Urban development causing Worldwide landslides
Creeping from just a finger’s width up to a few feet per year, slow-moving landslides occur naturally throughout the world. They typically are detected inching down-slope in rocky areas with high seasonal precipitation and clay-rich soil, and they can take months to years – even centuries – to develop.
Yet they can also bring sudden violence. Thousands of landslides are flowing, slipping, toppling, and sliding down hills from coastal California to China’s Three Gorges Reservoir. How these stealthy geologic phenomena respond to urban development has not been well understood.
Now a team of international researchers, including one from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has combined satellite and archival imagery to show how one African city’s changing water usage influences land movements near and just below the surface.
The new NASA study zeroed in on Bukavu, a hillslope city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The researchers noted that Bukavu – with a population estimated to double to more than a million inhabitants by 2030 – is emblematic of many cities in the developing world that have seen rapid and unplanned growth on tectonic active landscapes.
The city, originally established along the flat shoreline of a lake, has been expanding up steep slopes. Along the way, parts of Bukavu have experienced slow, ongoing destruction of infrastructure due to ground surface motion.
One of these active zones is the Funu neighborhood, where 80,000 people live, often in poor-quality housing, on top of a slow-moving landslide that shifts continuously up to 9 feet (3 meters) per year.
To measure the land motion, the research team analyzed radar data collected by the Sentinel-1 satellites of the ESA (European Space Agency) and the COSMO-SkyMed satellite from the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
The measurements were processed into maps showing land movement and then related to a number of landslide-triggering factors such as rainfall, earthquakes, and urban development.
To better visualize how Bukavu has transformed in recent decades, the team also drew on more than 70 years of aerial photographs (from 1947 to 2018) archived in the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.
The images document a mushrooming cityscape. One reason for the growth is an influx of people fleeing violence in the broader region, where Bukavu is seen as a safe haven.
Focusing on week-to-week landslide motion over the past 4 1/2 years, the researchers found that rainfall, tectonic activity, and urban development all played roles in landslide behavior across seasons and years. But the most important factor was water runoff.
For one of the first times, we were able to document a clear connection between the growth of a city and the acceleration of a slow-moving landslide, said Alexander Handwerger, a landslide scientist at JPL and a co-author of the study.
We think this is driven by changes in slope hydrology – the way that water flows into the ground there – and not the additional weight of the houses on top.
Water weakens rock by infiltrating its pores. In urban settings, infrastructure such as roads, storm drains, and ruptured pipes can drastically alter water flow, soaking and destabilizing parts of a slope.
The cycle is self-reinforcing: Rerouting water flow weakens the slope, which in turn damages plumbing infrastructure, which releases more water into the rock.
Compared to high-velocity landslides (such as mudslides or lahars), which cause thousands of casualties and billions of dollars in damage each year, slow-moving landslides pose less of a threat to human lives. But inch by inch, year by year, they can cause mounting destruction.
And on occasion they have been known to accelerate catastrophically. A recent example is the 2017 Mud Creek landslide near Big Sur, California, which dislodged about 6 million cubic yards (5 million cubic meters) of rock and debris across state Highway 1.
More attention should be paid to slow-moving landslides, the researchers said, because the current rate and scale of urban growth globally are unprecedented in human history.
When populations migrate to potentially unsafe landscapes such as hill-slopes, more people will be exposed to these natural hazards. Understanding how urban sprawl influences Earth’s surface will be vital to plan for and mitigate risk to communities.
Attention is typically focused on landslides located in high-income, high-latitude countries, while landslide impacts disproportionately affect tropical areas where extremely rapid changes are taking place, such as population growth and environmental degradation, said Antoine Dille, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
A space mission set to launch in 2024 could help provide even better information on these processes: The NASA-Indian Space Research Organization Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission will observe surface changes around the world with accuracies down to a fraction of an inch.
Such data will help scientists and policymakers protect lives and property by better monitoring subtle motions connected to landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural hazards.
NASA / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
The 10 lost tribes of Israel
The ten lost tribes refers to the legend concerning the fate of the ten tribes constituting the northern Kingdom of Israel.
The Kingdom of Israel – consisting of the ten tribes (the twelve tribes excluding Judah and Benjamin who constituted the southern Kingdom of Judah) – fell in 722 B.C.E. and its inhabitants were exiled by the Assyrians. In general, it can be said that these tribes disappeared from the stage of history.
However, the passage in I Chronicles 5:26 to the effect that the ten tribes were there “unto this day” and the prophecies of Isaiah (11:11), Jeremiah (31:8), and above all of Ezekiel (37: 19–24) kept alive the belief that they had maintained a separate existence and that the time would come when they would be rejoined with their brethren, the descendants of the Exile of Judah to Babylon.
Their place in history, however, is substituted by legend, and the legend of the Ten Lost Tribes is one of the most fascinating and persistent in Judaism and beyond it.
The belief in the continued existence of the ten tribes was regarded as an incontrovertible fact during the whole period of the Second Temple and of the Talmud.
Tobit, the hero of the apocryphal book of his name, was depicted as a member of the tribe of Naphtali; the Testament of the 12 Patriarchs takes their existence as a fact; and in his fifth vision, IV Ezra (13:34–45) saw a peaceable multitude, these are the 10 tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land.
Josephus (Ant., 11:133) states as a fact the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated in numbers.
Paul (Acts 26:6) protests to Agrippa that he is accused for the hope of the promise made unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God, hope to come, while James addresses his epistle to the twelve tribes which are scattered about (1:1).
The only opposing voice to this otherwise universal view is found in the Mishnah. R. Eliezer expresses his view that they will eventually return and after darkness is fallen upon the ten tribes light shall thereafter dwell upon them, but R. Akiva expresses his emphatic view that the 10 tribes shall not return again (Sanh. 10:3).
In consonance with this view, though it is agreed that Leviticus 26:38 applies to the ten tribes, where R. Meir maintains that it merely refers to their exile, Akiva states that it refers to their complete disappearance (Sifra, Be-Ḥukkotai, 8:1).
Their inability to rejoin their brethren was attributed to the fact that whereas the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (the Kingdom of Judah) were scattered throughout the world, the 10 tribes were exiled beyond the mysterious river *Sambatyon (Gen. R. 73:6), with its rolling waters or sand and rocks, which during the six days of the week prevented them from crossing it, and though it rested on the Sabbath, the laws of the Sabbath rendered the crossing equally impossible.
According to the Jerusalem Talmud, however (Sanh. 10:6, 29c), the exiles were divided into three. Only one-third went beyond the Sambatyon, a second to “Daphne of Antioch,” and over the third there descended a cloud which covered them; but all three would eventually return.
Throughout the Middle Ages and until comparatively recent times there were claims of the existence of the ten lost tribes as well as attempts by travelers and explorers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and by many naive scholars, both to discover the ten lost tribes or to identify different peoples with them.
In the ninth century *Eldad ha-Dani claimed not only to be a member of the tribe of Dan, but that he had communicated with four of the tribes.
David *Reuveni claimed to be the brother of Joseph the king of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who were settled in Khaybar in Arabia, which was identified with the Habor of II Kings. Benjamin of Tudela has a long description of the ten tribes.
According to him the Jews of Persia stated that in the town of *Nishapur dwelt the four tribes of Dan, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, who were then governed by their own prince Joseph Amarkala the Levite [ed. by N.M. Adler (1907), 83], while the Jews of Khaybar are of the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh” (ibid., 72), as was also stated by Reuveni.
Persistent was the legend that they warred with Prester John in Ethiopia, a story repeated by Obadiah of *Bertinoro in his first two letters from Jerusalem in 1488 and 1489. The kabbalist Abraham Levi the elder, in 1528, identified them with the Falashas (see *Beta Israel ).
Jacob *Saphir (1822–1888) cherished the hope that he would discover the lost tribes.
He tells the story in great detail of Baruch b. Samuel, a Jew of Safed who, sent to seek them, had visited Yemen and after traveling through an uninhabited desert established contact with a Jew who claimed to belong to the “sons of Moses.
However, Baruch was murdered before he could visit them (Even Sappir, 1 (1866), 41), and in the following chapter Saphir transcribes word for word the evidence given by a certain Baruch Gad to the rabbis of Jerusalem in 1647 that he had met the sons of Moses in Persia, who gave him a letter to Jerusalem.
He concludes wistfully, Were I able to give full credence to this letter… I would subject it to a meticulous analysis and woad learn from it matters of supreme importance, but the recollection of the fraud of Eldad ha-Dani brings suspicion upon Baruch the Gadite, for one supports the other.
I have done my duty by putting the facts down and you may judge for yourselves and I will hear also what contemporary scholars say about it. Various theories, one more farfetched than the other, have been adduced, on the flimsiest of evidence, to identify different peoples with the ten lost tribes.
There is hardly a people, from the Japanese to the British, and from the Red Indians to the Afghans, who have not been suggested, and hardly a place, among them Africa, India, China, Persia, Kurdistan, Caucasia, the U.S., and Great Britain.
Special interest is attached to the fantastic traveler’s tale told by Aaron (Antonio) Levi de *Montezinos who, on his return to Amsterdam from South America in 1644, told a remarkable story of having found Indians beyond the mountain passes of the Cordilleras who greeted him by reciting the Shema.
Among those to whom Montezinos gave his affidavit was *Manasseh Ben Israel , then rabbi of Amsterdam, who fully accepted the story, and to it devoted his Hope of Israel (1650, 16522) which he dedicated to the English Parliament.
- That the West Indies were anciently inhabited by a part of the ten Tribes, which passed thither out of Tartary, by the Streight of Anian.
- That the Tribes are not in any one place, but in many; because the Prophets have fore-told their return shall be into their Country, out of divers places; Isaiah especially saith it shall be out of eight.
- That they did not return to the Second Temple.
- That at this day they keep the Jewish Religion.
- That the prophecies concerning their return to their Country, are of necessity to be fulfilled.
- That from all coasts of the World they shall meet in those two places, sc. Assyria and Egypt; God preparing an easier, pleasant way, and abounding with all things, as Isaiah saith, ch. 49, and from thence they shall fly to Jerusalem, as birds to their nests.
- That their Kingdom shall be no more divided; but the twelve Tribes shall be joined together under one Prince, that is under Messiah, the Son of David; and that they shall never be driven out of their Land.
Jewish Virtual Library / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
How British women helped to abolish slavery in 1804
Believe it or not, but by the 1700’s, deciding whether or not to take sugar with your tea had become a political statement. While sugar-free diets are now all the rage, the motivations behind this health trend are a far cry from those of the anti-saccharine during the abolitionist sugar boycotts of Britain and North America.
By the 18th century drinking tea sweetened with sugar was a staple of millions of British households. This in turn helped fuel the despicable trade in slaves, necessary to keep the price of sugar low and keep up with the ever-increasing demand.
According to Royal Museums Greenwich , between 1662 and 1807 Britain human trafficked over three million Africans to the Americas as slaves.
Many of these ended up working on sugar plantations in the Caribbean, famed for inhumane conditions and high death rates. Estimates claim that by the end of the 18th century, over 400,000 slaves had perished in the process.
The Haitian Declaration of Independence was proclaimed on 1 January 1804 in the port city of Gonaïves by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, marking the end of 13-year long Haitian Revolution. The declaration marked Haiti’s becoming the first independent Black nation in the Western Hemisphere.
After the independence of Haiti, sugar needed to be boycotted, so the former slave labor population could not be successful on its own. They were also forced to sign and pay for the losses of the slave labor corporations in Haiti.
Christian Quakers in Britain and America led the movement against slavery. Rejecting class divisions, they viewed slavery as contradictory to their principles.
Sugar came to represent the corrupting force of greed and the Quakers began to understand the power of ethical consumer choices in shaping the political landscape.
By the early 1800’s, eating sugar was about as acceptable as displaying tusks of ivory in one’s living room is today, explained NPR. In the 1820’s, sugar bowls adorned with anti-slavery slogans had become a popular trend, with consumers opting for sugar sourced in India instead.
Due to pressure from the abolitionist movement, by 1807 King George III had signed the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, effectively banning the slave trade in the British Empire . Nevertheless, many slavers defied the new legislation and slavery continued to exist in the Caribbean.
This provoked another sugar boycott in the 1820’s, exerting pressure on the government. Nevertheless, it was only in 1833, with the Slave Emancipation Act, that British slavery gradually came to an end.
While most people associate the movement with Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, women and children played a crucial role promoting the boycott and in deciding their household consumption.
A study from the University of Exeter highlighted the production of antislavery children’s literature and the role Georgian children played by refusing to eat products made with sugar.
Ancient Origins / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
People of the Americas have a Female Lineage from China
A groundbreaking new study has harnessed the power of mitochondrial DNA to trace a marvelous female lineage from northern coastal China all the way to the Americas. This has revealed compelling evidence of not one, but two migrations, during the last Ice Age, and the subsequent melting period!
This discovery challenges previous beliefs about the ancestry of Native Americans and sheds new light on the complicated history of human migration and settlement in the Americas.
Coinciding with the timeline of the second migration is another branch of the same lineage migrating to Japan. This is a potential explanation for Paleolithic archaeological similarities between the Americas, China, and Japan, explains the study published in the latest edition of Cell Reports .
It has popularly been believed that ancient Siberians, who crossed over a land bridge in the Bering Strait linking modern Russia and Alaska, were the sole ancestors of Native Americans.
This accepted wisdom is now being challenged in many ways, thanks to newer and newer scientific studies, like this. The new science heavily points towards multiple waves of human migration from various parts of Eurasia to the Americas.
The Asian ancestry of Native Americans is more complicated than previously indicated, says first author Yu-Chun Li, a molecular anthropologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences embarked on a quest to trace a lineage that could potentially connect East Asian Paleolithic populations to the founding populations in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and California.
This lineage, crucially present in mitochondrial DNA, provides a unique window into tracing kinship through the maternal line, according to a press release . The lineage, known as D4h, was used in the research, allowing the team to trace maternal ancestry over the course of 10 years.
The research team from the Kunming Institute of Zoology embarked on an extensive analysis of over 100,000 contemporary and 15,000 ancient DNA samples collected across Eurasia. This led them to the identification of 216 contemporary and 39 ancient individuals belonging to this rare lineage.
After a thorough comparison of accumulated genetic mutations, geographical locations, and carbon dating, the researchers successfully traced the lineage’s branching trajectory.
Evidence of two migration events from northern coastal China to the Americas emerged – the first of these occurred roughly between 19,500 and 26,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum .
Potentially, the severe ice sheet coverage in northern China (at its peak) rendered the region inhospitable for human habitation during this period.
The second migration unfolded during the subsequent deglaciation or melting period, spanning from 19,000 to 11,500 years ago, a period of relative warming.
The favorable climatic conditions during this phase likely contributed to a rapid population increase, causing (perhaps even forcing) an expansion of human communities into other geographical regions.
It is likely that both groups arrived in the Americas via the Pacific coast, rather than venturing through the inland ice-free corridor, which would not have been accessible during that time.
During this deglaciation period, another group branched off from northern coastal China and made their way to Japan, forging an intriguing connection. We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool, especially the indigenous Ainus, says Li.
This serves as a solid explanation for the archaeological similarities observed among the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas. This is observed particularly in their shared crafting techniques for stemmed projectile points used in crafting arrowheads and spears.
This suggests that the Pleistocene connection among the Americas, China, and Japan was not confined to culture but also to genetics, says senior author Qing-Peng Kong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Although the focus of the study primarily centered on mitochondrial DNA, complementary evidence from Y chromosomal DNA further indicates the presence of male ancestors of Native Americans in northern China during the same period as their female counterparts.
The origins of several founder groups are still elusive or controversial. Next, we plan to collect and investigate more Eurasian lineages to obtain a more complete picture on the origin of Native Americans, concludes Kong.
Ancient Origins / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
Massive Outbreak of Jellyfish could now spell more trouble for Fisheries
The world’s oceans have been experiencing enormous blooms of jellyfish, apparently caused by over-fishing, declining water quality, and rising sea temperatures.
Now, scientists are trying to determine if these outbreaks could represent a “new normal” in which jellyfish increasingly supplant fish.
Among the spineless creatures of the world, the Nomura’s jellyfish is a monster to be reckoned with. It’s the size of a refrigerator — imagine a Frigidaire Gallery Premiere rather than a hotel minibar — and can exceed 450 pounds.
For decades the hulking medusa was rarely encountered in its stomping grounds, the Sea of Japan. Only three times during the entire 20th century did numbers of the Nomura’s swell to such gigantic proportions that they seriously clogged fishing nets.
Then something changed. Since 2002, the population has exploded — in jelly parlance, bloomed — six times. In 2005, a particularly bad year, the Sea of Japan brimmed with as many as 20 billion of the bobbing bags of blubber, bludgeoning fisheries with 30 billion yen in losses.
Why has the Nomura’s jellyfish become a recurring nightmare?
The answer could portend trouble for the world’s oceans. In recent years, populations of several jellyfish species have made inroads at the expense of their main competitor — fish — in a number of regions, including the Yellow Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Black Sea.
Over-fishing and deteriorating coastal water quality are chief suspects in the rise of jellies.
Global warming may be adding fuel to the fire by making more food available to jellyfish and opening up new habitat. Now, researchers fear, conditions are becoming so bad that some ecosystems could be approaching a tipping point in which jellyfish supplant fish.
Essential to thwarting any potential jellyfish takeover is a better understanding of the complicated dynamics between fish and jellyfish. Jellyfish — free-swimming gelatinous animals — are a normal element of marine ecosystems. Fish and jellyfish both compete for plankton.
The predators keep each other in check: 124 kinds of fish species and 34 other species, including leather-back turtles, are known to dine on jellyfish, while jellies prey on fish eggs and, occasionally, on fish themselves. Juvenile fish of some species take refuge amid tentacles and eat jellyfish parasites.
Fish and jellyfish interact in complex ways, says Kylie Pitt, an ecologist at Griffith University in Australia.
Over-fishing can throw this complex relationship out of kilter. By removing a curb on jellyfish population growth, over-fishing opens up ecological space for jellyfish, says Anthony Richardson, an ecologist at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Cleveland, Australia.
And as jellyfish flourish, predating on fish eggs takes a heavier and heavier toll on battered fish stock.
When an ecosystem is dominated by jellyfish, fish will mostly disappear, says ecologist Sun Song, director of the Institute of Oceanology in Qingdao, China. Once that happens, there is almost no method to deal with it.
Just think of attempting to purge the Sea of Japan of billions of Nomura’s jellyfish, many of them hovering meters below the surface and therefore invisible to satellites or the naked eye.
Total jelly domination would be like turning back the clock to the Precambrian world, more than 550 million years ago, when the ancestors of jellyfish ruled the seas.
Sun and others are racing to get a handle on the likelihood of such a marine meltdown coming true. Like their foe, the subject is slippery. It’s an enigma, for starters, why particular jellyfish run rampant.
The troublemakers are only a small fraction of the several thousand species of jellyfish out there, says Richardson. These uber-jellies reproduce like mad, grow fast, eat most anything, and can withstand poor water quality.
The big question is whether these cockroaches of the sea are poised to hijack marine ecosystems. There’s anecdotal evidence that jellyfish blooms are becoming more frequent. But there are also cases in which jellyfish gained the upper hand on an ecosystem, only to suddenly relinquish it.
For instance, biomass of Chrysaora jellyfish in the east Bering Sea rose sharply during the 1990s and peaked in 2000. Chrysaora then crashed and stabilized after 2001, apparently due to a combination of warmer sea temperatures and a rebound in numbers of walleye pollock, a competitor for zooplankton.
The jury is out on whether other jelly-blighted waters can regain ecological balance as quickly as the Bering Sea did. For that reason, says Pitt, no one can say for sure whether severe jellyfish blooms are a passing regional phenomenon or a global scourge requiring urgent measures to combat their spread.
Jellyfish clearly have an impact on human activity. Besides fouling fishing nets, they invade fish farms, block cooling intakes at coastal power plants, and force beach closures. Some jellies pose a mortal threat.
Dozens of people die each year from jellyfish stings, far more than from encounters with other marine creatures, including sharks. A box jellyfish, the Chironex sea wasp, may be the most lethal animal on the planet: Its toxin can kill a person in three minutes.
Global warming may allow deadly jellyfish, now mostly found in tropical and subtropical waters, to conquer new turf in temperate waters as sea surface temperatures rise, warns Richardson. It’s very likely that venomous jellyfish will move toward the poles.
While that could be a big blow for tourism, far more worrisome to many researchers is the threat that jellies pose to fish stocks. The most important helping hand for jellyfish may be over-fishing.
In one well-documented episode, the devastation of sardine stocks appear to have cleared the way for the rise of Chrysaora off Namibia, in waters known as the northern Benguela. Recent research cruises there have hauled in about four times as much jelly biomass as fish biomass.
Another ecosystem tweak that benefits jellyfish is eutrophication. A flood of nutrients from agricultural runoff and sewage spurs phytoplankton growth in coastal waters, providing a feeding bonanza for jellyfish.
Eutrophication, usually around the mouths of major rivers, can also create low-oxygen dead zones that jellyfish generally tolerate better than fish.
Global warming may also abet regime change. Warmer ocean temperatures are correlated with jellyfish blooms. A possible explanation, says Richardson, is that warming leads to nutrient-poor surface waters. Such conditions favor flagellates, a kind of zooplankton, over diatoms, a kind of phytoplankton.
Flagellate-dominated food webs may be more favorable to jellyfish.
For reasons yet to be fully fathomed, the waters off North Asia may be acutely vulnerable to a jellyfish invasion. Since 2000 or so, the Nomura’s jellyfish and two other species — Aurelia aurita and Cyanea nozakii — have been plaguing the Yellow Sea.
In the past 5 years, anchovy catches there have decreased 20-fold, says Sun. Perhaps as a result, just like off Namibia, jellyfish are seizing the day. During a research cruise in the Yellow Sea in the summer of 2009, jellyfish amounted to 95% of the biomass netted by the scientists.
The bottom line is that multiple factors may favor jellyfish over fish, says Shin-ichi Uye, an ecologist at Hiroshima University who has charted the rapid rise of the Nomura’s jellyfish in the Sea of Japan.
The recipe for what makes jellyfish run amuck likely varies by region, and for that reason may take time to decipher. But the future of the world’s fisheries may well depend on it.
Yale Environment 360 / Crickey Amigu di Natura 2023.
Race against Time to save the 33,000-Year-Old Underwater Cosquer Cave
During glacial Pleistocene, the entry to the famous Cosquer Cave was 100 meters (330 ft) above sea level, but the Holocene sea level rise, propelled lately by climate change, has meant that the entrance to the cave is now 37 meters (121 ft) below sea level.
Renowned for being the only place in the world where prehistoric underwater marine art can be found, scientists are now racing against time to save the art from climate change and pollution.
Over 30,000 years old and created over 15 millennia, the spectacular cave art at Cosquer Cave is in grave danger, with a 12 cm (almost 5 in) rise in sea level in 2011 alone.
With sea levels rising a few millimeters every year, and the combination of water and plastic pollution is doing more and more damage to the art, archaeologist and diver Luc Vanrell and his colleagues have taken matters into their own hands.
While in use, Cosquer Cave was 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) away from the coast. “At the time we were in the middle of an ice age and the sea was 135 meters [443 ft] lower” than it is today, highlighted archaeologist Michel Olive in AFP.
The entrance to the cave was on a little promontory facing south over grassland protected by cliffs. It was an extremely good place for prehistoric man. Olive has been put in charge of the academic research and study of the cave.
Though four-fifths of the cave has inadvertently been lost or submerged due to the passage of time, 229 rock art figures depicting 13 species remain on the wall. An added bonus is 69 red or black hand prints , including three that have been left by mistake, some of these made by children.
In total, 600 signs, images and rock carvings, which include aquatic life never seen before in cave paintings have been found. The cave was occupied between 33,000 and 18,500 years ago, but no traces or evidence of people having lived there have been found.
To access the cave, visitors first need to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of southern France, at the gorgeous Calanques inlets east of Marseille.
After that, they have to navigate a 137 meter (450 ft) tunnel, before arriving at a submerged cavern. The cavern leads to the 2,500 square meter (27,000 sq. ft.) Cosquer Cave.
On 4 June 2022 a life-sized replica cave, known as Cosquer Méditerranée , is being opened up a few kilometers away in Marseille.
The replica will confirm the bountiful coastal wildlife that must have once graced the Mediterranean – horses, deer, bison, ibex, prehistoric auroch cows, taiga antelopes, seals, fish, penguins, and even a cat and a bear. There are also hundreds of geometric signs, and eight depictions of male and female body part.
As of now, Vanrell and his team are rushing to beat the clock to prepare a 3D reconstruction of the cave through digital mapping. We fantasized about bringing the cave to the surface.
When it is finished, our virtual Cosquer cavern—which is accurate to within millimeters—will be indispensable for researchers and archaeologists who will not be able to physically get inside,” said diver Bertrand Chazaly, who is in charge of the operation to digitalize what has come to be known as the underwater Lascaux cave.
The replica cave , slightly smaller than the original, has cost a whopping $24 million.
In fact, in terms of importance and size Cosquer Cave is right up there with Lascaux, Altamira, and Chauvet, three of the largest cave sites in the world. And because the cave walls that are today underwater were probably also once decorated, nothing else in Europe compares to its size.
Having said that, the alarming rise in sea levels, exacerbated by the pace of anthropocenic activity in the past few decades, has caused the walls to rinse and be leeched out. It has also finally gained the attention of the French government, who have launched a major push to record all available data before it’s too late.
In the meantime, Vanrell and his team are hoping to discover what the purpose of the cave was, in order to understand the ways of our ancestors and their artistic pursuits.
After all, examples of Palaeolithic cave art have been located across all continents, including cave art created as far back as 45,000 years ago in Indonesia .
Clearly, cave art, which predates human language, is the first form of symbolic visual communication that developed into more complex forms of language much later on.
Ancient Origins / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
Challenges and Triumphs in Underwater Archaeology
Digging the Deep Blue, where archaeology, the scientific study of human history and prehistory through the excavation and analysis of artifacts and other physical remains, has greatly evolved over time, providing a window onto the historic development of civilizations.
From its crude beginnings to the current use of advanced technology, archaeology has allowed us to unlock many secrets of our past. However, one branch of archaeology that has been particularly challenging is underwater archaeology.
Undertaking archaeology underwater is a difficult and demanding task. It involves the excavation of submerged remains such as shipwrecks, sunken cities and other ancient artifacts.
This branch of archaeology requires specialized equipment and techniques to access and recover artifacts, often in conditions where visibility is limited, currents are strong, and the ocean is a constantly changing environment.
Despite the challenges, underwater archaeology has yielded remarkable discoveries that have greatly enriched our understanding of human history.
Our planet is mostly made up of water bodies like lakes, oceans, seas, and rivers. The mysteries and secrets they hold are vast and fascinating, leaving us to wonder and speculate about what lies beneath the surface.
Ancient shipwrecks, submerged settlements, deposited relics – a great deal of ancient history is hidden in these watery graves. Fortunately, archaeologists didn’t limit their work to land.
From the very beginning, they were determined to explore watery depths and retrieve its hidden history. However, this was never an easy task, and they faced numerous challenges along the way.
The pioneers of underwater archaeology faced immense difficulties. Deep sea diving, and diving in general, was still in its infancy during the “golden age” of archaeology in the early 20th century.
Even today, underwater archaeological sites are hard to access due to the nature of seas and rivers. Underwater archaeological sites will always be difficult to access, filled with ever-present dangers.
In the past, when the technology used for underwater archaeology was exceptionally crude, many divers lost their lives attempting to retrieve or examine ancient remains.
Due to limited visibility and rising silt, especially in murky rivers, observation can be near impossible. To make things worse, once a site is observed, the rising silt may bury it once again. All these obstacles present a challenge for underwater archaeologists.
And it isn’t only the dangers of underwater exploration. Underwater archaeology is plagued by logistical challenges as well. How does one approach the excavation of immense sunken ships? Without a doubt, ancient shipwrecks are the major part of underwater recovery.
Many of them have been sitting at the bottom of the sea for centuries, meaning they are fragile, waterlogged and very huge to boot.
Undertaking an underwater archaeological project presents a colossal logistical challenge. From discovery and observation to planning and excavation, the process is long and arduous.
In the past, divers had to perform most of the work, despite not being trained for archaeological work.
However, modern underwater archaeologists often combine their training as divers with archaeological knowledge, making their dual expertise incredibly useful.
Ancient Origins / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
The Search for England’s Underwater City
In the depths of the English Channel lies a lost city that has been submerged for over 8,000 years. It is known as Doggerland. One maritime archaeologist , Garry Momber, has spent two decades exploring these waters to uncover its secrets.
The English Channel is notoriously difficult to navigate, with cold water and powerful tides creating treacherous conditions for divers.
However, Momber’s meticulous preparations have paid off, revealing that Doggerland is a treasure trove of ancient wood that has survived underwater for millennia.
These preserved hunter-gatherer landscapes offer a rare glimpse into life from another age, and composite structures like these are of international significance. The discovery of what is believed to be the oldest boat building site in the world adds to the intrigue of this remarkable find.
Marine archaeologists have published stunning images of what they think is an 8000-year-old shipyard located just off the coast of England. They have just found a large number of timber boards that may have once been a platform on the seafloor.
Researchers believe that the submerged structure may provide new insights into Stone Age technology and society. The find was made by divers from the Maritime Archaeology Trust.
They made the discovery at the submerged Mesolithic landscape at Bouldnor Cliff, [which] lies on the edge of the drowned palaeo-valley and is now 11m underwater according to the Maritime Archaeology Trust . This location is now located half a mile (1km) east of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight.
Divers have been exploring this area since the 1980’s when a drowned Stone Age forest was uncovered. In the 1990’s, many worked flints were found, there. In 2005, a great number of worked timber boards were found jutting out of the water. The Conservation zone is located some 36 feet or 11 m below the surface.
Ancient Origins / Crickey Conservation Society.
Ball Lightning during Thunderstorms
Instances of ball lightning—glowing, electric orbs in the sky—have captivated and mystified us for centuries. The bizarre phenomenon, also known as globe lightning, usually appears during thunderstorms as a floating sphere that can range in color from blue to orange to yellow, disappearing within a few seconds. It’s sometimes accompanied by a hissing sound and an acrid odor.
Lightning in general is an electrical discharge caused by positive and negative imbalances within clouds themselves, or between storm clouds and the ground.
A lightning flash can heat the air around it to temperatures five times hotter than the sun’s surface. The heat causes surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, which creates thunder.
One of the first recorded sightings of ball lightning occurred in 1638, when a great ball of fire came through the window of an English church. That and other early accounts suggest that ball lightning can be deadly.
At least one study has theorized that about half of all ball lightning sightings are hallucinations caused by the magnetic fields during storms. That said, scientists seem to agree ball lightning is real, even if they don’t yet fully understand what causes it.
Researchers from Lanzhou, China’s Northwest Normal University inadvertently recorded a ball lightning event while studying a 2012 thunderstorm using video cameras and spectrometers.
The ball appeared just after a lightning strike and traveled horizontally for about 10 meters (33 feet). The spectrometer detected silicon, iron, and calcium in the ball, all of which were also present in the local soil.
The Lanzhou researchers’ paper supports the theory that ball lightning results from a ground strike that creates a reaction between oxygen and vaporized elements from the soil.
This ionized air, or plasma, is the same condition that enables St. Elmo’s Fire, the stationary glow that is sometimes confused with ball lightning.
Another study, published in 2016, suggests that microwave radiation produced when lightning strikes the ground could become encapsulated in a plasma bubble, resulting in ball lightning.
Ball lightning has also been associated with earthquakes. The rare flashes of light sometimes seen around earthquakes can take many forms: bluish flames that appear to come out of the ground at ankle height; quick flashes of bright light that resemble regular lightning strikes, except they originate from the ground instead of the sky; and the floating orbs known as ball lightning.
In a 2014 study of earthquake lights, researchers concluded that certain rocks tend to release electrical charges when a seismic wave hits, sparking colorful displays of light.
Aiming to understand how ball lightning happens, scientists have tried to recreate it. In 2006 researchers at Israel’s University of Tel Aviv created a laboratory version of ball lightning using a microwave beam.
In 2018 quantum physicists demonstrated a synthetic, knotted magnetic field that mirrors and possibly helps explain ball lightning.
But despite all these investigations and lab experiments, ball lightning still refuses to be pinned down. Scientists say they have much to learn about the mysterious phenomenon.
National Geographic / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
Blood Rain in Spain
Rain showers can sometimes take a bizarre turn: in very rare cases, animals such as fish and frogs have been known to fall from the sky alongside water droplets, and around the world, people have experienced what’s known as blood rain, where the water has a peculiar red tinge.
Reports of blood rain have been recorded for centuries – back before humans knew any better, it was believed the sky was actually spitting out blood.
Nowadays, we have the technology to analyze the composition of blood rain so we no longer have to jump to any crazy conclusions, but scientists are only just figuring out how and why it occurs. And now a new study has put forward an explanation for a recent incident in Zamora, a city in northwestern Spain.
The people of Zamora and several nearby villages noticed blood rain falling from the sky late last year: was it chemical pollution? Was it some kind of deliberate sabotage? Was it a sign from God?
A concerned resident sent a sample of collected rainwater to scientists at Spain’s University of Salamanca to see if they could come up with any answers. And now the results are in.
The researchers say a freshwater green micro-algae called Haematococcus pluvialis is to blame – this micro-algae is capable of producing a red carotene pigment called Astaxanthin when in a state of stress, perhaps caused by getting caught up in a rain-cloud.
That matches up with previous studies of blood rain, one of which found the micro-algae Trentepohlia annulata to be the cause of an incident in Kerala in India – different kinds of micro-algae, but the same root cause.
What’s less clear is how these micro-algae spores are traveling. H. pluvialis is not native to Zamora or any of the neighboring regions, and before the Kerala incident, T. annulata was thought to only exist in Austria – a long way from India.
So now the researchers have to figure out exactly how these mysterious microorganisms are making their way across the globe. Hitching a ride on global wind currents would be a good bet, but so far researchers have been unable to find any concrete proof of this.
The researchers identified a prevailing current that could’ve carried the micro-algae out from North America to Spain, but have yet to pinpoint the exact source. Their work has been published in the Spanish Royal Society of Natural History Journal.
In the meantime, there’s no cause for panic if you’re caught in a blood rain shower: H. pluvialis is non-toxic and is often used as a food source for salmon and trout to give them a more pinkish hue.
Indeed, motorcycle company Yamaha recently used the micro-algae to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its factories.
Science Alert / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
ORIGINS OF EARTH DAY
In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press.
Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.
However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.
The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, the junior senator from Wisconsin, had long been concerned about the deteriorating environment in the United States. Then in January 1969, he and many others witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.
Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution.
Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses to the national media, and persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair.
They recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize the campus teach-ins and they choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation.
Recognizing its potential to inspire all Americans, Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others.
They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country.
Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts.
Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment and there were massive coast-to-coast rallies in cities, towns, and communities.
Groups that had been fighting individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife united on Earth Day around these shared common values.
Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders.
By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first of their kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act.
Two years later Congress passed the Clean Water Act. A year after that, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act and soon after the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
These laws have protected millions of men, women and children from disease and death and have protected hundreds of species from extinction.
As in 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community to combat the cynicism of climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community with the collective power of global environmental activism.
In the face of these challenges, Earth Day prevailed and EARTHDAY.ORG reestablished Earth Day as a major moment for global action for the environment.
Over the decades, EARTHDAY.ORG has brought hundreds of millions of people into the environmental movement, creating opportunities for civic engagement and volunteerism in 193 countries.
Earth Day engages more than 1 billion people every year and has become a major stepping stone along the pathway of engagement around the protection of the planet.
Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.
Now, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day.
As the awareness of our climate crisis grows, so does civil society mobilization, which is reaching a fever pitch across the globe today.
Disillusioned by the low level of ambition following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and frustrated with international environmental lethargy, citizens of the world are rising up to demand far greater action for our planet and its people.
Earth Day Organization / Crickey Conservation Society 2023.
Sea Shepherd adds New Ship to Operation Milagro in Mexico
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society debuted its new ship Seahorse in Operation Milagro to protect the Vaquita Porpoise.
In Operation Milagro, Sea Shepherd and the Mexican Government protect the Zero Tolerance Area of the Vaquita Refuge by keeping the illegal fishing gear that ensnares the world’s most endangered marine mammal out of the UNESCO-recognized protected zone.
The Mexican Navy is part of the Grupo Intragubernamental sobre la Sustentabilidad en el Alto Golfo de California or GIS; a coalition of Mexican government agencies and departments which works in the ZTA to protect the Vaquita Refuge in coordination with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
They were represented in the events by Admiral Rubén Alfonso Vargas Suárez and Rear Admiral José Carlos Tinoco Castrejón.
The Seahorse arrives at a critical time; data from 2022 indicates that in the past year, Operation Milagro’s joint efforts with the Secretary of the Navy and other government partners reduced the illegal fishing activity that threatens the Vaquita by 72%.
This dramatic reduction in the illegal fishing activity responsible for the decline of the vaquita is due to the sustained commitment of Sea Shepherd and the vigilant enforcement of the Mexican Navy.
From October 10, to December 5 in 2021, Sea Shepherd crews observed a total of 449 hours of illegal fishing activity in the Zero Tolerance Area of the Vaquita Refuge (defined as the number of fishing vessels multiplied by the time they spent in the ZTA) with a daily average of 26.41 hours of illegal fishing activity every day being confirmed and responded to in the ZTA.
During that same period of time in 2022, a total of 164 hours of illegal activity was detected with a daily average of 7.45 hours of illegal fishing in the ZTA.
This means the partnership between the Government of Mexico and Sea Shepherd is responsible for a 72% reduction in the total hours of illegal fishing, the nets of which are a direct threat to the Vaquita.
The new ship builds on this momentum. Sea Shepherd completed the purchase of Seahorse in August 2022 and, at 150 feet long and 36 feet wide, the Seahorse’s ballast will allow Sea Shepherd to remain vigilant over the Zero Tolerance Area during inclement weather.
M/V Seahorse is entering Operation Milagro at the perfect time, Sea Shepherd’s Chairman Pritam Singh said. Our new ship arrives after a year when our partnership with the Mexican Navy dramatically reduced the threat to the Vaquita, specifically a 72% reduction of illegal fishing activity.
This is encouraging news, but we always have to do better. We chose and re-fitted the Seahorse specifically for its design and capacity, both of which will dramatically increase our effectiveness and ability to protect the Vaquita in 2023.
Esteban Moctezuma, Mexico’s Ambassador to the USA, said that protecting the Vaquita porpoise is a top priority of the Government of Mexico. We are delighted to herald a new chapter in this joint effort and thank Sea Shepherd for its longstanding partnership.
Sea Shepherd / Protecting Marine Wildlife Worldwide 2023.
Australia Zoo & Wildlife Warriors
Almost 17 years have passed since Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray while filming in the Great Barrier Reef, but not a day goes by when his daughter Bindi Irwin doesn’t think of him.
And, as she tells HELLO! during a moving exclusive to mark World Earth Day, she hopes he’s looking down upon her and would be proud of everything their family have achieved in honoring his legacy.
It’s hard to believe it’s been over 16 years since he passed away, the conservationist told us. In some ways, it still feels like yesterday that we were on our last crocodile research trip together as a family. I know in my heart that his love and enthusiasm will live on and that brings me great comfort.
With the same fighting spirit as her dad, Bindi has big dreams to change the world with kindness. We work hard to ensure Dad’s mission continues to grow, just like he wanted us to do.
We work hard to ensure Dad’s mission continues to grow, just like he wanted us to do. He always used to say, I don’t care if people remember me, I want everyone to remember my mission. Through our work both at Australia Zoo and Wildlife Warriors, conservation through exciting education is our ethos.
We support projects around the world protecting wildlife. In Africa we work with three organizations. The Black Mambas, an all female army trained anti poaching team working within the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa.
Ol Pejeta Conservancy protects the critically endangered black rhinos with specially trained K-9 Units working alongside the rangers.
Cheetah Outreach’s Guarding Dog Program, where Anatolian Shepherd dogs are placed with herds of livestock, to deter predators, in particular saving cheetahs from being shot by farmers.
In Sumatra we have two very important projects with tigers and elephants. We help to employ 60 full-time forest rangers who patrol the jungle and dismantle illegal tiger snare traps. Through Australia Zoo we have built an enormous elephant hospital in Sumatra, to treat and care for elephants in need.
My mum grew up in Oregon, USA, so we support a brilliant wildlife organisation, Wildlife Images which has a hospital treating approximately 1,200 wild animals each year.
Here in Australia we have many projects. We support whale shark research alongside Ecocean, learning about this enormous and secretive species. We fund the largest crocodile research program in the world alongside The University of Queensland, using state-of-the-art acoustic and satellite trackers.
Our Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital and Rescue Unit has treated over 120,000 patients and continues to expand utilising cutting edge medical treatments for the wildlife that comes into our care.
We also have three conservation properties within Australia which adds up to about half a million acres of pristine land, set aside for protection of native species.
We’ve treated over 120,000 animals. Our philosophy is ‘save one, save the species’. The goal with every animal brought into care is to give them the best chance at life in the wild once again. It’s humbling to know that with so many animals treated, we are helping to save entire species.
Personally, I believe we should treat every day like it’s World Earth Day. We only have this one beautiful, green planet and our very survival depends on us caring for it.
World Earth Day is a fantastic reminder to stop and appreciate our wonderful world while giving us all that push to think about our own impact. At Australia Zoo our entire year feels like World Earth Day.
We strive to inspire every one of our guests to love and respect the species we live alongside.
Our team of 400 works incredibly hard to impart the conservation message in an exciting way so people walk away with a sense of purpose and passion to protect the natural world. Our hearts beat for conservation every minute of every day.
We feel lucky to have such a large family of animals. Australia Zoo is like a resort for wildlife and we strive to create remarkable habitats for our animal family. I think the most important aspect of working with wildlife is always keeping the awe in your heart for every species.
If you’ve spent five minutes or five years with an animal, it’s vital to never lose that genuine love, respect and appreciation for them. It is such a privilege to work with wildlife, especially as closely as we all do at Australia Zoo.
They’re part of our family and it’s an honor to share them with our guests to instill a greater understanding for all species.
On the day we had a candle-lighting ceremony in honor of Dad, alongside my favorite photo of him and our family dog, Sui. It meant the world to pay tribute to his memory on our special day.
I’d also like to mention my incredible brother who walked me down the aisle. I’m forever thankful for his friendship and support.
Simple things like swapping out your laundry detergent/dish soap for greener alternatives, turning off the tap while you brush your teeth, composting, recycling, donating used items, planting a garden, shopping local, setting up bird feeders or bee boxes and seeking out companies with environmentally driven products.
The options are endless and every little action adds up to make a big difference. There are many ways to show kindness towards our Mother Earth. We all lead such different lives, it’s important to find what works best for you and your lifestyle.
If everyone does the best they can do to reduce their footprint, the world will be a much brighter place for the generations to come. One of the biggest conservation stands you can take is to never purchase any wildlife products.
When the buying stops, the killing can, too. Check your pet food for wildlife products like kangaroo meat, avoid fashion brands that promote skins or fur and make informed food choices when at the grocery store.
Volunteering your time to an environmental organization is an enormous help and donating funds is incredibly beneficial.
We run the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital and our non profit conservation organization, Wildlife Warriors, and I can tell you first-hand that donations of time and funds are tremendously appreciated.
There are also many small acts of kindness you can show in everyday life to protect the planet. Saying ‘yes’ to reusable items like water bottles and ‘no’ to single-use plastics.
Planting native flowers or trees, organizing local clean-up days at the park or beach, swapping that archaic hunting trip for a meaningful photography adventure, educating and inspiring others to care for our Earth.
Hello Magazine.com / Crickey Coservation Society.
Crickey Amigu di Natura 