EARTHWEEK
Puffing pachyderm
Wildlife experts say they are baffled at footage captured of an Asian elephant “smoking” in a southern Indian forest — a behavior never seen before.
Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society filmed the female pachyderm at Nagarhole National Park picking up lumps of charcoal with its trunk, placing them in its mouth and exhaling with a large plume of ash.
In a self-medicating behavior known as zoopharmacognosy, the elephant could have been using the charcoal as a laxative since it is plentiful in the forest after wildfires or lightning strikes, researchers say.
Earthquakes
A brief tsunami alert was issued after a sharp tremor struck beneath Indonesia’s Banda Sea. Shaking was felt as far away as Darwin, Australia. • Earth movements were also felt in the central Papua New Guinea aftershock zone and from northern Pakistan to eastern Afghanistan.
Floating dump
The vast accumulation of plastic pollution known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch contains up to 16 times more floating plastic than previously thought, according to a new report published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
The Dutch-based nonprofit Ocean Cleanup Foundation provided data to the study from a fleet of 30 vessels that mapped the garbage patch, combined with data from an aerial survey.
Dolphin rescue
Residents of the Newfoundland port of Heart’s Delight used unconventional means to free a pod of six to eight dolphins that had become trapped by ice and were swimming in circles inside the harbor.
The coast guard had failed to free them because of the harbor’s shallow water. The town’s fire chief and heavy equipment owner then drove his excavator to the wharf and used it to scoop out a channel for the marine mammals to escape through. Local boaters then sped through the ice to break it up further before guiding the disoriented dolphins to safety.
Carbon surge
Global greenhouse gas emissions surged 1.4 percent during 2017 to the highest level on record, according to the International Energy Agency.
After three years of relatively flat output of carbon dioxide pollution, the agency says a robust economy, combined with a slowing of energy efficiency improvements, caused the historic high in emissions.
Eruption
Mayon volcano ended weeks of relative calm in the Philippines by spewing lava and spouting a plume of ash that rained down on nearby communities.
The country’s Phivolcs agency downgraded the alert level for Mayon to 3 because of what it termed a “general decline in unrest.”
Tropical cyclones
Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, in far northern Queensland, was drenched by Category-2 Cyclone Nora. The storm intensified rapidly after forming over the Gulf of Carpentaria.
• Tropical Storm Iris passed over the Coral Sea.
• Tropical Storm Jelawat spun up near Yap, then moved northward over the open waters of the Pacific.