• Earthquake 6,6 hit volcanic arc south of Kermadec Islands

    6.6 magnitude earthquake struck in the South Pacific on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The epicenter was south of the Kermadec Islands, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) east-northeast of Auckland, New Zealand, the survey said.The earthquake had a

  • Al-Sarrayat season start to bother Kuwait

    A severe dust storm paralyzed Kuwait Wednesday, suspending air traffic and oil exports.The Kuwait Petroleum Corp. also advised incoming ships to hold off on docking, the official Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported. A top oil official, Sheik Talal al-Khaled, said some

  • Giant ocean whirlpools puzzle scientists

    US scientists discovered two giant whirlpools in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Guyana and Suriname. It became a sensational discovery because this part of the ocean has been studied thoroughly, and no one expected anything like that to appear in the area. More

  • Massive landslides and floods hit Colombia

    As many as 200 people may have been buried in a landslide that swept over houses near Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city. The landslide struck the La Gabriela district of the town of Bello near Medellin, 250 miles northwest of the capital Bogota. The landslide

  • Tornado outbreak in Wisconsin sets record

    A powerful storm system that moved through the nation’s midsection over the weekend caused what may be a record-breaking seven tornadoes in Wisconsin, officials said Monday.”It’s one of the most significant tornado outbreaks in April,” said Rich Mamrosh,

  • Japan raises threat level on nuclear plant to highest level

    Japan finally raised the nuclear threat level of its Fukushima Daiichi power plant from a level 5 to the highest level 7, putting it on a par with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.Japanese government’s Nuclear Safety Commission had earlier revealed that

  • Yellowstone volcanic plume much larger than expected

    Yellowstone National Park hosts a variety of hot springs and geysers, all powered by a plume of molten rock under its surface. At times in the past, that plume has powered activity that was quite a bit less scenic: massive eruptions that have been capable of covering

  • New eruptions reported at Etna volcano in Italy

    Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) reports about the third paroxysmal eruptive episode of the year 2011 from the pit crater on the east flank of the Southeast Crater cone occurred on 10 April, 51 days after the previous paroxysm on 18 February. The

  • Global mangrove forest destroyed rapidly

    New research shows that mangroves store exceptionally more carbon than most tropical forests, but they are being destroyed from coastlines at a rapid rate, causing significant emissions of greenhouse gases.Findings by scientists from the Center for International