Fracking earthquakes in England

This February 2015 video from the USA says about itself:

How Can Fracking Cause an Earthquake?

Columbia University geophysicist Heather Savage talks to the World Science Festival about the geological connections between fracking and earthquakes.

After the Big Oil/Gas caused earthquakes in, eg, Oklahoma in the USA and Groningen in the Netherlands …

By Peter Lazenby in England:

Friday, October 26, 2018

Fracking site suffers worst tremor since process began

A FRACKING site in Lancashire today suffered its worst earth tremor since the controversial process began 12 days ago, bringing gas production to a halt.

The tremor, at a 0.8 level on the scale used to measure earth tremors, breached the maximum 0.5 “red level” at which the process has to be immediately suspended.

Gas extraction by energy exploitation firm Cuadrilla has been halted at the site at Preston New Road, near Fylde, for 18 hours.

The tremor took place two kilometres underground and was the 16th in eight days at the site, since the government allowed fracking to proceed following a seven-year ban on the controversial gas extraction process.

Fracking operations were banned in 2011 following earthquakes at a site near Blackpool.

A Cuadrilla spokesman confirmed that shale layers were being shattered when the tremor was recorded by the independent British Geological Survey.

Claire Stephenson from Frack Free Lancashire said: “The fact that these earth tremors are increasing in intensity is most concerning.

“We’ve now had 16. As previously theorised by geologists, Cuadrilla seem not to know what they are working with, in relation to major and minor geographical faults.

“We once again find our community in the midst of this being forced upon them, having to live through Cuadrilla’s experimentation phase.

“This is where we see that the fracking industry virtually gets to mark their own homework, and the promised ‘gold-standard, robust regulations’ as regularly touted by ministers who have minimal understanding of the fracking process, actually turns out to be nothing more than a gold-plated sham.”

The government gave the go-ahead to fracking at the Lancashire site despite planning permission being refused by Lancashire County Council, and widespread public opposition to the process.

In addition to producing oil and gas [by fracking], the energy industry produces a lot of water, about 10 barrels of water per barrel of oil on average. New research has found that where the produced water is stored underground influences the risk of induced earthquakes: here.

Animals with night vision, video

This 26 October 2018 video says about itself:

Which Animals Have Night Vision?

When many humans are sleeping, some animals are wide-awake. This is because of their unique ability to see in the dark.

Saudi regime continues killing Yemeni civilians

This video says about itself:

Friday market Bayt al Faqih, Yemen (1997)

“Bayt Al-Faqeeh also very famous for its traditional weekly Souqs. The Friday beautiful souq, established in the early 18th century as a trading point for coffee, is one of the most famous Yemeni weekly markets. Traders from Egypt, Syria, Constantinople, Morocco, Iran, India and Europe came to the market of Bayt al-Faqih to purchase the coffee beans and ship them via the ports of al-Makha and Al-Hodeidah”.

That was before the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, decided he wanted to not just murder one critical journalist, but kill ten thousands and potentially millions of Yemeni civilians as well ..

By Jacob Crosse:

Saudi airstrike kills 21 civilians in Yemen

27 October 2018

A United Nations (UN) report released on Thursday confirmed that at least 21 Yemeni civilians were killed and 11 more injured in an October 24 airstrike carried out by Saudi-led coalition forces. The latest civilian target destroyed by Washington’s despotic ally was a vegetable packaging facility, located in the town of Bayt el-Faqih, located approximately 43 miles southwest of Hodeidah. The dead and injured consisted of workers, farmers and children.

According to a Yemen health ministry source, as reported to the Middle East Eye, about half of the fatalities were instant. The remaining deaths were a result of rescuers being unable to reach medical facilities in a timely manner. What should be a one-hour drive from Bayt el-Faqih to Hodeidah now takes over six hours to accomplish as the warring factions have set up checkpoints and roadblocks along the contested highway.

Houthi rebels were not seen in the area, nor was any military equipment found in the aftermath of the slaughter. The Associated Press and Al-Jazeera have confirmed via an unreleased video that charred human remains were scattered throughout the facility and marketplace. This is third airstrike launched by the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) in the last week that has resulted in civilian casualties. The RSAF is well equipped and supplied by Western imperialism, featuring US manufactured Boeing F-15 Eagles and the British Aerospace (BAE) Panavia Typhoons.

On Saturday October 20, RSAF jets bombed Zayed Street in Hodeidah, killing a civilian and injuring four others. Prior to the massacre in Bayt el-Faqih on Wednesday, Saudi jets pummeled a motorcyclist in a residential section of Hodeidah, killing 3, including a child, and wounding 6 more, according to Middle East Eye.

The town of Bayt el-Faqih, and the market surrounding it were regarded by civilians as a “safe” place to prepare fruits and vegetables away from the besieged port city of Hodeidah. Saudi-led strikes have decimated Yemen’s infrastructure, reducing water treatment plants and sanitation facilities in the area to rubble. Because of this, workers and farmers have been obligated to travel to the vegetable plant, washing their crops, before making the dangerous journey to the besieged Red Sea port markets.

In response to these latest war crimes, the reliably ineffectual UN, has, once again, called for an investigation into the Saudi air strikes. It has been established fact since the beginning of the war that the US and UK have supplied the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with over 12 billion dollars in aircraft and ordinance and vital intelligence in coordinating “appropriate” targets for Saudi warplanes. If no “targets” are immediately available, US Air Force KC-135’s are prepared to refuel Saudi bombers, keeping them in sky, ensuring their deadly payload is delivered.

In a January 2016 report, filed by a UN panel to the Security Council, this targeting has included, “…civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sana’a, the port in Hodeidah and domestic transit routes.”

… Colonel Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition stated the Bayt el-Faqih bombing will be, “fully investigated…using an internationally approved process.”

The last time the coalition investigated itself was after Saudi jets savagely bombed a school bus in August, killing 51 people, including 40 children. That investigation concluded the bus, was not a “legitimate military target,” and that those “responsible should be held accountable.”

These terror bombings, in addition to the US/Saudi naval blockade of Hodeidah, has placed Yemen on the brink of starvation. Over 70 percent of the country’s imports once passed through the Red Sea ports. Now, due to the blockade, 14 million people—over half of the country’s population—faces famine if the war continues through the rest of the year. UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock warned this week that, “there is a clear and present danger of an imminent and great big famine engulfing Yemen.”

In addition to severe food and water insecurity, Yemen’s currency, the rial, has plunged in value while inflation has nearly doubled from 24.7 percent in 2017 to an estimated 41.8 percent in 2018. The collapse of Yemen’s economy has exacerbated social conditions for what was already the poorest country in the Middle East. According to a World Bank report, as of September 2018, 52 percent of the population subsists on less than $1.90 a day, while 81 percent make due with less than $3.20.

Compounding the effects of food shortages and a collapsing economy, Yemen is also suffering the largest cholera outbreak in modern history, with over 1 million suspected cases in 2017. According to the World Health Organization, 30 percent of the cholera cases in Yemen are in children under 5 years old. A 170 percent increase in cholera cases was reported by hospitals run by Save The Children between June and August 2018.

The latest gruesome Saudi airstrikes portend more suffering for the civilian population in Yemen, especially in Hodeidah. A ground offensive by Saudi/UAE forces is being prepared, as anonymous Yemen government officials, loyal to Saudi Arabia, reported that tanks and armored personnel carriers from the United Arab Emirates had arrived in the country on Wednesday.

New ancient Archaeopteryx bird discovery

This 26 October 2018 video says about itself:

Breaking News – Newly found species of the ‘first bird’ Archaeopteryx discovered

Scientists have discovered a new species of Archaeopteryx. Dubbed Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi (artist’s impression), the late species had a number of bird-like features.

From The University of Manchester in England:

New species of ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds identified

October 25, 2018

Known as the ‘Icon of Evolution’ and ‘the missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds, Archaeopteryx has become one of the most famous fossil discoveries in palaeontology.

Now, as part of an international team of scientists, researchers at The University of Manchester have identified a new species of Archaeopteryx that is closer to modern birds in evolutionary terms.

Dr John Nudds, from the University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the team have been re-examining one of the only 12 known specimens by carrying out the first ever synchrotron examination, a form of 3D X-ray analysis, of an Archaeopteryx.

Thanks to this new insight, the team says that this individual Archaeopteryx fossil, known as ‘specimen number eight’, is physically much closer to a modern bird than it is to a reptile. Therefore, it is evolutionary distinctive and different enough to be described as a new species — Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi.

The research, which is being published in journal Historical Biology, says that some of the differing skeletal characteristics of Archaeopteryx albersdoerferi include the fusion of cranial bones, different pectoral girdle (chest) and wing elements, and a reinforced configuration of carpals and metacarpals (hand) bones.

These characteristics are seen more in modern flying birds and are not found in the older Archaeopteryx lithographica species, which more resembles reptiles and dinosaurs.

Specimen number eight is the youngest of all the 12 known specimens by approximately half a million years. This age difference in comparison to the other specimens is a key factor in describing it as a new species.

Dr Nudds explains: “By digitally dissecting the fossil we found that this specimen differed from all of the others. It possessed skeletal adaptations which would have resulted in much more efficient flight. In a nutshell we have discovered what Archaeopteryx lithographica evolved into — i.e. a more advanced bird, better adapted to flying — and we have described this as a new species of Archaeopteryx.”

Archaeopteryx was first described as the ‘missing link’ between reptiles and birds in 1861 — and is now regarded as the link between dinosaurs and birds. Only 12 specimens have ever been found and all are from the late Jurassic of Bavaria, now Germany, dating back approximately 150 million years.

Lead author, Dr Martin Kundrát, from the University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik, Slovakia, said: “This is the first time that numerous bones and teeth of Archaeopteryx were viewed from all aspects including exposure of their inner structure. The use of synchrotron microtomography was the only way to study the specimen as it is heavily compressed with many fragmented bones partly or completely hidden in limestone.”

Dr Nudds added: “Whenever a missing link is discovered, this merely creates two further missing links — what came before, and what came after! What came before was discovered in 1996 with the feathered dinosaurs in China. Our new species is what came after. It confirms Archaeopteryx as the first bird, and not just one of a number of feathered theropod dinosaurs, which some authors have suggested recently. You could say that it puts Archaeopteryx back on its perch as the first bird!”

Internet censorship, a threat

This 26 October 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

Facebook Purge of Alternative Media Is ‘Just the Beginning,’ Boasts DC Neocon Operative (1/2)

As Facebook and Twitter are purging alternative media outlets, a neoconservative operative at a US government-funded think tank says more censorship is on its way. Max Blumenthal and Jeb Sprague discuss how scaremongering over Russia and China is being exploited to silence dissent on social media.

This 26 October 2018 sequel video from the USA says about itself:

US Government-Funded Groups Push to Censor Social Media, Using Russia and China as Bogeymen (2/2).

How fish originated, new study

This January 2016 video says about itself:

The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. Early fish from the fossil record are represented by a group of small, jawless, armoured fish known as ostracoderms.

Jawless fish lineages are mostly extinct. An extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish.

The first jaws are found in Placoderm fossils. The diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, or a combination of factors. The evolution of fish is not studied as a single event since fish do not represent a monophyletic group but a paraphyletic one (by exclusion of the tetrapods).

From the University of Pennsylvania in the USA:

Tracing the evolutionary origins of fish to shallow ocean waters

October 25, 2018

Summary: Coral reefs are envisioned as the seats of great biodiversity, but they may not be where all that diversity got its start. Paleobiologists reveal that the earliest fish may have diversified in shallower waters near shore.

The first vertebrates on Earth were fish, and scientists believe they first appeared around 480 million years ago. But fossil records from this time are spotty, with only small fragments identified. By 420 million years ago, however, the fossil record blossoms, with a huge variety of fish species present en masse.

“It’s been this ongoing question of, well, where were they?” says Lauren Sallan, a paleobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “Where were they hiding? What were their environmental origins?”

Sallan Ivan J. Sansom of the University of Birmingham and colleagues are the first to present a wealth of evidence to answer that question in a report out this week in the journal Science.

And the answer, it seems, is near shore, the areas often describe as the intertidal zone, or shallow lagoons.

“In modern conceptions, we see that coral reefs are so important for fish biodiversity, so we assume there’s an ancient link between fishes and reefs going back to the beginning”, says Sallan. “But decades of searching in places like the Cincinnati Arch have come up empty.”

“Instead, our work shows that almost every major vertebrate division, from the earliest armored jawless fish all the way up through sharks and our own ancestors, all started out right near the beach, far inshore of the reef. Even as older groups spread out, newer groups were also appearing at the shoreline.”

The findings help explain important features of the fossil record, such as why so few early fish fossils are found intact; the wave action of the shallow ocean area likely blasted them into tiny fragments. It also helps scientists make sense of the fact that, over evolutionary time, many fish groups moved from ocean water to freshwater with some becoming freshwater fish while others evolved into the earliest tetrapods, land-dwelling vertebrates.

“They often went to freshwater before the reefs, which is almost an independent line of evidence that they would have had to have been close to shore before doing so”, Sallan says.

Exactly where vertebrates originated and diversified has been a hotly debated subject in paleontology. Certain groups of fossils from this key period in the middle Paleozoic Era told one story — perhaps a freshwater site of origin — while other groups may point to a birthplace in the open ocean, and still others popped up in other habitat types. Further complicating matters, the origin story of invertebrate biodiversity seem settled: They diversified around coral reefs, their descendants subsequently striking out to inhabit shallower or deeper waters.

Sallan, Sansom, and colleagues decided to investigate the question for vertebrates using a big-data approach.

“The nice thing about the fossil record is that we often find fishes in the context of where they live”, Sallan says. “The rock that holds them tells us what their environment looked like, whether it was reef, shallow water, deep water, a riverbed, or a lake.”

Bringing that environmental context together with what was already known about the family tree relationships of vertebrates from the middle Paleozoic, 480 to 360 million years ago, the researchers created a database that involved 2,728 early records for jawed and jawless fishes.

“It’s a really huge new dataset,” says Sallan.

The team was then able to reconstruct the missing information in the fossil record using mathematical modeling, allowing them to make informed predictions about the habitat type in which the earliest ancestors of various vertebrate groups emerged.

“For vertebrates, we find that they’re originating in this unexpected, really restricted shallow area of the oceans”, Sallan says. “And they stay in this limited area for a long time after they emerge.”

As they remained in the shallows, however, they gained a variety of adaptations that enabled them to compete with the others in a shared habitat. The researchers noted that many groups acquired traits that made them well-suited for life either as bottom-dwellers, or for a free-swimming ecology out in the ocean’s deeper waters.

A similar divergence has been seen in modern fish, such as sticklebacks, which evolved a bottom-dwelling and a free-swimming form from common ancestors in more recent times.

No one has done a similarly comprehensive study on living vertebrate species, however. “One of the things we want to know is whether these shallow waters are still the biological pump that is feeding the reef”, Sallan says. “Where is the current site of innovation?”

If that were the case, there may be some small consolation in the face of mass reef die-offs around the world; maybe shallow waters will continue to be the cradle of diversification for fish, allowing biodiversity to persist despite a paucity of reef habitat.

See also here.