Record-Breaking Slide Would Bury Central Park 66 Feet Deep
Last year’s gigantic landslide at a Utah copper mine probably was the biggest nonvolcanic slide in North America’s modern history, and included two rock avalanches that happened 90 minutes apart and surprisingly triggered 16 small earthquakes, University of Utah scientists discovered.
The landslide – which moved at an average of almost 70 mph and reached estimated speeds of at least 100 mph – left a deposit so large it “would cover New York’s Central Park with about 20 meters (66 feet) of debris,” the researchers report in the January 2014 cover study in the Geological Society of America magazine GSA Today. (more…)
Former NBA player Herren recounts struggle with substance abuse
Former college basketball and NBA player Chris Herren spoke on the University of Delaware campus Thursday, April 19, about the struggle with substance abuse that eventually ended his career.
As a high school athlete, Herren played in the 1994 McDonald’s All-American game, was named player of the year from 1992-1994 by the Boston Globe and was the Gatorade New England Player of the Year from 1993-1994, before enrolling in Boston College to continue playing basketball. (more…)
*Tree trunks, leaves, and kukui nuts indirectly feed bottom fish in submarine canyons off Moloka’i*
Scientists from UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) recently discovered that land-based plant material and coastal macroalgae indirectly support the increased abundances of bottom fish in submarine canyons, like those off the north shore of Moloka’i. Less than a few miles from the shore, these underwater canyons connect to deep river valleys that cut across the landscape of north Moloka’i. The high elevation and forested landscapes along Moloka’i’s north shore provide plant material, including decomposing tree trunks, leaves and tons of kukui nuts, which enter the ocean via river valleys and “pile up” on submarine canyon floors. (more…)
First-Ever Online “Audience Award” Enables Fans to Vote for Best Short Film on Yahoo! Screen
Yahoo! Movies & omg! NOW Feature Behind-The-Scenes Content Straight from Park City
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, is opening the doors to the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, giving independent film fans access to one of the year’s most highly anticipated industry events. The general public will have access to 9 short films from this year’s Festival by visiting sundance.yahoo.com, powered by Yahoo! Screen, Yahoo’s video destination and home to the most comprehensive collection of premium video content. Additionally, for the first time ever, they will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite of those nine short films. Fans will also get behind-the-scenes access to film and entertainment news, celebrities in attendance and the biggest stories of the festival through Yahoo! Movies (https://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/sundance), one of the top destinations online for movie fans with more than 26 million users per month, and omg! (https://omg.yahoo.com), the #1 most-visited celebrity news site on the Internet. (more…)
With news this week of additional radioactive leaks from Fukushima nuclear power plants, the impact on the ocean of releases of radioactivity from the plants remains unclear. But a new study by U.S. and Japanese researchers analyzes the levels of radioactivity discharged from the facility in the first four months after the accident and draws some basic conclusions about the history of contaminant releases to the ocean.
The study, conducted by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution chemist Ken Buesseler and two Japanese colleagues, Michio Aoyama of the Meteorological Research Institute and Masao Fukasawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, reports that discharges from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plants peaked one month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the nuclear accident, and continue through at least July. Their study finds the levels of radioactivity, while quite elevated, are not a direct exposure threat to humans or marine life, but cautions that the impact of accumulated radionuclides in marine sediments is poorly known. (more…)
*Yahoo! to premiere select short films from the Festival online and launch online audience award*
SUNNYVALE, Calif.-– To further demonstrate the company’s commitment to the creative community, Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, today announced it is the Official Sponsor of the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, which runs January 19-29, 2012 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
As a sponsor, Yahoo! will premiere a select number of short films from the Festival on Yahoo! Movies, a leading online movie destination that reaches 27.5 million users per month. Consumers will also be able to vote for an audience award, which will be presented to the winning filmmaker at the Short Film Awards party taking place during the Festival. (more…)
A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates the infestation of trees by mountain pine beetles in the high country across the West could potentially trigger earlier snowmelt and increase water yields from snowpack that accumulates beneath affected trees.
Led by CU-Boulder geological sciences department doctoral student Evan Pugh, the study was undertaken near Grand Lake, Colo., adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, an area that has been devastated by mountain pine beetle attacks in recent years. Mountain pine beetles have killed more than 4 million acres of lodgepole pine trees in Colorado and southern Wyoming since 1996, the most severe outbreak on record. (more…)
WASHINGTON — Geophysicists have made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot and partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. The image suggests that the plume beneath the volcanically active area—renowned today for geysers and hot springs—is even bigger than it appears in earlier images made with earthquake waves.
“It’s like comparing ultrasound and MRI in the human body; they are different imaging technologies,” says geophysics Professor Michael Zhdanov of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Zhdanov is principal author of the new study and an expert on measuring magnetic and electrical fields on Earth’s surface to find oil, gas, minerals and geologic structures underground. (more…)
