Geobulletin alpha

[jules' pics] Temples 

We did a fair bit of templing while on unicorn safari, but weren't lucky enough to spot any more. Here's ye olde village church. And although it would be poetic if this was taken inside the same church, unfortunately that church was locked. Instead this is just one of Bath Abbey's many windows. Don't see much stained glass in Japan. In fact our temples don't contain much glass

Lijian: A Chinese Stealth UCAV Spotted 

Update: I found this article googling, too.  However, the above looks rather different than the one in the article.  I do not see a pair of tailfins in the above. Perhaps the SecDef's visit to Japan and his comments there have sparked

New Papers: BSSA Special Issue on the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, March 2011 

The latest issue (May 2013) of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) is dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011. The studies published therein deal with the source models of the megaquake and rupture … Continue reading

[jules' pics] Ringfencing the Unicorn 

It's golden week, a very busy time for travel and tourism in Japan. So we felt quite lucky to get the last two places on the West of England Unicorn Safari. It turns out that unicorns in the UK aren't much more rare than dragons in Kamakura. -- Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 5/02/2013 06:09:00

Imaggeo on Mondays: Explosions in the sky 

Suwanosejima, which lies within the Ryukyu Islands, is one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, erupting almost continuously between the 1950s and mid 1990s. It has two active craters, the central Otake crater and the Bunka crater, to the southwest. While the frequency of these eruptions has declined, the volcano remains active, with strombolian and vulcanian

Bertha tunnel-boring machine arrives in Seattle 

The world's largest Tunnel Boring Machine or TBM just arrived in Seattle last week from Japan. Hitachi Zosen Corp built the 57 foot diameter TBM and tested it before disassembling it for the journey by boat to the Port of Seattle. Bertha will soon begin it's 16 month journey to bore a tunnel to replace the famous Alaskan Way Viaduct along Seattle's waterfront. [Source: Puget Sound Business Journal via ASCE SmartBrief. Image:

The Desert of the Stars, by John Lumpkin: a review 

In March, I reviewed Through Struggle, The Stars by John J Lumpkin.  The original book is set in the post American world where China and Japan are the two top powers and Europe and America are the third tier.  Just as important to the idea that this is a post American world is humanity has reached out into the stars and colonized multiple worlds and a major war is sparked over

Its CUTE! A New Albian Cretaceous Eutherian Mammal from Japan 

A new Early Cretaceous eutherian mammal from the Sasayama Group, Hyogo, Japan Authors: 1. Nao Kusuhashi (a) 2. Yukiyasu Tsutsumi (b) 3. Haruo Saegusa (c,d) 4. Kenji Horie (e) 5. Tadahiro Ikeda (d) 6. Kazumi Yokoyama (b) 7. Kazuyuki Shiraishi (e) Affiliations: a. Department of Earth's Evolution and Environment, Graduate School of Science and Engineering,

Rare Earth Elements Off Japan 

Japanese researchers say they have found rich accumulations of rare earth elements in sea floor sediments in Japan’s Exclusive Economic

Japan Begins Extracting Natural Gas From Methane Calthrates 

Two years after the Fukushima meltdown, most of Japan’s nuclear reactors remain shuttered, and that anniversary this week has sparked discussion about Japan’s energy sources. The country has depended almost exclusively on imported fossil fuels since the disaster. But in news announced today, Japan has become the first country to successfully extract methane from frozen reserves under

Methane Hydrates Could be the Next Natural Gas Bonanza 

Extracting methane, the essential component of natural gas,from methane hydrate has been the topic of research in the U.S., Japan and several other countries for about 15 years. Now Japan has announced success in extracting methane from hydrate deposits below the seafloor off the coast of Japan. “It is the world’s first offshore experiment producing gas

Internationale Plakatausstellung “Project Sunshine for Japan – Connecting Traces of Memory” in Dortmund 

Erdbeben, Flutwellen, Vulkanausbrüche – auf diese Naturkatastrophen haben Menschen keinen Einfluss. Nach dem Motto „deine Farben können das Land der aufgehenden Sonne wieder erhellen“ hatte Mansoureh Rahnama die Initiative „Project Sunshine for Japan” im März 2011 nach der erschütternden Dreifachkatastrophe in Japan gestartet. Die aus dem Projekt entstandene Ausstellung „Project Sunshine for Japan – Connecting

In-visa-ble man (and woman) 

Jules and I are supposed to be en route for the PAGES Open Science Meeting in Goa, but due to the situation turning out not necessarily to our advantage, we aren't. So I suppose I might as well write this blog post instead. We knew from ages back that we needed visas for India, even for a conference visit, but we didn't expect it would be a particularly onerous or lengthy procedure.

Stuff we linked to on Twitter last week 

Earthquakes Debate over whether some faults detected beneath Japanese reactors are active or not is holding up nuclear restart. http://www.nature.com/news/quake-fears-rise-at-japan-s-reactors-1.12368 Seismic imaging of section of the Alpine Fault in NZ finds 3 principal en echelon strands, several shallow secondary splays. … Continue reading

[jules' pics] Our zoo - turtles all the way down 

native turtles, originally uploaded by julesberry2001. We decided to smuggle a Hawaiian turtle into Japan as a companion for our resident British turtle. I hope they will be friends. The native Hawaiian turtle is noticeably the larger of the two. I suppose this is because Hawaiin turtles enjoy life, flapping about at beautiful warm sandy beaches, while British turtles have to endure

Expedited LNG for American Allies Act 

The idea of exporting United States natural gas as LNG has not obtained unanimous support. Now a bill proposes LNG exports to NATO allies plus

[jules' pics] New Volcanics 

Well quite new - the "fountain" that made the lava lake at Kīlauea Iki happened only 10 years before I was born (ie 1959). The crater itself is a hot, dry, semi-desert, and yet is surrounded all round by much cooler, humid, lush rainforest. A bit like what you might get if you tried covering Japan in concrete... Oh... -- Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 2/06/2013

Amazing video of 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan 

Via @davely on Twitter.

Earthquakes in Austria/Slovenia and Japan 

On 2 Februar, a magnitude 4.5 earthquake occurred in shallow depth (~2-7 km) directly at the border between Austria and Slovenia. USGS reports an oblique-slip focal mechanism and a magnitude of Mw4.0 only. According to the Austrian Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie … Continue reading

drip – Big in Japan 

Some German terms are too good for translation, including Nabelschau. Literally interpretable as navel-gazing, it has an unhurried, introspective tone to it that the English fails to deliver. Navel-gazing calls up a vision of someone staring privately yet fanatically into his or her own bellybutton, whereas – to me at least – Nabelschau is a