February 26, 2005
ABC News reports the finding of a submerged forest off Queensland's northern shore.
The forest sunk 9,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age era. According to the scientists, the forest sank fast, as much as five meters in 20 years. Scholars are worried that since the waters back then rose that fast, the rapid climate change could hit again our planet.
The research, led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, found the tress 10-15 km off shore. The team declared that the theory might be revised, since our scientists were previously claiming that the waters actually rised as much as a few meters in hundreds or thousands of years. This old claim seems to be estimating the speed of the rising waters 20 times slower that it had actually happened.
February 26, 2005
Anchorage Daily News reported that one of the volcanoes found in Antarctica had erupted. Ash and steam were sent to 8000 feet. The other two restless volcanoes, Mount Spurr and Mount Veniaminof were quiet so far.
Atka has had about nine eruptions since 1950. The Alaska Volcano Observatory is wondering if this means that the volcano is becoming intently active again.
February 26, 2005
Scientists discovered active volcanoes and frozen seas on Mars.
NASA scientist Everett Gibson declared: "From what we've seen Mars meets all the requirements that are needed for life to exist".
The research revealed ice packs at the planet's poles, a frozen sea around the equator area, and lava flows dated to 20 million years ago, but also "baby cones", which might still be growing, near the North Pole.
February 23, 2005
United Press International announces starting activity for Mount St. Helens, Washington. The lava dome is growing 15 feet a day. The hot rock collapsed from the sound end of the lava dome. Ash was sent out, and scientists detected seismic activity.
Even if St. Helens erupts, scientists say it will not be a major eruption.
February 21, 2005
Klyuchevskoi volcano, the highest in Eurasia, is located on the Kamchatka Peninsula (North-East Russia). Its eruptions last between 30 days and a couple of years.
On this ocasion, the volcano produced 2.5 km of lava flow. It melted a large part of the massive Ehrman glacier, that measures 30 to 50 meters deep and reaches 300 meters in some places. Volcanic rocks are hurled 300-500 meters in the air.
February 21, 2005
The star, called SGR 1806- 20, is a neutron star, and a pretty exotic one too. It's known as a "soft gamma repeater" (SGR). It was located about 50,000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius and about three billion times farther from us than the Sun.
The reason why it exploded is uncertain, however, the blast that ocurred 20 km away from our galaxy, released more energy in a 10th of a second than the Sun would in 100,000 years.
A neutron star is the remnant of a very large star at the end of its life. It's denser than a white-dwarf. Its blast was so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's upper atmosphere.
This explosion might make scientists rethink the theory related to the extinction of dinosaurs.
If the star had exploded a little closer (speaking in terms of millions of years), scientists said that we would have been fried.