the size it had been in 1883. It was two-times taller than now.'
Simmering Anak Krakatoa - translated as 'Child of Krakatoa' - is the offspring of the original giant cone which snuffed out over 36,000 lives in a single super-eruption over 100 years ago.

In an ongoing saga Anak Krakatoa is a new volcano that is emerging from the remains of the former giant beast which blew itself apart.

The colossal 19th century disaster is so renowned it has featured in movies and is regarded by many as the most famous on earth.

The explosion was so devastating it equalled 13,000 times the power of Little Boy - the American A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.
Now locals are fearing a repetition of the original eruption that not only killed thousands in fire, but also sparked a tsunami.

The huge wave took more lives and was caused by masses of rock falling into the water below as the volcano-island destroyed itself and collapsed into the ocean.

Many more perished suffering from the effects of falling hot ashes and poison gases which smothered the surrounding lands.

The reborn volcano, Anak, has been steadily growing out of its predecessor's remains since 1927.

The land around it is building up as cycles of activity force fresh molten rock to spew out of the crater at its centre, creating new layers of solid ground.

In November 2007 it started violently erupting again but islanders thought they had escaped another potential disaster when everything went quiet last year.

This spring, however, the new mountain started rumbling again. The eruptions have become so fierce they light up overhead clouds and draw in violent thunderstorms as the atmosphere changes.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...tirs-more.html

[WiNaDeYo]

"Higher high tides along East Coast baffle experts"

http://www.news-record.com/content/2...baffle_experts

Saturday, July 25, 2009
By McClatchy Newspapers

Weather experts are contemplating a new mystery of the deep blue sea: why it's been deeper than usual at high tide all along the East Coast for the past several weeks.

Since June, tides have been running from 6 inches to 2 feet above what would normally be expected, even considering seasonal and lunar fluctuations. While local tidal changes are not uncommon, researchers for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aren't sure they have ever recorded an event like this one, which is showing up all the way from Maine to Florida. In North Carolina, tides have been about a foot above normal predictions.

''Right now we're trying to get a better understanding of what's the cause," said Mike Szabados, director of NOAA's tide and current program in Silver Spring, Md.

Global warming isn't to blame, scientists say, as the rise was too sudden. Possibly, Szabados said, the explanation lies in something called the North Atlantic oscillation, a disturbance in the atmospheric pressure in the area of the North Atlantic Ocean between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High....

[NorthernSanctuary]

Typhoon batters south-east China


Waves as high as 9m have been reported on China's south-east coast

Typhoon Morakot has struck China's south-east coast, destroying hundreds of houses and flooding farmland.
Almost one million people were evacuated ahead of the storm, which crashed ashore in Fujian province with winds of up to 119km/h (74mph).
Flights were cancelled and fishing boats recalled to shore. A small boy died when a building collapsed.
Morakot has already hit Taiwan, killing at least three people and causing some of the worst flooding for 50 years.
In one incident, an entire hotel - empty at the time - was swept away by the waters.

video:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8191951.stm
'Treetops visible'
Chinese state media said that the sky turned completely dark in Beibi, Fujian, when Typhoon Morakot made landfall at 1620 local time (0820 GMT).
Trees were uprooted as high winds and heavy rain lashed the coast.

Some 473,000 residents of Zhejiang province were evacuated before the typhoon struck, as well as 480,000 from Fujian, Xinhua news agency said.
In Zhejiang's Wenzhou City a four year-old child was killed when a house collapsed. Dozens of roads were said to be flooded and the city's airport was closed.
Rescuers used dinghies to reach worst-hit areas; in one area only the tops of trees were said to be showing above the floodwater.
The storm is expected to move north and weaken, but strong winds are expected to persist for three days, forecasters say.
Taiwan devastation
Morakot dumped 250cm of rain on Taiwan as it crossed the island on Saturday, washing away bridges and roads.


Taiwan hotel collapses after typhoon

At least three people were known to have died - a woman whose car went into a ditch and two men who drowned.
Thirty-one others were reported missing, Taiwan's Disaster Relief Centre said. Among them were a group reportedly washed away from a make-shift shelter in Kaohsiung in the south.
At least 10,000 people were trapped in three coastal towns, a local official in the southern county of Pingtung said.
In Chihpen, one of Taiwan's most famous hot spring resorts, a hotel collapsed after flood waters undermined its foundations.
Morakot - which means emerald in Thai - has also contributed to heavy rains in the Philippines. At least 10 people were killed in flooding and landslides in the north.
Typhoons are frequent in the region between July and September.

[Unified Serenity]

The West Antarctic is not melting and it is 4 times the size of the East Antarctic shelf. This article says what we are seeing is not unusual in regards to the East shelf melting:

"Dr Allison said there was not any evidence of significant change in the mass of ice shelves in east Antarctica nor any indication that its ice cap was melting. "The only significant calvings in Antarctica have been in the west," he said. And he cautioned that calvings of the magnitude seen recently in west Antarctica might not be unusual.

CE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

"Ice shelves in general have episodic carvings and there can be large icebergs breaking off -- I'm talking 100km or 200km long -- every 10 or 20 or 50 years."

Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia's Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Centre shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years. The average thickness of the ice at Davis since the 1950s is 1.67m.

A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded. "
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...83-601,00.html