April 2015

How earthquake safety measures could have saved thousands of lives in Nepal

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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Earthquake engineers often say earthquakes don't kill people, collapsing buildings do. The tragic loss of life that followed the huge earthquake in Nepal on April 25 occurred despite the fact that the country is among the world's leaders in community-based efforts to reduce disaster risk. But poverty, corruption, and poor governance have all led to a failure to enforce building codes – as has a shortage of skilled engineers, planners and architects.</span></i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly the country was on its way to deploying knowledge and skills to tackle its long-term vulnerability just as the ground shook.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So why aren't more buildings designed to withstand shaking – even extreme shaking.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To keep buildings standing, it is essential to have adequate building and planning codes, as well as proper training and certification for professionals such as engineers, architects, and planners. But having certification and codes on paper does not ensure implementation or compliance. Nepal does, after all, have some of these things. Laws and regulations must also be monitored and enforced. That is not easy in a country such as Nepal, which has isolated villages, a history of conflict and many governance difficulties.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vast vulnerability</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Financial as well as social resources are needed to set up earthquake resistant buildings. Governments at all levels need to be functioning and competent in order to engage with processes such as urban planning and earthquake-resistant construction. Citizens must trust and have the opportunity to work with their governments, including the law enforcement and judicial sectors.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's not just about buildings. Many non-structural measures are needed to ensure survivability in earthquakes. Appliances such as televisions, microwaves, hot water boilers, and refrigerators (which do not always exist in Nepalese homes) must be securely fastened to the floors and the walls. Otherwise, they move and topple, killing as readily as building collapse. Even in affluent earthquake-prone locations such as New Zealand and California, we see shockingly low rates of households enacting these basic measures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But Nepal is not New Zealand or California. It has been wracked by conflict and troubled by unstable governments, not to mention the governance issues caused by being sandwiched between China and India. It has long had high poverty and low formal education rates.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite recent improvements, Nepal still lags behind other countries when it comes to human development and it is still seen as highly corrupt. It also scores badly on child health and gender equality measurements.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When families struggle daily for enough food to keep their children healthy, they are not likely to spend time thinking about making their home earthquake resistant.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And when children are malnourished and stunted, they perform worse in school. That leads to long-term education inadequacies that prevent them from developing into adults with the skills to lobby for adequate and enforced building codes. What's more, when women lack the same opportunities as men, half the population is excluded from demanding and enacting good governance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All these factors contribute to the country's vulnerability. All these factors have led to housing and infrastructure prone to collapse in an earthquake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rebuilding a nation</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">None of these things can be solved overnight. Tackling vulnerability is a long-term process, yet earthquakes strike and bring down buildings in seconds and minutes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As the earthquake struck, Nepalese people were working hard to overcome these vulnerability conditions. My friends and colleagues from the country have taught me plenty about retrofitting buildings and constructing earthquake-resistant homes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They travelled to communities with small shake tables, which are used to simulate earthquakes by shaking model houses or building components, showing the difference between an earthquake-resistant house and a non-earthquake resistant house. They made many schools safe. They taught school children and their parents about earthquake-safe behaviour.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These efforts saved hundreds of lives, if not more, during the recent tremors. With a few more decades, a mere instant in geological time, they could have made Nepal comparatively safe from earthquake disasters despite earthquakes. In that time, so many more buildings would have been retrofitted, we might have had adequate building code enforcement, and most importantly, an earthquake-educated and vulnerability-educated generation would have started to take power.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nepal must now continue these efforts in order to avoid similar future devastation. We can be optimistic. Education is happening – for boys and girls. Women are increasingly being given equal opportunities as men. This means the Nepalese people are taking charge of their own health, their own environment, and their own sustainability. That is vulnerability reduction over the long-term.</span></span></div>
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<i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">The Conversation</span></i></div>
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How earthquake safety measures could have saved thousands of lives in Nepal

Earthquake engineers often say earthquakes don't kill people, collapsing buildings do. The tragic loss of life that followed the ...

New significant threat in Nepal for the next months

landslides, Natural Disasters, News 6:44 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JjZaoHqUC4Y/VUD8MSCg5DI/AAAAAAAAFGQ/CtaEvYLXwiM/s1600/Landslides%2C%2Bmudslides%2Blikely%2Bto%2Bremain%2Ba%2Bsignificant%2Bthreat%2Bin%2BNepal%2Bfor%2Bmonths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JjZaoHqUC4Y/VUD8MSCg5DI/AAAAAAAAFGQ/CtaEvYLXwiM/s1600/Landslides%2C%2Bmudslides%2Blikely%2Bto%2Bremain%2Ba%2Bsignificant%2Bthreat%2Bin%2BNepal%2Bfor%2Bmonths.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.3071994781494px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">Map of landslide and landslide dam hazard potential. Credit: Marin Clark, Nathan Niemi and Sean Gallen</span></span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The threat of landslides and mudslides remains high across much of Nepal's high country, and the risk is likely to increase when the monsoon rains arrive this summer, according to a University of Michigan researcher.</span></i></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="28ip5-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$28ip5" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="28ip5-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$28ip5.0:$28ip5-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">U-M geomorphologist Marin Clark and two colleagues have assessed the landslide hazard in Nepal following Saturday's magnitude-7.8 earthquake. They looked for locations where landslides likely occurred during the earthquake, as well as places that are at high risk in the coming weeks and months.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="28ip5-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$28ip5" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="28ip5-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$28ip5.0:$28ip5-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="cp9p9-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cp9p9" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="cp9p9-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cp9p9.0:$cp9p9-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The analysis revealed tens of thousands of locations at high risk, Clark said.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="9tffs-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9tffs" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="9tffs-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9tffs.0:$9tffs-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The majority of them, we expect, have already happened and came down all at once with the shaking on Saturday," she said. "But there will still be slopes that have not yet failed but were weakened. So there will be a continued risk during aftershocks and with the recent rainfall, and again when the monsoon rains arrive this summer."</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="9tffs-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9tffs" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="9tffs-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9tffs.0:$9tffs-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="1n0sd-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$1n0sd" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="1n0sd-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$1n0sd.0:$1n0sd-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Information from the U-M-led study has been shared with the U.S Geological Survey, NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other responding agencies. It is being used help prioritize both satellite observations and the analysis of data from those satellites, said Clark, an associate professor in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="cvtis-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cvtis" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="cvtis-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cvtis.0:$cvtis-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The satellites looked first at places where lots of people live, including Kathmandu and the foothills areas to the south," Clark said. "Those areas do not look significantly impacted by landsliding, but we're worried about the high country," she said.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="cvtis-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cvtis" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="cvtis-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cvtis.0:$cvtis-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="aehfo-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aehfo" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="aehfo-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aehfo.0:$aehfo-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The region at highest risk for landslides and mudslides is the mountainous area along the Nepal-Tibet border, north of Kathmandu and west of Mount Everest, directly above the fault rupture. The highest-risk zone is at elevations above 8,200 feet in a region that covers 17,550 square miles, which is roughly twice the size of Massachusetts.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="aehfo-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aehfo" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="aehfo-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aehfo.0:$aehfo-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="fdn7c-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fdn7c" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="fdn7c-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fdn7c.0:$fdn7c-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cloud cover has blocked observation of much of that region since Saturday's earthquake. But news stories and social media reports of landslides in Nepal's Gorka District and Langtang Valley are consistent with the Clark team's assessment, which showed that those areas are at high risk, she said.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="6h350-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6h350" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="6h350-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6h350.0:$6h350-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Remote villages are scattered throughout the high-risk zone, which also contains the main highway that connects Kathmandu and Tibet. The area is popular with trekkers and mountaineers, as well.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="7g4ng-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7g4ng" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="7g4ng-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7g4ng.0:$7g4ng-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Many small Nepalese villages throughout this region have likely been cut off from the rescue operation," Clark said. "This is also high season for trekking and mountaineering, so I expect there are a large number of foreign tourists there, as well."</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="7g4ng-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7g4ng" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="7g4ng-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7g4ng.0:$7g4ng-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="a0vug-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a0vug" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="a0vug-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a0vug.0:$a0vug-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Clark team's assessment of the landslide risk was based on a computer analysis that looked at earthquake shaking, slope steepness and the strength of various rock types.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="d36ir-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$d36ir" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="d36ir-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$d36ir.0:$d36ir-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Their initial analysis was completed Saturday afternoon and was shared with the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies on Saturday evening. It was revised Sunday morning and distributed through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program on Sunday afternoon.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="5gko3-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$5gko3" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="5gko3-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$5gko3.0:$5gko3-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More than 200,000 landslides occurred following a magnitude-7.9 earthquake in a mountainous region of Sichuan Province, China, in 2008, according to Clark. Many of those landslides blocked roads, which slowed response and recovery efforts. The final death toll for that quake was about 70,000.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="5gko3-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$5gko3" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="5gko3-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$5gko3.0:$5gko3-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="dul31-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$dul31" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="dul31-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$dul31.0:$dul31-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Landsliding is a general term for slowly to very rapidly descending rock and debris. A mudslide or mudflow is a fluid mix of mud and debris that moves down a slope.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="cp64-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cp64" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="cp64-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$cp64.0:$cp64-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Landslides in mountainous regions can also block river valleys, creating a significant flooding hazard. Water builds up behind those dam-like structures, creating the potential for catastrophic flooding if the dams are overtopped and then fail.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="58qef-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$58qef" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="58qef-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$58qef.0:$58qef-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"With the satellite images, we'll be looking first at the highest-risk landslide areas that are close to big rivers," Clark said. "Those locations are high priorities."</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="fpo4a-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fpo4a" style="color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="fpo4a-0-0" data-reactid=".a8.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fpo4a.0:$fpo4a-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Clark's collaborators on the landslide hazard assessment are U-M's Nathan Niemi and Sean Gallen, a former U-M postdoctoral researcher under Clark who recently accepted a position at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.</span></span></div>
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New significant threat in Nepal for the next months

Map of landslide and landslide dam hazard potential. Credit: Marin Clark, Nathan Niemi and Sean Gallen The threat of landslides a...

How cracking explains underwater volcanoes and the Hawaiian bend

earth, News, volcano 6:21 PM

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The discovery helps explain the spectacular bend in the famous underwater range, the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, where the bottom half kinks at a sixty degree angle to the east of its top half.</i></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"There has been speculation among geoscientists for decades that some underwater volcanoes form because of fracturing," said Professor Dietmar Muller, from the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences and an author on the research findings published in Nature Geoscience today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"But this is the first comprehensive analysis of the rocks that form in this setting that confirms their origins."</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has long been accepted that as the Earth's plates move over fixed hot spots in its underlying mantle, resulting eruptions create chains of now extinct underwater volcanoes or 'seamounts'.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the most famous is the Hawaiian-Emperor chain in the northern Pacific Ocean. The seamounts of that chain are composed mainly of ocean island basalts - the type of lava that erupts above hot spots.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But north of the Hawaiian chain, in a formation called the Musicians Ridge, researchers found samples from seamounts that were not made up of the ocean island basalts you would expect from plates moving over a hot spot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The oldest part of the Musicians Ridge formed approximately 90 million years ago from hot spots but these new samples are only about 50 million years old and have a different geochemistry," said Professor Muller.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"They did not form because of a hot spot but because of plates cracking open at their weakest point, allowing new magma to rise to the seabed and restart the formation of underwater volcanoes. They are near extinct hot spot volcanoes because that hot spot action millions of years earlier helped weaken the crust (the layer directly above the mantle) where new volcanoes now form."</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Vulnerable spots in the Earth's plates crack when they are stressed, in this case due to movement of the Pacific Plate which started to dive or submerge back into the Earth's crust at its northern and western edges around 50 million years ago.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The formation of these younger seamounts caused by the deformation of the Pacific Plate at its margins suggests a link to the unique bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor chain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"We believe tectonic changes along the margins of the Pacific Plate around 50 million years ago put the weakest points of the Pacific Ocean crust under tension and created the youngest Musicians Ridge seamounts," said Professor Muller.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"It also caused the flow in the slowly convecting mantle under the Pacific to change dramatically, to the point that the Hawaiian hot spot in the Earth's mantle changed its position.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The resulting seamounts along the Hawaii-Emperor chain changed their position accordingly and the bend was born."</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This work provides a solid foundation for understanding other 'non-hot spot' volcanism seen elsewhere, for example the Puka Puka Ridge in the South Pacific.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><u><i><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Provided by University of Sydney  </span><span style="line-height: 16px;"> by Verity Leatherdale</span></i></u></span></div>
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How cracking explains underwater volcanoes and the Hawaiian bend

The discovery helps explain the spectacular bend in the famous underwater range, the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, where the botto...

Why the Nepalese quake was so destructive

Earhquakes, News 5:58 PM

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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The earthquake, which wreaked havoc in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal on Saturday about noon local time, was the strongest quake in the world so far this year. With a magnitude of 7.8 it was felt over a very large area from the Indian capital Delhi 500 miles to the west, to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, about the same distance to the southeast. The large quake triggered a major avalanche on the south slopes of Mt. Everest which devastated the base camp, where hundreds of climbers were waiting for a break in the weather to ascend the world's highest peak. More than a dozen people are feared to have died in the avalanche. Mt. Everest lies 140 miles east of the epicenter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The worst damage reported so far occurred in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, where many buildings collapsed and at least 524 people lost their lives. Police sources spoke of 1000 more deaths in the rural areas of Nepal. 50 more people were killed in northeastern India, and China also reported at least twelve fatalities as a consequence of the quake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>One of the reasons for the quake's destructive power was its shallow depth. Calculations by all major earthquake monitoring agencies in the US and Europe put the depth between 7 and 10 miles. Contributing to the devastation was the fact that Kathmandu lies in a basin filled with about 2000 feet of sediments from a former lake. During the shaking of an earthquake, such sedimentary basins tend to amplify the ground motion and thereby increase the destruction. The worst historic effect of this kind led to the huge destruction in Mexico City during an earthquake in 1985.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The cause for Saturday's earthquake is the northward movement of the Indian Plate. It crawls with a speed of about 2 inches per year, roughly the same rate with which the Pacific Plate slides past North American in our area. However, the major tectonic difference between California and the Indo-Eurasian plate boundary is the consequence of the plate encounter. When India meets the huge Eurasian Plate, it is forced to dive into the Earth's mantle. This head-on collision also thrusts upwards the Himalayas, making it the highest mountain chain in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This plate collision also causes some of the most devastating earthquakes in the world. In the last 125 years, this eastern section of the Himalayan Front alone has seen at least three quakes of magnitude 8 or greater. In 1897 and in 1950 the Indian state of Assam and neighboring Tibet were shaken by quakes with magnitudes of 8.1 and 8.6, respectively. The total death toll for both quakes exceeded 5000. In 1934 Nepal and the neighboring Indian state of Bihar suffered severe damage when an 8.2 quake struck. Almost 20,000 people perished in this quake, most of them in Nepal. This quake destroyed a quarter of all buildings in Kathmandu.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1998 an international group of seismologists and experts on disaster preparedness got together and evaluated the seismic risk for the Kathmandu Valley. The report they published one year later on the likely earthquake scenario makes very eerie reading, because it describes pretty much in detail what happened when the real temblor struck this Saturday.</span></div>
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Why the Nepalese quake was so destructive

The earthquake, which wreaked havoc in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal on Saturday about noon local time, was the strongest quake in th...

Why it is so hard to predict where and when earthquakes will strike

Earhquakes, News 3:41 PM

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Can earthquakes ever be predicted? This question is timely after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal recently. If authorities had more warning that the earthquake was coming, they may have been able to save more lives.</i></span></div>
While Nepal is a documented area of previous seismic activity, at the moment there is no technique that provides predictions of sufficient clarity to allow for evacuations at short notice. So if we cannot predict these events now, are there avenues of research to provide useful predictions in the future?<br />The key word here is "useful". It is possible to make long-term forecasts about future earthquake activity, partly by using the past record of earthquakes as a guide. There is no reason to believe that a region of the Earth is going to behave differently in the next few thousands of years from its pattern over the same range back in time. In the short term, seismologists can draw on data from recording stations, with records going back roughly 40 years on a global scale.<br />Within hours of a major earthquake there are estimates of its epicentre, magnitude (the amount of energy released), the depth at which it originated, the orientation of the geological fault that caused it and the direction in which it moved. The event in Nepal was a thrust fault, meaning that the upper part of the Earth was shortened by a few metres, with the rock lying above the fault plane moving southwards over the rock lying beneath it.</div>
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<b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gathering the data</b></div>
<br /><br />Information about past earthquakes comes from a number of sources, not least historical records. But such records are incomplete, even in earthquake-prone countries with long traditions of documenting natural disasters, such as China and Iran. Other lines of evidence are available, including measuring and dating the offsets (movements caused by earthquakes) of man-made or natural features that can be accurately dated, such as the walls of a castle or a city. Faults cutting the Great Wall of China have been documented in this way.<br /><br /><br />Seismologists also dig trenches across faults known or suspected to be active, and can recover rocks and sediments affected by earthquakes. These events can dated, for example by radiocarbon analysis of plant remains disturbed by the faulting.<br /><br />By combining the earthquake ages with the size of the damaged areas, it is possible to understand earthquake patterns over hundreds or even thousands of years. Scientists use this information as a guideline for future behaviour, but it is clear that the faults do not slip after the same period of time between earthquakes (the recurrence interval).<br /><br />Nor does a fault necessarily rupture in the same place in successive earthquakes. An earthquake releasing stress along one fault segment may place more stress on an adjacent region, thereby increasing the earthquake likelihood in that area. This may occur soon after the original event, which explains the phenomenon of aftershocks. Nepal has already seen aftershocks of a magnitude greater than six, and is likely to see more.<br /><br /><b>Global <a href="http://www.geologyin.com/2014/03/hotspots-hottest-places-on-earth.html" target="_blank">hotspots</a></b><br />Instrumental and historical records combine to make a global picture of earthquake activity. There are, unfortunately, many danger areas. Eurasia bears the brunt, because of the collision of the Indian and Arabian plates with the rest of Eurasia. Therefore China, Iran, Pakistan and India all share Nepal's susceptibility to large earthquakes. Other danger areas lie along the margins of the Pacific and Indian oceans, where one plate slides under another in a process called <a href="http://www.geologyin.com/2014/10/subduction-place-where-earth-got-eaten.html" target="_blank">subduction</a>. Earthquakes at such plate boundaries can cause devastating tsunamis, like in Japan in 2011.<br /><br />Newer lines of research include precise measurements of the movement of a fault during earthquakes and the motion of the Earth's surface between earthquakes. Across the Himalayas there is around 20mm of convergence (shortening) every year, roughly half of the overall convergence between the Indian and Eurasian plates. The remainder is accommodated further north, in ranges such as the Tian Shan and the Tibetan Plateau. In other words, every year a person in Siberia becomes roughly 40 mm closer to a person in central India, as the Earth's crust deforms across the broad region between them.<br /><br />This strain builds up over time and is released in an earthquake like the snapping of an elastic band. Faster strain, longer faults and greater strength in the upper part of the Earth in a particular region can all lead to larger earthquakes. The Himalayas feature a deadly combination of these factors, leading to very large events of the kind experienced on April 25.<br /><br />It is not sensible to be naively optimistic about improvements in earthquake prediction, but all research on the past and present behaviour of active faults is to be welcomed. It is timely that the UK's Natural Environment Research Council has just announced funding for research into earthquakes and resilience to earthquakes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i><u> by Mark Allen, The Conversation</u></i></span></h5>
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Why it is so hard to predict where and when earthquakes will strike

Can earthquakes ever be predicted? This question is timely after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Nepal recently. If authorit...

Alternate theory of inhabitation of North America disproven

Earth History 7:27 PM

Alternate theory of inhabitation of North America disproven

Map of Bering Sea. The Bering Strait is a comparatively shallow area between Alaska and Siberia. The most widely accepted theory...

Bizarre Newly Discovered 'platypus' dinosaur: Vegetarian relative of T. rex

dinosaur 3:04 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oItFILJc7cg/VT910Y7zctI/AAAAAAAAFE0/zLT5-xHH7Kg/s1600/Bizarre%2BNewly%2BDiscovered%2Bplatypus%2Bdinosaur%2BVegetarian%2Brelative%2Bof%2BT%2Brex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oItFILJc7cg/VT910Y7zctI/AAAAAAAAFE0/zLT5-xHH7Kg/s1600/Bizarre%2BNewly%2BDiscovered%2Bplatypus%2Bdinosaur%2BVegetarian%2Brelative%2Bof%2BT%2Brex.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Bizarre: Palaeontologists are referring to Chilesaurus diegosuarezi as a 'platypus' dinosaur because of its bizarre combination of characteristics including its small skull and feet, which are more like those seen on long-neck dinosaurs. The dinosaur itself, has a lengthy neck and must have had good balance (illustrated)</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="a55a3-0-0" data-reactid=".2ri.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a55a3" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="a55a3-0-0" data-reactid=".2ri.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a55a3.0:$a55a3-0-0"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although closely related to the notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, a new lineage of dinosaur discovered in Chile is proving to be an evolutionary jigsaw puzzle, as it preferred to graze upon plants. Chilesaurus boasted a proportionally small skull, hands with two fingers like Tyrannosaurus rex and feet more akin to primitive long-neck dinosaurs.</span></i></span></div>
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Palaeontologists are referring to <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> diegosuarezi</em> as a 'platypus' dinosaur because of its bizarre combination of characters that resemble different dinosaur groups. For example, <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> </em>boasted a proportionally small skull, hands with two fingers like <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Tyrannosaurus rex</em> and feet more akin to primitive long-neck dinosaurs.</div>
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<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> diegosuarezi</em> is nested within the theropod group of dinosaurs, the dinosaurian group that gathers the famous meat eaters <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Velociraptor</em>,<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Carnotaurus </em>and <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Tyrannosaurus</em>, and from which birds today evolved. The presence of herbivorous theropods was up until now only known in close relatives of birds, but <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> </em>shows that a meat-free diet was acquired much earlier than thought.</div>
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<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> diegosuarezi</em> is named after the country where it was collected, as well as honouring Diego Suárez, the seven year old boy who discovered the bones. He discovered the fossil remains of this creature at the Toqui Formation in Aysén, south of Chilean Patagonia, in rocks deposited at the end of the Jurassic Period, approximately 145 million years ago.</div>
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Diego was in the region with his parents, Chilean geologists Manuel Suarez and Rita de la Cruz, who were studying rocks in the Chilean Patagonia, with the aim to better understand the formation of the Andes mountain range. Diego stumbled across the fossils while him and his sister, Macarena, were looking for decorative stones.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="6kt9h-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6kt9h" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="6kt9h-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6kt9h.0:$6kt9h-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Palaeontologists are referring to</i></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="bnd3e-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$bnd3e" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="bnd3e-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$bnd3e.0:$bnd3e-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Chilesaurus diegosuarezi (illustrated)</i></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="c347a-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$c347a" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="c347a-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$c347a.0:$c347a-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>as a 'platypus' dinosaur because of</i></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="a090u-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a090u" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="a090u-0-0" data-reactid=".2wd.1:4.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a090u.0:$a090u-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i>its bizarre combination of features</i></span></span></div>
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Due to <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em></em>' unusual combination of characters, it was initially thought that Diego had uncovered several species. However, since Diego's find, more than a dozen <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em></em> specimens have been excavated, including four complete skeletons -- a first for the Jurassic Period in Chile -- and they demonstrate that this dinosaur certainly combined a variety of unique anatomical traits.</div>
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Most of the specimens are the size of a turkey, but some isolated bones reveal that the maximum size of <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> was around three metres long. Chilean and Argentinian palaeontologists from institutions including the University of Birmingham, along with Diego's parents, have been studying these skeletons, with the findings published in full in <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Nature</em> on April 27th.</div>
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Other features present in very different groups of dinosaurs <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em></em>adopted were robust forelimbs similar to Jurassic theropods such as Allosaurus, although its hands were provided with two blunt fingers, unlike the sharp claws of fellow theropod Velociraptor. <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em>' pelvic girdle resembles that of the ornithischian dinosaurs, whereas it is actually classified in the other basic dinosaur division -- Saurischia.</div>
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The different parts of the body of <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> were adapted to a particular diet and way of life, which was similar to other groups of dinosaurs. As a result of these similar habits, different regions of the body of <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em>evolved resembling those present in other, unrelated groups of dinosaurs, which is a phenomenon called evolutionary convergence.</div>
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<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> represents one of the most extreme cases of mosaic convergent evolution recorded in the history of life. For example, the teeth of <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em>are very similar to those of primitive long-neck dinosaurs because they were selected over millions of years as a result of a similar diet between these two lineages of dinosaurs.</div>
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Martín Ezcurra, Researcher, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham said: '<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus </em>can be considered a 'platypus' dinosaur because different parts of its body resemble those of other dinosaur groups due to mosaic convergent evolution. In this process, a region or regions of an organism resemble others of unrelated species because of a similar mode of life and evolutionary pressures. <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em>provides a good example of how evolution works in deep time and it is one of the most interesting cases of convergent evolution documented in the history of life.</div>
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'<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> shows how much data is still completely unknown about the early diversification of major dinosaur groups. This study will force palaeontologists to take more care in the future in the identification of fragmentary or isolated dinosaur bones. It comes as false relationship evidence may arise because of cases of convergent evolution, such as that present in <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em>.'</div>
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Dr. Fernando Novas, Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum, Buenos Aires, Argentina, led the research on <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> and said: '<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus </em>is the first complete dinosaur from the Jurassic Period found in Chile and represents one of the most complete and anatomically correct documented theropod dinosaurs from the southern hemisphere. Although plant-eating theropods have been recorded in North America and Asia, this is the first time a theropod with this characteristic has been found in a southern landmass.</div>
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<em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> was an odd plant-eating dinosaur only to be found in Chile. However, the recurrent discovery in beds of the Toqui Formation of its bones and skeletons clearly demonstrates that <em style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Chilesaurus</em> was, by far, the most abundant dinosaur in southwest Patagonia 145 million years ago.'</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i>The above story is based on <a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2015/04/Chilesaurus.aspx" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4c7a9f; outline-offset: 0.2em; outline: red dotted 0.14em !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.bham.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4c7a9f; outline-offset: 0.2em; outline: red dotted 0.14em !important; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">University of Birmingham</strong></a>. <span style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</span></i></span></div>
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Did Kathmandu shift? Questions and Answers

Earhquakes, News 6:35 PM

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The tremor which struck Nepal on Saturday, killing more than 3,500 people, may have caused a land area around the capital Kathmandu to budge by several metres, experts say.</i></span></div>
<br /><i>Q: Did Kathmandu move?</i><br />Possibly about three metres (10 feet) southward, according to initial analysis of seismological data obtained from sound waves which travel through Earth after an earthquake, said University of Cambridge tectonics expert James Jackson.<br /><br />An area of about 150 kilometres (93 miles) long and 50 km wide in a fault running underneath the Kathmandu valley, gave in after decades of pressure, causing rocks on top of the fault to slip southward over the rock underneath it.<br /><br />The fault lies between two tectonic plates—one bearing India pushing northward into a plate carrying Europe and Asia at a rate of about two centimetres (0.8 inches) per year—the process that created the Himalayas in the first place.<br /><br />Saturday's lurch likely saw the Kathmandu region rise (in elevation) by about half a metre, while the area to its north sank by about the same margin.<br /><br />Mount Everest was likely be too far east to have been affected.<br /><br />The shifts may be large enough to necessitate adjustments to high-precision world maps.<br /><br /><i>Q: How does the quake compare to others?</i><br />Japan's 2011 Tohoku earthquake saw undersea plate movements of about 50 metres, said Paul Tapponnier from Singapore's Earth Observatory, and large land shifts along the shoreline as well.<br /><br />The largest earthquake in the Himalayas hit Assam in 1950, displacing portions of land by almost 30 metres.<br /><br />The latest quake had a magnitude of 7.8, much less violent than the 8.2-8.5 typical for the area, said Tapponnier, and likely not strong enough to have relieved all the stress accumulated along the fault.<br /><br /><i>Q: When will the next one be?</i><br />One thing the experts agree on, is that there will be more major quakes in the stricken region. What nobody knows, is when.<br /><br />According to Gary Gibson of the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences, earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7.5 have shaken Kathmandu every 100 years on average over the last 1,000 years. But the intervals between them varied from 23 years to 273 years.<br /><br />Just a part of the fault gives in every time, making the adjoining area unstable in turn, and setting up conditions for the next quake, said the experts.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.geologyin.com/2015/04/what-caused-nepal-earthquake.html" target="_blank">What caused the Nepal earthquake?</a></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">© 2015 AFP</span></div>
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Did Kathmandu shift? Questions and Answers

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Mongolia fined $100M for expropriating uranium mine

minning, News 4:41 PM

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<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="a0chp-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a0chp" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="a0chp-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$a0chp.0:$a0chp-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>An international arbitration tribunal has ordered Mongolia to fork over $100 million for expropriating the Dornod uranium project from Khan Resources (CNSX:KRI) back in 2009.</i></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="7d0sq-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7d0sq" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="7d0sq-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7d0sq.0:$7d0sq-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$7d0sq.0:$7d0sq-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="e3bg5-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$e3bg5.0:$e3bg5-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Canadian company had sought $354 million in compensation for having its mining licenses cancelled by Mongolia and given to Russian producer ARMZ, but the tribunal lowered the payout to $100 million, including interest and costs, based on previous offers made for the asset, Reuters reported.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aqnlc-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aqnlc.0:$aqnlc-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$aqnlc.0:$aqnlc-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="70ug5-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$70ug5.0:$70ug5-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The decision caused stock in the $41.5-million small-cap to climb 27.9 percent on Monday.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2ibh7-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$2ibh7.0:$2ibh7-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$2ibh7.0:$2ibh7-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="73fbf-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$73fbf" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="73fbf-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$73fbf.0:$73fbf-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Changes to Mongolia's 2012 foreign investment law (SEFIL) approved by the country's cabinet in 2013 provided more certainty surrounding mining taxes and royalties and scraps the distinction between private foreign and domestic investors, but seem to have had little impact.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="9h2kf-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9h2kf" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="9h2kf-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9h2kf.0:$9h2kf-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$9h2kf.0:$9h2kf-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="6d5lo-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6d5lo" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="6d5lo-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$6d5lo.0:$6d5lo-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last August Mongolia's central bank said fresh capital entering the country fell 70% for a total of $873.2 million from January to June against a year earlier. Last year's dismal numbers followed a 47% drop during 2013.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="44qsr-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$44qsr" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="44qsr-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$44qsr.0:$44qsr-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$44qsr.0:$44qsr-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="egcr3-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$egcr3" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="egcr3-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$egcr3.0:$egcr3-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The number one issue for investor confidence to return is the future of Oyu Tolgoi.</span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="ckbr2-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$ckbr2" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="ckbr2-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$ckbr2.0:$ckbr2-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$ckbr2.0:$ckbr2-0-0.0" /></span></span></div>
<div class="_209g _2vxa" data-block="true" data-offset-key="fk4p8-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fk4p8" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; direction: ltr; line-height: 16px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span data-offset-key="fk4p8-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fk4p8.0:$fk4p8-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The $6 billion Oyu Tolgoi mine is 34% owned by the Mongolian government with Rio Tinto-controlled Turquoise Hill (TSE:TRQ) owning the rest. But Rio Tinto and the government of Mongolia have been locked in bitter talks over how to fund the $6 billion copper and gold project that at full tilt will transform the Asian nation's economy.</span></span><br />
<span data-offset-key="fk4p8-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fk4p8.0:$fk4p8-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span data-offset-key="fk4p8-0-0" data-reactid=".gw.1:2.0.$right.0.0.0.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.$fk4p8.0:$fk4p8-0-0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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