Beneath Yellowstone, a volcano that could wipe out U.S.

By James Seidel, News.com.au

Yellowstone National Park's Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest in the United States and third largest in the world.

It’s the awe-inspiring pride of the United States – and it harbors a deadly power that could kill us all.

Yellowstone National Park is pristine wilderness, full of scenic landscape and iconic hot-pools and geysers that attract tens of thousands of visitors every year.

But it’s what lies beneath that has scientists scurrying.

We’ve long known that Yellowstone is merely the skin on top of a supervolcano – a giant pool of magma sitting just under the Earth’s surface.

Exactly how giant has been the subject of much speculation.

Until now.

A team from the University of Utah have told the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco that Yellowstone’s magama chamber is 2.5 times larger than previously thought.

It is an underground cavern measuring some 55 miles by 20 miles and containing between 125 and 185 billion cubic miles of molten rock.

If it blows it will wipe out America – and have enormous impacts on the rest of the world.

The university researchers described their discovery as “astounding.”

Professor Bob Smith told the BBC: “We’ve been working there for a long time, and we’ve always thought it would be bigger … but this finding is astounding.”

The research is part of an ongoing effort to assess the true threat the molten beast represents.

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The Grand Prismatic Spring is beautiful but it sits just above a dangerous supervolcano.Photo: Reuters

What is a supervolcano?

The common picture of a volcano being a mountainous cone of ash and lava does not apply to the supervolcanos like Yellowstone.

These are vast spaces of collapsed crust that formed pools – known as calderas – under a seemingly normal surface. Only mapping reveals the gentle swell, over a space of hundreds of square kilometres, that contains the cauldron of molten magma below.

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The “Crested Pool” hot spring at Yellowstone is world famous, but the thermal heat that creates it could be deadly.Photo: Getty Images

Eruption ‘due’

From analysis of rock and sediment layers, scientists say another eruption is almost due – at least by geological standards.

It appears the supervolcano explodes roughly once every 700,000 years.

Three such eruptions are known: One was 2.1 million years ago. Another was 1.3 million years ago.

The most recent was 640,0000 years ago.

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Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from a volcano in Iceland. If the supervolcano at Yellowstone erupted it would be like Armageddon.Photo: Reuters

Big Bang

So what would happen if Yellowstone was to erupt?

Something close to Armageddon.

Soil samples reveal that the last time it happened the whole of North America was smothered by ash. The lava flow was almost as great.

The streams of molten rock were hundreds of miles long, and miles thick.

Such was the extent of the smoke and debris cloud generated by the eruption that the climate of the entire world was affected for several centuries.

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The Abyss geothermal pool is beauty created by a potential world-destroying supervolcano.

Measuring the beast

The ongoing rumbles caused by earthquakes in and around Yellowstone National Park provided the means by which the full extent of the magma chamber was revealed.

As the seismic waves moved through the ground, the different speeds of their travel was recorded by a network of seismometers.

“The waves travel slower through hot and partially molten material … with this, we can measure what’s beneath.” Dr. Jamie Farrell, from the University of Utah, said.

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Tourists walk beside a hot spring and the partially frozen Yellowstone Lake.Photo: Getty Images

But wait: There’s more

Twenty “smaller” supervolcanoes have been found nearby, on the Utah/Nevada state border.

The new study published in the journal Geosphere shows that these volcanoes are not active today. But, 30 million years ago, they spilt more than 5500 cubic kilometres of magma during a one-week period.

“In southern Utah, deposits from this single eruption are 4km thick. Imagine the devastation – it would have been catastrophic to anything living within hundreds of miles,” Dr. Eric Christiansen of Brigham Young University said.

This article originally appeared on News.com.au.

Over 2000 cold and snow records set in the USA this past week

by Anthony Watts

Compare to 98 high temperature records, and 141 high minimum temperature records

Quite an imbalance in weather records this week. Even the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco where the best and brightest global warming scientists were meeting was surrounded by record (such as 25F in San Jose Dec 9th) and near record setting low temperatures, though the irony was lost on many of them.

Source: NOAA National Weather Service and HamWeather records center

Low Temp: 606 + Low Max temp 1234 + Snowfall 385 = 2225

In other cold and snowy news, the Egyptian capital of Cairo sees snowfall for the first time in 112 YEARS

Nelson Mandela dead at 95

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC 
Nelson Mandela, the revered South African anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, led his country to democracy and became its first black president, died Thursday at home. He was 95.

"He is now resting," said South African President Jacob Zuma. "He is now at peace."

"Our nation has lost his greatest son," he continued. "Our people have lost their father."

A state funeral will be held, and Zuma called for mourners to conduct themselves with "the dignity and respect" that Mandela personified.

Nelson Mandela, the revered South African anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, led his country to democracy and became its first black president, died Thursday at home. He was 95.

"He is now resting," said South African President Jacob Zuma. "He is now at peace."

"Our nation has lost his greatest son," he continued. "Our people have lost their father."

A state funeral will be held, and Zuma called for mourners to conduct themselves with "the dignity and respect" that Mandela personified.

"Wherever we are in the country, wherever we are in the world, let us reaffirm his vision of a society… in which none is exploited, oppressed or dispossessed by another," he said as tributes began pouring in from across the world.

He inspired a generation of activists, left celebrities and world leaders star-struck, won the Nobel Peace Prize and raised millions for humanitarian causes.

Though he was in power for only five years, Mandela was a figure of enormous moral influence the world over – a symbol of revolution, resistance and triumph over racial segregation.

South Africa is still bedeviled by challenges, from class inequality to political corruption to AIDS. And with Mandela’s death, it has lost a beacon of optimism.

In his jailhouse memoirs, Mandela wrote that even after spending so many years in a Spartan cell on Robben Island – with one visitor a year and one letter every six months – he still had faith in human nature.

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion,” he wrote in “Long Walk to Freedom.”

“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” 

Mandela retired from public life in 2004 with the half-joking directive, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” and had largely stepped out of the spotlight, spending much of his time with family in his childhood village.

In his later years, Mandela was known to his countrymen simply as Madiba, the name of his tribe and a mark of great honor. But when he was born on July 18, 1918, he was named Rolihlahla, which translated roughly – and prophetically – to “troublemaker.”

His health had been fragile in recent years. He had spent almost three months in a hospital in Pretoria after being admitted in June for a recurring lung infection. He was released on Sept. 1.

Mandela was nine when his father died, and he was sent from his rural village to the provincial capital to be raised by a fellow chief. The first member of his family to get a formal education, he went to boarding school and then enrolled in South Africa’s elite Fort Hare University, where his activism unfurled with a student boycott.

As a young law scholar, he joined the resurgent African National Congress just a few years before the National Party – controlled by the Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch and French settlers – came to power on a platform of apartheid, in which the government enforced racial segregation and stripped non-whites of economic and political power.

As an ANC leader, Mandela advocated peaceful resistance against government discrimination and oppression – until 1961, when he launched a military wing called Spear of the Nation and a campaign of sabotage.

The next year, he was arrested and soon hit with treason charges. At the opening of his trial in 1964, he said his adoption of armed struggle was a last resort born of bloody crackdowns by the government.

“Fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation and fewer and few rights,” he said from the dock.

He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Robben Island. As inmate No. 466/64, he slept on the floor of a six-foot-wide cell, did hard labor in a quarry, organized fellow prisoners – and earned a law degree by correspondence.

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

As the years past his incarceration drew ever more attention, with intensifying cries for his release as a global anti-apartheid movement gained traction. Songs were dedicated to him and 600 million people watched the Free Mandela concert at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1988.

In 1985, he turned down the government’s offer to free him if he renounced armed struggle against apartheid. It wasn’t until South African President P.W. Botha had a stroke and was replaced by F.W. de Klerk in 1989 that the stage was set for his release.

After a ban on the ANC was repealed, a whiter-haired Mandela walked out prison before a jubilant crowd and told a rally in Cape Town that the fight was far from over.

Philip Littleton / AFP - Getty Images, file

Springbok captain Francois Pienaar receives the Rugby World Cup from South African President Nelson Mandela at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on June 24, 1995.

“Our struggle has reached a decisive moment,” he said. “We have waited too long for our freedom. We can no longer wait.”

Over the next two years, Mandela proved himself a formidable negotiator as he pushed South Africa toward its first multiracial elections amid tension and violence. He and de Klerk were honored with the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

When the elections were held in April 1994, the ex-prisoner became the next president and embarked on a mission of racial reconciliation, government rebuilding and economic rehabilitation.

A year into his tenure, with racial tensions threatening to explode into civil war, Mandela orchestrated an iconic, unifying moment: He donned the green jersey of the Springboks rugby team – beloved by whites, despised by blacks – to present the World Cup trophy to the team captain while the stunned crowd erupted in cheers of “Nelson! Nelson!”

He chose to serve only one five-year term – during which he divorced his second wife, Winnie, a controversial activist, and married his third, Graca, the widow of the late president of Mozambique.

After leaving politics, he concentrated on his philanthropic foundation. He began speaking out on AIDS, which had ravaged his country and which some critics said he had not made a priority as president.

When he officially announced he was leaving public life in 2004, it signaled he was slowing down, but he still made his presence known. For his 89th birthday, he launched a “council of elders,” statesmen and women from around the world who would promote peace. For his 90th, he celebrated at a star-studded concert in London’s Hyde Park.

As he noted in 2003, “If there is anything that would kill me it is to wake up in the morning not knowing what to do.”

In April, de Klerk was asked on the BBC if he feared that Mandela’s eventual death would expose fissures in South Africa that his grandfatherly presence had kept knitted together.

Clear Channel moving Rush Limbaugh from KFI to revamped KTLK

By Ryan Faughnder
KFI-AM (640) is losing the conservative host's three-hour show, long a fixture on the station, to KTLK-AM (1150), which owner Clear Channel is hoping to pump up as an outlet exclusively dedicated to right-leaning chatter.
  
The company, which also owns KFI, will use Limbaugh's audience to anchor the new lineup for KTLK, which is being dubbed "The Patriot" and will also feature national shows by Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

Clear Channel is making similar changes in San Francisco, where Limbaugh will leave its KKSF-AM (910), and move to KNEW-AM (960), which is also retooling its lineup as a destination for conservative audiences. The changes are set to take effect for the first broadcast of 2014. 

"Rush Limbaugh has built the ratings and revenue of hundreds of America's most successful radio stations and is looking forward to doing the same at these new Clear Channel homes," said Brian Glicklich, a spokesman for the radio personality. 

KFI will switch to all-local programming, and the vacated Limbaugh block will be filled by hosts Bill Handel and Bill Carroll. Handel's show will run from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and Carroll's from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“The Patriot will be home to well-known hosts sharing the same conservative philosophical views and values, while KFI will be live and local all day long focusing mainly on the issues that affect Southern Californians,” Greg Ashlock, Clear Channel's market president for Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Limbaugh has already switched stations in other markets, including Houston, New Orleans and Minneapolis.  

Limbaugh, who broadcasts from Florida, is also switching his show in New York from Cumulus station WABC to Clear Channel's WOR.

That change was announced in August when Clear Channel's Premiere Networks, which distributes "The Rush Limbaugh Show," and Cumulus reached a three-year syndication deal. 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-rush-limbaugh-kfi-ktlk-20131204,0,3611081.story#ixzz2mdnS6eKs

Friends and family gather at Nelson Mandela's side

Former president's friends and loved ones gather at his house in South Africa, with the 95 year-old described as 'on his death-bed' 

By Aislinn Laing, Joannesburg

Nelson Mandela’s family and friends were gathering at his house last night, just days after his eldest daughter said the revered former South African statesman was “on his deathbed”.

Two of Mr Mandela’s granddaughters and Bantu Holomisa, a close family friend, were among those seen entering the house in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, along with military personnel responsible for the former president’s health.

With little explanation for the large contingent, there were rumours that the 95-year-old’s ailing health had once again taken a turn for the worse.

One family friend said he had been told Mr Mandela’s condition had “deteriorated quite a bit”, but could not give further details. “Things are quite gloomy,” he added.

Mac Maharaj, President Jacob Zuma’s spokesman, said he was seeking an update from Mr Mandela’s doctors “because of the rumours journalists are coming up with”. 

The development came as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended the London premiere of the Mandela biopic Long Walk to Freedom, in which South Africa’s first black, democratic president is played by British actor Idris Elba.

Mr Mandela’s daughter Zindzi, who also attended the screening at the Odeon in Leicester Square, told journalists her father was “fine” but “frail”.

“My father is fine. He’s 95 years old and he is pretty frail. We are hoping to see more of him,” she said.

She revealed that Mr Mandela has seen some clips of the film, which is adapted from his autobiography of the same name and stars Elba as the former South African president.

Earlier this week, Mr Mandela’s eldest daughter Makaziwe described him as fighting from his “deathbed,” but still being “very strong” and “very courageous”.

“Even when there are moments when you can see he’s struggling, but the fighting spirit is still there with him,” she told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Mr Mandela has been receiving round-the-clock intensive care from 22 military and other doctors since September, when he was discharged from a three-month hospital stay for a lung infection.