Earthweek: a diary of the planet

Eruptions

Each in a series of blasts at the summit of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano produced a force equivalent to a magnitude 5.3 earthquake over five consecutive days. Lava flowing into the Pacific Ocean from Kilauea during June has expanded the Big Island more than 400 acres. Elsewhere, the most recent in a series of eruptions since last October at southern Japan’s Mount Shinmoedake volcano produced a column of ash and vapor.

Earthquake

Southern Greece was jolted by an unusually lengthy magnitude 5.5 earthquake beneath the Ionian Sea, just off the Peloponnesian Peninsula.

Manta nursery

in the world’s oceans, leaving researchers with few clues about their early life. But a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at the University of California — San Diego, worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to pinpoint the manta nursery in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, about 120 miles southeast of Houston.

Antarctic lift

The melting of heavy ice in West Antarctica is allowing the bedrock below to rise at a surprisingly fast

rate, prompting scientists to suggest the trend could slow the rise of global sea levels. An international team of researchers found that part of Antarctica was rising by more than 1.6 inches yearly. The trend is likely to accelerate, potentially lifting the bedrock more than 26 feet higher by 2100. The rise also could stabilize the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which currently produces about 25 percent of all the global melting of land-based ice each year.

Wildebeest buffet

The world-famous wildebeest migration across East Africa is being slowed this year by a bounty of fresh grass left along the route by heavy rains that nourished the Serengeti last year and again in May. The Tanzania Daily News reports the migration is now nearly two months behind its typical pace, meaning the grazers are going to be considerably delayed in reaching Kenya’s Masai Mara. The wildebeest crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers, typically during July, are popular safari attractions.

Microbe meals

A process designed by the Soviets during the Cold War to create food for long- mission space travel is being touted for its potential to curb deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen pollution while feeding the world’s livestock. Researchers from the Potsdam Institute in Germany say protein- rich microbes could be harvested on an industrial scale to feed cattle, pigs and chickens, which now munch through about half of all the feed cultivated on the world’s farmlands. “In practice, breeding microbes like bacteria, yeast, fungi or algae could substitute protein- rich crops like soybeans and cereals,” the institute said in a statement. Researchers estimate that replacing only 2 percent of livestock feed with the microbes could reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent.

Tropical pause

Tropical cyclone activity around the world was unusually low this past week, with only Tropical Storm Daniel forming briefly off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.