Is earthquake activity increasing?

China’s tragic magnitude 6.9 earthquake on April 13 and the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, and elsewhere have many wondering if this earthquake activity is unusual.
Scientists say 2010 is not showing signs of unusually high earthquake activity. Since 1900, an average of 16 magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes — the size that seismologists define as major — have occurred worldwide each year. Some years have had as few as 6, as in 1986 and 1989, while 1943 had 32, with considerable variability from year to year.

With six major earthquakes striking in the first four months of this year, 2010 is well within the normal range. Furthermore, from April 15, 2009, to April 14, 2010, there have been 18 major earthquakes, a number also well within the expected variation.

“While the number of earthquakes is within the normal range, this does not diminish the fact that there has been extreme devastation and loss of life in heavily populated areas,” said USGS Associate Coordinator for Earthquake Hazards Dr. Michael Blanpied.

What will happen next? Aftershocks will continue in the regions around each of this year’s major earthquakes sites. It is unlikely that any of these aftershocks will be larger than the earthquakes experienced so far, but structures damaged in the previous events could be further damaged and should be treated with caution. Beyond the ongoing aftershock sequences, earthquakes in recent months have not raised the likelihood of future major earthquakes; that likelihood has not decreased, either. Large earthquakes will continue to occur just as they have in the past.

Source: http://www.usgs.gov/

Record setting caves

World's largest cave - Hang Son Doong or Mountain River Cave.
Located in the heart of the Vietnamese jungle, the cave was first explored by a British team in earlier 2009. Measuring at 200 meters high, 150 meters high, and at least 4.5 kilometers long, it is believed to be almost twice the size of the current record holder, the Deer Cave in Sarawak, Malaysia, which is 100m high and 90m wide.


World's longest cave - Mammoth Cave.
Located near Cave City, Kentucky, the cave has more than 367 miles (591 kilometers) of explored passage but cave explorers believe the cave system will eventually prove to be 560 miles (900 km) long. This record is unlikely to be surpassed in the near future, as the second longest cave in the world, Optimisticeskay Cave, is only 143 miles (230 km) long.


World's deepest cave - Krubera Cave or Voronya Cave.
Located in Abkhazia, Georgia, the distance between the entrance point to the deepest explored point is about 2,191 meters. The cave remains the only cave on Earth deeper than 2,000 metres.

World's most polluted river

It was once a gently flowing river, where fishermen cast their nets, sea birds came to feed and natural beauty left visitors spellbound.Villagers collected water for their simple homes and rice paddies thrived on its irrigation channels. Today, the Citarum river in crisis, choked by the domestic waste of nine million people and thick with the cast-off from hundreds of factories. So dense is the carpet of refuse that the tiny wooden fishing craft which float through it are the only clue to the presence of water.

Their occupants no longer try to fish. It is more profitable to forage for rubbish they can salvage and trade - plastic bottles, broken chair legs, rubber gloves - risking disease for one or two pounds a week if they are lucky.On what was United Nations World Environment Day, the Citarum, near the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, displayed the shocking abuse that mankind has subjected it to.


More than 500 factories, many of them producing textiles which require chemical treatment, line the banks of the 200-mile river, the largest waterway in West Java, spewing waste into the water.

Twenty years ago, this was a place of beauty, and the river still served its people well.As one local man, Arifin, recalled: "Our wives did their washing there and our children swam."Its demise began with rapid industrialisation during the late 1980s.

In December 5, 2008, The Asian Development Bank (ADB) agreed to support Indonesia's efforts to clean up its most important river, the Citarum, through a $500 million multi-tranche loan, which will run for 15 years.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-460077/Is-worlds-polluted-river.html

Gay Men Killed in Iraq

A 67-page report by the Human Rights Watch in Beirut details a shocking trend moving across Iraq. Gay men are being rounded up, tortured and killed while the government stands by.

Men are being targeted by militias for their appearance, such as the length of their hair and the fit of their clothes. Their corpses are dumped in the garbage or hung on the street as a warning.

The killing is most intense in Baghdad, but it is also occurring in other parts of Iraq. Without fear of punishment, the killers invade homes, abducting men suspected of homosexuality. The men are interrogated and brutalized, their mutilated bodies left in the neighborhood the next day.

The failure of authorities to investigate makes reliable figures on how many have been killed unattainable, although the report claims that “hundreds” may have been killed. Despite pleas from gay activists for the Obama administration to step in and “save” Iraqi and *Iranian homosexuals, there is little that can be done.

“Given that one of the stereotypes of LGBT folk in Iraq is that they’re a product of Western influence, calls for the U.S. to somehow take them under its real or rhetorical wing are not likely to be very productive in terms of their safety,” says the author of the report, Scott Long.

Source: http://renovomedia.com/world-news/gay-men-being-tortured-and-killed-in-iraq/

2012: End of the World?

2012 is expected to be year of great positive change. It is not the end of the world! Back in 1899 something was identified called Schumann Cavity Resonance. It is the heart beat or frequency of the Earth. Since its discovery till 1986 this heart beat frequency was constant 7.8 Hertz per second. From 1986 it started to raise dramatically and in 1998 it was reported to be 10 hertz per second. On other hand magnetics of the earth are dropping dramatically and it is expected they will reach zero point in 2012. Maya calendar and other calendars end in 2012, but it is not the end of the world just beginning of the new one since every 26000 years Earth goes through grand cycle of evolution.

Source: interestingfacts.org

Something about Wales

Wales (country that is part of the United Kingdom), there is a village called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (58 letters), which in English means "Saint Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of Saint Tysilio near the red cave." The locals call it Llanfairpwll. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com is the longest single word .com domain name in the world.

Source: interestingfacts.org