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Caribbean at risk of more large earthquakes
DAVID DE LA PAZ/XINHUA/GAMMA/EYEDEA PRESSE
UPFRONT
History is against Haiti LAST week’s earthquake in Haiti has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in decades, with estimates of the number of dead ranging from 50,000 to 200,000. The UN blamed the fact that the quake hit a densely populated capital city, knocking out many of the agencies that would have dealt with disaster relief. Geologists speaking to New Scientist explained some of the other reasons why the quake was so bad, and warned that more may come, because not all the pent-up seismic energy was released in the tragedy. First, the quake was “shallow source” and so allowed less warning time to get out of buildings than deep quakes. And Port au Prince is built not on solid rock but on soil, which
collapses when shaken. Finally, building standards were not adequate for major earthquakes. Uri ten Brink of the US Geological Survey said that, historically, big quakes in the region occur in sequences and that the eastern side of the fault might be expected to rupture next. Satellite measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that have struck on “splinter faults” on the Caribbean plate, like last week’s, have accounted for only half of the energy associated with plate movement, leaving the other half stored up and prone to release by a submarine fault. One such fault lies to the east, where the Atlantic Ocean plate dives underneath the Caribbean plate.
Alaska’s oily legacy
microorganisms that degrade it lack the oxygen they need (Nature Geosciences, DOI: 10.1038/ ngeo749). David Santillo of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, UK, says this contamination, while “not severe”, could still pose a risk to individual animals. But Olof Linden, an ecologist at the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden, says cleaning up Prince William Sound could do more harm than good. “From an environmental standpoint the oil is of little concern – as long as it is left where it is,” he says.
–The facts won’t bring comfort–
Death toll doubted
“If you keep coming up with death tolls that are wrong… you’ll discredit the methodology” published on 20 January by the Human Security Report Project. Mack’s criticisms focus on a series of surveys published by the International Rescue Committee 4 | NewScientist | 23 January 2010
NASA
THE death tolls of several recent wars may be vast overestimates, claims a review of studies of the conflict that devastated the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1998 and 2003. The authors say that the muchpublicised death toll of 5.4 million, which includes conflict-related deaths that occurred after the war ended, is at least twice the true number. They suspect that deaths due to the wars in Darfur, Sudan, and Iraq may be similarly inflated. “If you keep coming up with tolls that are wrong… you’ll discredit the methodology,” warns Andrew Mack of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, an author of the report
(IRC) in New York. Researchers surveyed clusters of households in the DRC and extrapolated the results to give a national mortality rate. Mack says that the clusters were not representative of the DRC as a whole, and that the baseline pre-war mortality rate used was too low, causing the excess deaths due to the war to appear overly high. Les Roberts of Columbia University in New York, who took part in the IRC research, says that while surveys of war-torn regions are inevitably less rigorous than ones in peacetime, the IRC figures broadly agree with other surveys.
MORE than 20 years after tens of millions of litres of oil spilled from the tanker Exxon Valdez, significant amounts remain hidden beneath the beaches of Prince William Sound, Alaska. This is raising the question of whether it should be cleaned up or left where it does little harm. Michel Boufadel of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Hailong Li of China University of Geosciences in Beijing suggest that buried layers of oil survive because the
NASA’s yard sale SPACECRAFT for sale, fully loaded, air conditioning, one careful owner. It’s a bargain: NASA has cut the price of a space shuttle to $28.8 million. The vehicles will go on sale after construction finishes on the International Space Station, scheduled for later this year. When NASA originally announced it would be selling the shuttles, it priced them at $42 million each. –Runs like a dream– Now the agency has slashed the
UPFRONT
History is against Haiti LAST week’s earthquake in Haiti has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in decades, with estimates of the number of dead ranging from 50,000 to 200,000. The UN blamed the fact that the quake hit a densely populated capital city, knocking out many of the agencies that would have dealt with disaster relief. Geologists speaking to New Scientist explained some of the other reasons why the quake was so bad, and warned that more may come, because not all the pent-up seismic energy was released in the tragedy. First, the quake was “shallow source” and so allowed less warning time to get out of buildings than deep quakes. And Port au Prince is built not on solid rock but on soil, which
collapses when shaken. Finally, building standards were not adequate for major earthquakes. Uri ten Brink of the US Geological Survey said that, historically, big quakes in the region occur in sequences and that the eastern side of the fault might be expected to rupture next. Satellite measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that have struck on “splinter faults” on the Caribbean plate, like last week’s, have accounted for only half of the energy associated with plate movement, leaving the other half stored up and prone to release by a submarine fault. One such fault lies to the east, where the Atlantic Ocean plate dives underneath the Caribbean plate.
Alaska’s oily legacy
microorganisms that degrade it lack the oxygen they need (Nature Geosciences, DOI: 10.1038/ ngeo749). David Santillo of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, UK, says this contamination, while “not severe”, could still pose a risk to individual animals. But Olof Linden, an ecologist at the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden, says cleaning up Prince William Sound could do more harm than good. “From an environmental standpoint the oil is of little concern – as long as it is left where it is,” he says.
–The facts won’t bring comfort–
Death toll doubted
“If you keep coming up with death tolls that are wrong… you’ll discredit the methodology” published on 20 January by the Human Security Report Project. Mack’s criticisms focus on a series of surveys published by the International Rescue Committee 4 | NewScientist | 23 January 2010
NASA
THE death tolls of several recent wars may be vast overestimates, claims a review of studies of the conflict that devastated the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1998 and 2003. The authors say that the muchpublicised death toll of 5.4 million, which includes conflict-related deaths that occurred after the war ended, is at least twice the true number. They suspect that deaths due to the wars in Darfur, Sudan, and Iraq may be similarly inflated. “If you keep coming up with tolls that are wrong… you’ll discredit the methodology,” warns Andrew Mack of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, an author of the report
(IRC) in New York. Researchers surveyed clusters of households in the DRC and extrapolated the results to give a national mortality rate. Mack says that the clusters were not representative of the DRC as a whole, and that the baseline pre-war mortality rate used was too low, causing the excess deaths due to the war to appear overly high. Les Roberts of Columbia University in New York, who took part in the IRC research, says that while surveys of war-torn regions are inevitably less rigorous than ones in peacetime, the IRC figures broadly agree with other surveys.
MORE than 20 years after tens of millions of litres of oil spilled from the tanker Exxon Valdez, significant amounts remain hidden beneath the beaches of Prince William Sound, Alaska. This is raising the question of whether it should be cleaned up or left where it does little harm. Michel Boufadel of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Hailong Li of China University of Geosciences in Beijing suggest that buried layers of oil survive because the
NASA’s yard sale SPACECRAFT for sale, fully loaded, air conditioning, one careful owner. It’s a bargain: NASA has cut the price of a space shuttle to $28.8 million. The vehicles will go on sale after construction finishes on the International Space Station, scheduled for later this year. When NASA originally announced it would be selling the shuttles, it priced them at $42 million each. –Runs like a dream– Now the agency has slashed the