Author Archives: marcia

Drunvalo Melchizedek & Don Alejandro on the 9th Wave Shift

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HIGH-SPEED, NINTH-WAVE, 4-D SHIFT (Video at Youtube)

With Don Alejandro and Drunvalo Melchizedek

fr/http://www.spiritofmaat.com/oct11/index.htm

It isn’t our practice to post videos on the main page of the magazine, but this is a media presentation that deserves headline status. What you are about to watch is approximately fifteen-minutes of information that is 100% relevant to where we find ourselves at the moment. It includes footage of Mayan Elder Don Alejandro reminding us where the heart lies. His words are reinforced by scientific data that points out the connection between the Earth’s Magnetic Field and the increase and intensification of Solar Flare activity coming off of the Sun. All of this is followed up with footage of Drunvalo explaining the physics and metaphysics of a polar shift. Time is flying, and as we all know ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, so give yourself fifteen minutes to absorb this uplifting and enlightening presentation on what it actually means to pass through the Eye of the Needle.

link to the video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrdaQbF4GPc

Krakatau, Indonesia Earthquakes

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Krakatau, Indonesia – volcanic earthquakes are creating unrest in coastal villages

Last update: October 6, 2011 at 10:51 pm by By 

 

Image courtesy Aris Yanto – exploredesa.com

Indonesia Volcanology Centre and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG)prohibits people to approach Krakatau volcano within a radius of 2 kilometer. Krakatau has been seismically overactive since Tuesday.
On September 30 PVMBG increased the alert status from 2 to 3 (on a scale from 0 to 4).

 

Although nothing uncommon happens visually at the moment (Krakatau has small explosive eruptions many times a day all year), the number of volcanic earthquakes is very high since Tuesday.

The PVMBG specialists who are guarding the volcano are saying however that a violent eruption generating a tsunami is highly unlikely at this alert level (krakatau is an island and a huge part of the volcano is below sea level). Many coastal villages in the Sunda strait are very scared that this volcano with a violent past will explode again. Scientists can  predict volcano eruptions fairly good today. GPS recordings which show an eventual deformation of parts of the volcano are giving a good hint in the potential danger.
The inhabitants of the coastal villages have been told by the scientists that they should calm down because a major eruption like the 1883 is highly unlikely at this moment.

to read more, go to:   http://earthquake-report.com/2011/10/06/krakatau-indonesia-volcanic-earthquakes-are-creating-ner/

Steve Jobs and Zen Buddhism

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The Zen of Steve Jobs

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) – Steve Jobs’ admirers praised him for de-cluttering the world of high-tech gadgetry. The products that made him famous, from the Macintosh computer to the iPad, exemplified minimalist design and simplicity of use, enabling what some called a Zen-like experience.

“Apple products are as defined by what they’re missing as much as by what they contain,” wrote tech and pop culture columnist Jeff Yang this year in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The spiritual side of Steve Jobs

Might Jobs’ approach to innovation and design have been provoked by real-life Zen, as in Zen Buddhism?

The Apple chief, who died Wednesday at 56, had a decades-long relationship with a Zen master, who presided over his wedding and whom Jobs reportedly appointed as a corporate spiritual adviser. Their ties have fed speculation about such a connection.

Early on in life, Jobs took a spiritual retreat to India that helped lead him to embrace Buddhism. But the teacher with whom Jobs bonded with in the United States was a Zen Buddhist, a tradition rooted in Japan.

According to Yang and to other press reports, Jobs studied at the Los Altos Zen Center in the 1970s and developed a close relationship with a Japanse-born Zen master, or roshi, named Kobun Chino Otogawa.

Kobun focused his teaching on developing a Zen meditation practice.

“The real purpose of practice is to discover the wisdom which you have always been keeping with you,” Kobun said in a talk that’s posted on the website for the Jikoji Retreat Center, a Zen center he founded outside San Francisco.

“To discover yourself is to discover wisdom; without discovering yourself you can never communicate with anybody,” said Kobun, who died in 2002, in the same talk.

Jobs seemed to echo that spiritual self-reliance in public comments, including his oft-quoted 2005 commencement address at Stanford University:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

According to Yang, Jobs appointed Kobun as the official “spiritual adviser” for the company he founded after being fired as Apple CEO in 1986. Called NeXT, that company was eventually purchased by Apple, paving the way for Jobs’ second act there.

In the 2001 book “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs,” Alan Deutschman describes Kobun as:

a Zen Buddhist monk who had been Steve’s guru and friend since Steve was in his late teens. (Kobun) was a lovable, poetic, romantic personality who was known for speaking very slowly (even in his native Japanese) and giving unintelligible lectures… He was a renegade who rebelled against the strict discipline and burdensome responsibility of being a priest. He was the Steve Jobs of Zen.

Kobun presided over Jobs’ 1991 marriage to Laurene Powell.

The relationship between Jobs and Kobun is the subject of a graphic novel, soon to be published by Forbes. The book, which is fiction but is inspired by the real-life relationship, is titled “The Zen of Steve Jobs.”

from:   http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/06/the-zen-of-steve-jobs/

Some Resources for Health Action

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From Dr. Mercola’s Newsletter, here are a few organizations that are working to promote health awareness and safety:

Consumers for Dental Choice

The Consumers for Dental Choice (toxicteeth.org) is a nonprofit corporation established in 1996 by consumer advocates, mercury poisoning victims, scientists, and mercury-free dentists. It aims to educate the public about the health and environmental dangers of mercury fillings and to ensure better government oversight on amalgam. Part of its education work is demanding the full flow of non-deceptive information between dentists and their patients, including helping put an end to the American Dental Association’s notorious “gag rule” that attempts to silence mercury-free dentists, and to the promotion of mercury amalgam under the misleading term “silver.”

Charles BrownCharles G. Brown is National Counsel, Consumers for Dental Choice. Formerly Attorney General of West Virginia. His legal expertise covers antitrust, consumer protection, administrative, and government relations. Brown is a Yale Law graduate, author of First Get Mad, then Get Justice: The Handbook for Crime Victims, and editor of The Sherman Brigade Marches South: The Civil War Memoirs of Colonel Robert Carson Brown, which was penned by his great-grandfather.

Mercury amalgams, so-called “silver fillings,” are one of the primary sources of toxic mercury exposure in consumers. To learn more about the dangers of this archaic practice, and support our ongoing efforts to eliminate this neurotoxin from dentistry around the world, please join us on Facebook!

 

Organic Consumers Association

Organic Consumers AssociationThe Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots 501(c)3 public interest organization promoting health, justice, and sustainability. It prides itself as the only organization in the United States focused on promoting the views and interests of the country’s estimated 76 million organic and socially responsible consumers. The OCA participates in the important issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children’s health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade, environmental sustainability, and other key topics

.

Ronnie CumminsRonnie Cummins is the founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association. He has been a writer and activist since the 1960s, with massive expertise in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, consumer, labor, environmental, and sustainable agricultural areas. He is the author of several published articles, a children’s book series called Children of the World, and Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers.

Organic food is ‘real food,’ and as such, the Organic Alternative is a matter of survival.

luoride Action Network

Fluoride Action NetworkThe Fluoride Action Network (FAN), founded in May 2000, aims to broaden public awareness on the toxicity of fluoride compounds and the health impacts of current fluoride exposures. It brings comprehensive, up-to-date information on fluoride issues to scientists, policymakers, and citizens, along with vigilantly monitoring government action that may affect the public’s fluoride exposure. Its work has been cited by Scientific American, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, National Public Radio, and Prevention Magazine, and other national media outlets.

Dr. Paul ConnettDr. Paul Connett is the Executive Director of the Fluoride Action Network. He is a Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University in New York and is a co-author of The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There.

Communities that fluoridate their municipal water supplies purposely disseminate a toxic drug to entire populations, without regard for differences in age or health status, and most importantly, without individual consent

National Vaccine Information Center

National Vaccine Information CenterFounded in 1982, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national charitable, non-profit educational organization. NVIC launched the vaccine safety and informed consent movement in America in the early 1980s and its three decade mission has been to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and protect the informed consent ethic in medicine. NVIC monitors vaccine reactions, research, development, regulation, policy-making and legislation and works to protect vaccine exemptions in state health laws.

Barbara Loe FisherBarbara Loe Fisher is President of the National Vaccine Information Center, which she co-founded with parents of DPT vaccine injured children. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she worked as a writer and community relations professional at a teaching hospital before becoming a mother to three children. She is co-author of the seminal 1985 book DPT: A Shot in the Dark and author of The Consumer’s Guide to Childhood Vaccines and Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic. A video blog commentator for the NVIC Vaccine E-Newsletter and on Mercola.com, during the past 20 years she has served as a consumer member of vaccine advisory and stakeholder committees at the Food and Drug Administration, Institute of Medicine and Centers for Disease Control.

The right to voluntary informed consent to any medical intervention, including use of a pharmaceutical product such as a vaccine that can injure or kill you or your child, is a human right that must be protected at all cost.

for more information, and to see Dr. Mercola’s video, go to:    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/01/about-health-liberty.aspx?e_cid=20111001_DNL_art_1

More on Safety of GMO’s

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This Food Knowingly Causes Cancer in Rats – Are You Eating it?

Posted By Dr. Mercola | October 05 2011 |

By Dr. Mercola

When it comes to products with the potential to devastate the planet, Monsanto takes the cake.

This company has single-handedly created some of the most destructive products known to man, including polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, and dioxin (Agent Orange). They are also the world leader in genetically modified (GM) seeds — and if we don’t take action soon, the entire planet could soon become contaminated with these toxic seeds, leading to the complete destruction of the natural food supply.

United States Chooses to Ignore the Precautionary Principle, Embrace Monsanto’s GM Foods

Dr. Philip Bereano has spent the last three decades looking into genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods, crops, animals, and humans—both nationally, here in the United States, and internationally. His work led him to participate in the negotiation of two international treaties under the United Nations that dealt with issues relating to GMOs.

In my interview with him earlier this year, he shared his perspective on the safety of GM foods — or rather the lack thereof.

“First of all, we need to understand what we mean by the word safe. Actually, in terms of the academic literature, “safe” refers to “an acceptable level of risk.” It doesn’t refer to situations where there is no risk. Most of us drive in cars all the time and consider it to be safe even though we know that people are killed and injured in automobiles frequently. We have to understand that safe equals acceptable risk.

The problem with calling genetically engineered organisms safe is that there are no valid risk assessments being done on them. There is no research, really, being done into the health or environmental effects of a genetically engineered organism. Certainly no work that is published in the open peer-reviewed literature, or that isn’t proprietary. Corporations promoting these things claim that they have done research, but you can’t get any information on it because it’s all claimed to be proprietary.

Under what is known now as the precautionary principle—which is what your grandparents used to teach you about “looking before you leap”—the only prudent course of action is to NOT proceed with something which has potential risks and only potential benefits until you know a little bit more about it.”

The United States is one country, however, that has fully embraced GM foods on a regulatory level, and does not appear to have any intentions of following the precautionary principle. GM corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets have made their way into approximately 80 percent of current U.S. processed grocery store items, now that up to 90 percent of several U.S.grown crops are grown with genetically engineered seed.

So if you live in the United States, you have most certainly already been exposed to GM foods — most likely a lot of them.

Meanwhile, GM seeds are banned in Hungary, as they are in several other European countries, such as Germany and Ireland. These countries have chosen NOT to allow their land to be used as a testing ground in a massive uncontrollable experiment, which is essentially what the introduction of GM crops is.

Not surprisingly, according to information from Wikileaks, there are also indications that the U.S. State Department has been active in defending Monsanto in other countries, particularly in response to the French documentary, “The World According to Monsanto,” which condemned Monsanto’s criminal behavior.

Do You Know the Risks of GMOs?

GM foods are, from my perception, one of the most significant threats that we have against the very sustainability of the human race. Why? In a nutshell, these toxins are being linked to a growing repertoire of assaults against human health and the environment – and they are already migrating into fetal blood, which means future generations are now at risk.

Some GM crops, such as GM sugar beets and certain varieties of GM corn and soy, are engineered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. Other GM crops, such as Bt corn, are designed to produce their own pesticide internally.

Earlier this year, Cry1Ab, a specific type of Bt toxin from GM crops, has for the first time been detected in human and fetal blood samples. It appears the toxin is quite prevalent, as upon testing 69 pregnant and non-pregnant women who were eating a typical Canadian diet (which included foods such as GM soy, corn and potatoes), researchers found Bt toxin in:

  • 93 percent of blood samples of pregnant women
  • 80 percent of fetal blood samples
  • 69 percent of non-pregnant women blood samples

According to Jeffrey Smith:

“There’s already plenty of evidence that the Bt-toxin produced in GM corn and cotton plants is toxic to humans and mammals and triggers immune system responses. The fact that it flows through our blood supply, and that is passes through the placenta into fetuses, may help explain the rise in many disorders in the US since Bt crop varieties were first introduced in 1996.

In government-sponsored research in Italy, mice fed Monsanto’s Bt corn showed a wide range of immune responses. Their elevated IgE and IgG antibodies, for example, are typically associated with allergies and infections. The mice had an increase in cytokines, which are associated with “allergic and inflammatory responses.”

As you may know, chronic inflammation is at the root of many increasingly common diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Food allergies are also skyrocketing, as is infertility, which could also be a potential side effect of GM foods, based on results from animal studies. Monsanto insists that GM foods are no different from conventionally grown varieties, but the research does NOT support this claim. Here is just a sampling of the unsavory findings associated with GM foods:

to read more and see the videos, go to:   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/05/has-any-company-ever-harmed-the-planet-more-than-this.aspx?e_cid=20111005_DNL_art_1

Marijiuana as Cancer Treatment

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Marijuana As A Treatment For Cancer

Wed Oct 05 2011 09:59

Michigan: Medical Marijuana as a Treatment for Cancer

September 30th, 2011 – FERNDALE — When his cancer came back for a fifth time, Michael McShane was desperate for treatment outside of traditional medicine.

The last time squamous cell carcinoma left lumpy tumors around his mouth, doctors cut it away and reconstructed his bottom lip by turning out a portion of its inner layer.

“You can only do most facial tricks once,” McShane, 51, said. “I needed another option.”

As a qualifying medical marijuana patient, he tried “Simpson oil” derived from cannabis plants by a Canadian named Rick Simpson. McShane bought some from an Oak Park dispensary that has since closed and puts a few drops every day on his face. Over the course of about 10 weeks, the tumors faded and then seemed to disappear.

His dermatologist, Ali Moiin, M.D., has said McShane isn’t cured but his cancer cells have decreased by about 60 percent.

“You still have some residual ones, but the size has definitely decreased,” Dr. Moiin told a WWJ reporter in late August, adding he thinks the results merit further scientific study.

Moiin didn’t return phone calls for an interview for this story. He isn’t the doctor who signed the physician certification form for McShane, who has another qualifying medical problem.

In all, since the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program started in April 2009, 2,215 of the state’s licensed physicians have certified that a patient suffers from one of the debilitating conditions identified in the act, and that the patient may find therapeutic and palliative relief from the medical use of marijuana. A total of 105,458 patient registry cards have been issued in that time period.

An estimated 55 doctors signed 70 percent of the certification forms, according to one review; most of the others aren’t talking about it publicly.

“I imagine it is a fairly sensitive issue because it is politically charged,” said Colin Ford, director of state and federal government relations for the Michigan State Medical Society.

Physicians are cautious because patient privacy is important, he said.

A forbidden cure?

Privacy isn’t as important to McShane as sharing what he considers his latest triumph over cancer without surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, reconstructive surgery and their side effects.

“The marijuana oil replaced all that and reduced the cancer to almost nothing,” he said. “My forehead and mouth were in bad shape in the spring. All of a sudden one morning it was there — a callous-like growth the size of a half dollar on my forehead. Skin cancer is my regular nemesis.”

McShane is one of a growing number of people extolling the healing properties of Simpson oil for everything from cancer, AIDS, Crohn’s disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and diabetes to psoriasis, hemorrhoids and warts. They call it a “forbidden cure,” saying the oil that can be used topically or ingested isn’t given enough credit because it would cut into medical and pharmaceutical profits.

“I’ve struggled with cancer for over 20 years and probably have spent over $1 million on conventional treatment,” McShane said, adding he was insured until his payments increased to $1,400 a month.

“I can’t believe what just wiping Simpson oil on my skin did for me. I spent a couple hundred dollars versus $100,000.”

Qualifying conditions

McShane is one of 3,119 patients certified in the state through Aug. 31 for using medical marijuana to treat cancer and its side effects.

to read more, go to:   http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1189/471/Marijuana_As_A_Treatment_For_Cancer.html

 

 

And from Dr. Andrew Weil’s Website:http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400761/Marijuana-for-Cancer.html

Q
Marijuana for Cancer?
I know that medical marijuana can help relieve nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, but recently, I’ve heard about the use of marijuana to actually treat cancer. Is this true?
A
Answer (Published 7/23/2010)
You’re quite right: exciting new research suggests that the cannabinoids found in marijuana may have a primary role in cancer treatment and prevention. A number of studies have shown that these compounds can inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animal models. In part, this is achieved by inhibiting angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels that tumors need in order to grow. What’s more, cannabinoids seem to kill tumor cells without affecting surrounding normal cells. If these findings hold true as research progresses, cannabinoids would demonstrate a huge advantage over conventional chemotherapy agents, which too often destroy normal cells as well as cancer cells.

 

Get Ready for the Draconid Meteor Shower

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Draconid Meteor Outburst

Oct. 4, 2011: On October 8th Earth is going to plow through a stream of dust from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and the result could be an outburst of Draconid meteors.

“We’re predicting as many as 750 meteors per hour,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “The timing of the shower favors observers in the Middle East, north Africa and parts of Europe.”

Draconids (comet, 200px)

Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner in Nov. 1998 photographed by astronomers at Kitt Peak. [more]

Every 6.6 years Comet Giacobini-Zinner swings through the inner solar system. With each visit, it lays down a narrow filament of dust, over time forming a network of filaments that Earth encounters every year in early October.

“Most years, we pass through gaps between filaments, maybe just grazing one or two as we go by,” says Cooke. “Occasionally, though, we hit one nearly head on–and the fireworks begin.”

2011 could be such a year. Forecasters at NASA and elsewhere agree that Earth is heading for three or more filaments on October 8th. Multiple encounters should produce a series of variable outbursts beginning around 1600 Universal Time (noon EDT) with the strongest activity between 1900 and 2100 UT (3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT).

Forecasters aren’t sure how strong the display will be, mainly because the comet had a close encounter with Jupiter in the late 1880s. At that time, the giant planet’s gravitational pull altered the comet’s orbit and introduced some uncertainty into the location of filaments it has shed since then. Competing models place the filaments in slightly different spots; as a result, estimated meteor rates range from dozens to hundreds per hour.

Draconids (models, 558px)

Comet dust stream models suggest a succession of peaks in meteor rate between 1600 and 2100 UT on Oct. 9th. Click here for details. Credit: MSFC/Meteoroid Environment Office.

One respected forecaster, Paul Wiegert of the University of Western Ontario, says the meteor rate could go as high as 1000 per hour — the definition of a meteor storm. It wouldn’t be the first time. Close encounters with dusty filaments produced storms of more than 10,000 Draconids per hour in 1933 and 1946 and lesser outbursts in 1985, 1998, and 2005.

Meteors from Comet Giacobini-Zinner stream out of the northern constellation Draco–hence their name. Draconids are among the slowest of all meteors, hitting the atmosphere at a relatively leisurely 20 km/s. The slow pace of Draconid meteors minimizes their danger to satellites and spacecraft and makes them visually distinctive.

“A Draconid gliding leisurely across the sky is a beautiful sight,” says Cooke.

Unfortunately, many of this year’s Draconids will go unseen. Draconids are faint to begin with, and this year they have to complete with an almost-full Moon. Lunar glare will reduce the number of meteors visible from Europe, Africa and the Middle East by 2- to 10-fold. The situation is even worse in North America where the shower occurs in broad daylight—completely obliterating the display.

for more, go to:    http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04oct_draconids/

Argentina 6.2 Earthquake

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Very strong shallow earthquake in Argentina – San Pedro mayor speaks of “impressive shaking”

Last update: October 6, 2011 at 2:20 pm by By 

Update : Interview from Cadena3 with the “intendente” of San Pedro de Jujuy Mr. Esteban Zamar. San Pedro de Jujuy is the second most populated city of the Jujuy province and is located approx. 60 km from the epicenter.
Click here for the interview (Spanish)
Most important in English : Mr. Zamar is continuously thanking God that despite the intense shaking only light damage has been inflicted in San Pedro. He is thanking God too that nobody got hurt.

Update : People in the quake area have reported that the shaking lasted for about 10 seconds.

Update : The earthquake was also felt in Asuncion, Paraguay

Update : What astonishes us more and more at Earthquake-Report.com is that NO-ONE talks about the villages at a few km from the epicenter but ONLY about the provincial capitals (big cities of course). Most of the attention should go the the people living in a radius of 20 km from the epicenter location, even more when such a shallow earthquake occurs.

Update : So far no traces of serious damage or injuries. Signs of broken windows in San Salvador de Jujuy.
Mobile networks were out of business for several minutes in Salta.

Update : The information in the local press can be called “minimal”. Even the San Salvador de Jujuy local press (closest to the epicenter) has only a couple of paragraphs citing the seismic data as the main content.

Update : People living in San Pedro have reported a MMI VI shaking (strong shaking). San Pedro is approx. 60 km from the epicenter. San Pedro has a population of 58,430 people!)

Update : Based on our CATDAT data from November 19, 1973 and the current data, earthquake-report.com expects a similar kind of damage and NO casualties.

Update : James Daniell’s CATDAT reports : In November 19, 1973, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake produced damage in the town’s eastern provinces of Salta and Jujuy, especially in Santa Clara. No casualties. The estimated peak intensity reached VII degrees on the Modified Mercalli scale and had a magnitude Mb = 5.9 degrees on the Richter scale.
Besides this earthquake there have been many nearby earthquakes without major damage

to read more, and for the link to the interview, go to:   http://earthquake-report.com/2011/10/06/very-dangerous-and-very-strong-shallow-earthquake-in-argentina/

Historic Evidence of Collapse of Canary Islands Volcano

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Scientific paper reveals massive historic Tenerife volcano flank collapse

Last update: October 6, 2011 at 10:57 am by By 

Written by Dave Petley
Dave Petley is the Wilson Professor of Hazard and Risk in the Department of Geography at Durham University in the United Kingdom. His blog provides a commentary on landslide events occurring worldwide, including the landslides themselves, latest research, and conferences and meetings.

This post provides a brief review of a new paper that describes a newly discovered catastrophic landslide deposit in Tenerife.
One of the most intriguing but poorly understood landslide types is that of thevolcanic flank collapse.  In a volcanic flank collapse, the side of a volcano fails, usually catastrophically, generating a landslide.  These slides can be really big – tens or even hundreds of cubic kilometers – and they can travel huge distances along the sea floor.  Such failures grabbed attention a few years ago due to the potential (overstated, in my opinion) for generating a catastrophic tsunami.

However, we understand such phenomena  really poorly.  There are a number of reasons for this, principally that:
a. They occur rarely (globally about one in every 25 years on average), so actually recording one is a challenge
b. the remains tend to lie in a very dispersed state on the floor of the deep ocean.  Fieldwork at 4 km water depth remains difficult, even if you are really good at holding your breath.

However, it is one particular aspect of these landslides that remains elusive, but is crucially important.  This is the trigger of the collapse event (i.e. of the landslide itself).  Numerous mechanisms have been proposed, including sea level change, climate change, hydrothermal pressure, intrusion of volcanic material, and various others.  It has proven very difficult to ascertain the importance of each of these.  This is an important question if we are to reliably estimate the hazard associated with future potential collapses.

In a paper published in Geology this month, Harris et al. 2011 report a very interesting find on the island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. This is the remains of an ancient collapse event on the south-eastern part of Cañadas volcano.  The landslide deposit, which is up to 50 metres thick, has been mapped across a large area – 90 square kilometres – and this is just the onshore component of the mass, which may extend another 50 km offshore.  The deposit consists of a classic debris avalanche material, with large (typically up to 12 m long axis), shattered blocks in a highly disrupted, unsorted matrix.  This is typical of a highly energetic, very large collapse event. Intriguingly, in the upper part of the deposit some fluviolacustrine (water/lake) sediments are found in the remains of hollows, indicating that in the aftermath of the landslide shallow lakes formed on the surface, presumably as a result of blockages created by the landslide.  Associated with the landslide deposit are the remains of pyroclastic flows.

to read more, go to:   http://earthquake-report.com/2011/10/06/scientific-paper-reveals-massive-historic-tenerife-volcano-flank-collapse/

Severe Weather on the Way

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10/5/2011– Tornaodes in Texas & Snow out west = severe coming to midwest / east coast soon

Posted on October 5, 2011 by sincedutch

 

As the low pressure system moves in from the west / northwest .. it is pulling cold air to the south.. also.. the southern arm of the system is pulling warm air up from the south.. mixing in North Texas.. producing tornadoes / tornadic cells.

here is the video:

to see the video and for more, go to:   http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/