The Earth Story

Philae

The island of Philae was originally a nearly-permanent island within the Nile River in Egypt. In long, meandering rivers, islands occasionally form inside the rive from carried by the waters. These islands are long-lived but not truly permanent; the waters will split around them during normal flow, but during occasional hundred or thousand year floods the waters could cover an island and can erode or even destroy it.

This was the origin of the island Philae. It sat in the middle of the Nile River, surrounded by its waters on both sides. The island became the home of one of the Egyptian civilization’s most amazing temples, the Temple of Isis.

In the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam was built on the Nile River, creating Lake Nasser and providing energy and stable water flow to the nation of Egypt. The creation of this lake flooded much of the island of Philae. Some of the remnants of the temple were moved to higher ground before the construction of the dam. These photos reflect how it appears today, with some portion of the island flooded but some parts still in tact.

The island of Philae recently gave its name to the spacecraft built by the European Space Agency that dropped onto the surface of a comet from the Rosetta Spacecraft. The craft was named after the Rosetta stone that originally allowed translation between the ancient Egyptian Language and Greek. The island of Philae hosted an additional obelisk with the same setup –hosting Egyptian hieroglyphs and a translation into Greek.

The Rosetta spacecraft was named in the hopes that its data would allow humanity to translate some of the history of Earth as comets may have been part of the solar system soup combined together to form the planet we see today.

-JBB

Image credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/travlr/3020366735 https://www.flickr.com/photos/rietje/3663566528

Read more: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/10/21/naming-philae-an-interview-with-2004-contest-winner-serena-olga-vismara/ http://www.sacred-destinations.com/egypt/philae

Sinjar Mountains

This image from the Landsat 8 satellite shows the Sinjar Mountains in Northwestern Iraq. The Sinjar Mountains are a gorgeous example of a doubly-plunging anticline. An anticline forms when older rocks are pushed upwards, creating a concave downward arch. Here, older rocks from the Miocene have been pushed up at the center to form the ridge. There used to be younger layers on top of the ridge, but they have eroded away, leaving a ring pattern around the anticline. The anticline has been uplifted the most at the center, but the deformation stops at the edges, so the fold “plunges” to each side, creating the ring pattern.

If you zoom in on the northwest edge of this mountain, you can see that some of the layers actually repeat there – a small normal fault has broken through and the map pattern of that fault is that the layers at the edge have repeated.

This area was important in the recent wars ongoing in western Iraq, as this set of mountains formed the home of the Yazidi culture, that was surrounded and besieged by the group ISIS. Although the siege was broken, many thousands of refugees still are living on or in this mountain range, with limited supplies reaching this location.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA/USGS/Landsat https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sinjar_Mountains.png

References: https://n.pr/2E5CcTo https://howlingpixel.com/i-en/Sinjar_Mountains https://bit.ly/2LB5D4m

Landsat 5

In 1984, the partnership between the US Geological Survey and NASA launched the 5th satellite in the Landsat series, which has continually documented the Earth’s surface and its changes since 1972. The satellite’s mission was scheduled to last 3 years.

On June 19, 2013, 29 years later, the satellite received its final command from mission control. The satellite easily set the record for the longest-lasting Earth-observing satellite, and collected over 2.5 million images of Earth during its service.

Landsat 5 gave the people of Earth their look at many of the events of the past quarter-century. The Chernobyl accident, the flooding of New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina, the development of cities, fires, retreat of glaciers, crop production, and on and on, Landsat 5 quietly documented them.

The satellite was taken out of service in 2012, at long last, due to a mechanical failure. Its most recent replacement, Landsat 8 is currently overlooking the Earth and even watching new versions of frames like this. (http://tinyurl.com/l6xfmjd). After that breakdown, managers began moving the satellite progressively into lower orbits, using up its fuel and removing it from positions where it could pose a hazard to other satellites.

Sometime 19 years from now, the piece of machinery that was Landsat 5 will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up unceremoniously. So today, I’ll give this remarkable satellite and the team that put it together and operated it one more bit of ceremony here at this page.

This image shows another of the many world-shaping events photographed by Landsat 5. These plumes of black smoke were formed by burning oil wells in the nation of Kuwait in 1991 as the Iraqi army withdrew. The event captured in this photo was one of the worst environmental disasters anywhere during Landsat 5’s service, and these images are a testament to its legacy. Today, Landsat 8 is monitoring fires over Iraq again - this time from a battle for Mosul.

-JBB

Landsat receives final command: http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/35881usgs-issues-final-command-to-landsat-5

Image credit: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/archive/e0020.html

Mission accomplished for Landsat 5: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3485

Of a drought, a civil war, and millions of fleeing refugees...with more to come in the future

One of the expected effects of global warming is an increase in drought in varying parts of the globe, and one example is the series which has been worsening in the Eastern Mediterranean region since 1998. This group of events have strained the resilience of the societies living there, and Syria was pushed beyond the breaking point by the record breaking event it sustained between 2005 and 2010, though the knock on effects of this conflict has also put all its neighbours and the European Union under major stress as well. While climate change is not the only factor in the ongoing civil war, political, religious and other strains being at the fore of the media debate, it is doubtful whether events would have taken such a tragic turn but for this drought, which recent tree ring research (broadly put wide ring good growth year, narrow ring bad growth year) shows to be the worst in 900 years.

When the drought started, Syrian society, however politically constrained, had a certain amount if inbuilt resilience through state, local, tribal and family networks to weather the first years. The country's aquifers were depleted however, due to misguided agricultural policies since the 1970's, and most farmers were dependent on rain for irrigation. Farms had yet to recover from the 1998-2000 drought when the 5 year one hit, creating a disaster.

Take away people's ability to earn a livelihood off the land, and sooner or later, the farmers have to move to seek employment elsewhere (as happened in the dust bowl in the US Midwest in the 1930's forcing many farmers to move west to California and Oregon). If this work isn't available in sufficient quantities for the displaced people (now living in concrete facility less slums at the edge of large cities like Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's urban population grew by 50% between 2002 and 2010) to feed their families, and food costs increase (as they did in the late naughties), you have a recipe for revolution, and evidence of a failing state that is unable to meet its people's needs. Since then we have had years of civil war whose complexity has risen as more and more actors and proxies enter the scene. Over 4.2 million have fled the country (mostly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, also affected by the drought, though a mere million has seemingly managed to stall the entire European dream), and 7.6 million more remain internally displaced within Syria in an ever shifting mosaic that mirrors the ebbs and flows of battle.

The tree ring data was compiled from across the region, and revealed 900 years of information on wet and dry periods, and show that the current drought is well beyond the norms of natural climate variation during this period, implying that it is a clear signal of biting climate change. Research last year (linked below) showed that such events are three times more likely in a world with higher greenhouse gas levels.

Climate modelling suggests that this is only the start, and that the whole region, already deficient in water resources for its growing population will get drier as the century progresses as rainfall patterns shift in a warming world. The region is already under severe water stress, with conflicts over upstream diversion by Turkey of the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates simmering in the background and over the waters of the Jordan.

Worse droughts in the future, and the possible implosion of other countries under the strain, with all the attendant consequences are now a growing preoccupation of the world's military security apparati (the Pentagon calls global warming a threat multiplier that poses “immediate risks) and if they're worried, we should be too. As David Titley, director of Penn State's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk and retired Navy Rear Admiral put it: “This paper points to the importance of resilience, and how spectacularly a society can break and fracture when climate-forced events exceed the capacity to adapt.”

Loz

Image credit: Graphic: NASA/Grace, Drought: Reuters, Civil war: Abd Doumani/AFP, Refugees fleeing: EPA

http://go.nasa.gov/23BIZQ2 http://bit.ly/217TeVM http://bit.ly/1pnRX0W http://bit.ly/1R3HvVz

original papers, paywall access: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241 http://bit.ly/1WUKEIJ http://bit.ly/22FP4Hb

Mosul Dam – the world’s most dangerous dam

The Mosul dam is the largest dam in Iraq. It is located upstream of the city of Mosul (more than 700 000 inhabitants) and dams up the Tigris River, creating a huge water reservoir. The Mosul dam is a so called earthen embankment dam made up mostly from compacted earth and shaped like a bank or a hill. Most embankment dams have a central impermeable section to stop water passing through the dam.

The Mosul dam is built on top of gypsum, which is a very soft mineral and dissolves in contact with water. Shortly after the reservoir was filled a number of leaks began to form. In order to stabilize the dam’s basement continuous maintenance is required. A cement grout mixture is injected into holes and fractures where water constantly eats away at the unstable foundation.

In 2014 the essential maintenance was stopped when Isis briefly seized the dam. Shortly afterwards the dam was wrestled back by Kurdish and Iraqi forces. Many workers, however, did not return to the site and the government was not able to resume regular maintenance.

If the dam is not repaired it could cause a civilian disaster. In spring the water levels rise and should the dam collapse it would unleash a huge flood wave which could leave more than a million people homeless. Cities such as Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra and even Baghdad are most vulnerable as well as the communities along the Tigris River. The damage could be contained if there would be an adequate warning, if the dam collapsed only partly or if the dam breached in summer or fall, when the water level is lower.

Last week it was announced that an Italian firm has been awarded a contract to repair the dam in order to prevent a catastrophic collapse. The repair will take some time and constant maintenance will always be necessary due to the unstable gypsum ground the dam was constructed on. This operation will not prove to be an easy task as the nearby concrete factory is still under Isis' conrol. A permanent but very expensive solution for the Problem would be building a second dam further downstream.

Xandi

Image Credit: http://bit.ly/1mnOxsW Sources: http://dailym.ai/1QqXOIU http://bbc.in/20iqpaA http://bit.ly/1UGpfCg http://www.britishdams.org/about_dams/embankment.htm http://bit.ly/1PNwOqO

Oil fire

The high-resolution multi-spectral imager on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellite captured this image while flying over Libya 2 days ago. In the shot there are 2 smoke plumes; a thin one to the north and a thicker one in the center: each of these is caused by oil burning at damaged oil tanks. If you click the link at the bottom and follow through to the high-resolution image, you can see the individual storage units on fire.

Explosives from the ongoing war in that country caused the fires at these oil storage facilities. Each of these tanks is estimated to hold about half a million barrels of oil and satellite imagery like this one shows that 5 different tanks are burning; that’s a total volume of about ½ the Deepwater Horizon oil spill volume in the 5 burning tanks.

This is not the first time oil fires have been set by war. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, retreating Iraqi army forces systematically set fire to hundreds of oil wells in Kuwait. Satellite imagery like these photos, at the time taken by the Landsat satellites, helped track the plumes of pollution as they moved downwind as an environmental disaster. Information from satellite photos suggests that the total amount of oil burned before those fires were put out is on the order of 1.5 billion barrels.

-JBB

Image credit: ESA http://go.nasa.gov/1OSynyP

References: http://go.nasa.gov/1mJy3vP

Deepest Hydrothermal vents discovered.

A research team from the James Cook, a British run research vessel working in the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean, have discovered the world’s deepest undersea vents; almost 5km below the surface.

Using an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) named ISIS, the research team accidentally discovered the vents, some which are 10m high.

Hydrothermal vents in our oceans have been known since the 1970s at locations including the Southern Ocean and the Atlantic. They were first discovered in the Cayman Trough around 3 years ago. Previous to the discovery by ISIS, the world’s deepest known set of hydrothermal vents was a system called Beebe, also in the Cayman Trough.

Water from the vents was recorded at 410 degrees Celsius, one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded at a deep sea vent. This extremely hot water is expelled from the vents into the surrounding ocean water that has a temperature of only 4 degrees just a few centimeters from the vent. The area where these waters meet is a biologist’s dream; a unique ecosystem.

Eventually scientists involved with this research hope to be able to answer the question; "why and how life evolved in such a seemingly hostile environment."

-LL Links; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21520404

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080830211000.htm

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/geology/vents.html

Image; NOAA- Black smoker in the Atlantic Ocean

Burning oil In 1991, as the United States military crossed into Kuwait, the retreating Iraqi army set many oil wells ablaze. The resulting fires poured out toxic clouds, causing an enormous environmental disaster that harmed both the invading army and anyone else, civilian or otherwise, exposed to the clouds. One of the iconic images of that disaster was taken by the Landsat 5 spacecraft, which looked down on the clouds from overhead. It can be seen here:https://www.facebook.com/TheEarthStory/posts/529889583738757. This eerily reminiscent photo was taken a few days ago by the Landsat 8 spacecraft. This fire is burning at the largest oil refinery in Iraq near the city of Baiji and marks the location of several days of fighting in Iraq’s northern areas. The city of Baiji had a population of about 200,000 people and sits on the main road between the capital of Baghdad and Mosul, the largest city in the north. The Tigris River runs through the city and weaves back and forth between sand bars in the dry, desert areas. Also appearing in this image seems to be a line of hills north of the city, I’m guessing due to a small fold appearing in the rocks, which fixes the course of the river alongside. Several fans of sediment pour off both sides of this line of hills, some of which supply sediment to the river below. To the south of the city, several circles can be seen, created by central-pivot irrigation systems in fields (some of which are dry today). -JBB Image credit: NASA/USGS Landsat program http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/satellite-view-iraq-oil-refinery-fire-visible-space-n136741 More: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/isis-advance-baghdad-slows-fighting-still-rages-n136331 https://www.google.com/maps/preview?ll=34.929167%2C43.493056&q=loc%3A34.929167%2C43.493056&hl=en&t=m&z=12 http://www.factbites.com/topics/Baiji,-Iraq (First TES post from new computer down!)