EARTHWATCH

Diary of the planet

Jumping worms

Officials in California are warning gardeners to be on the lookout for an invasive snakelike worm that can leap up to a foot into the air and has a voracious appetite. Amynthas agrestis, or Asian jumping worm, is believed to have entered the U.S. in potted plants from Japan or the Korean Peninsula during the last century. “True to their name, they jump and thrash immediately when handled, behaving more like a threatened snake than a worm,” the California Department of Food and Agriculture said in a report. The agency suggests pouring water with yellow mustard into infested ground to drive the worms out, then to cover the soil with plastic sheets and let the sun’s heat destroy the worm’s cocoons.

Earthquakes

At least four people died during a temblor that damaged homes in China’s Sichuan province. • Earth movements were also felt in areas around the Timor Sea, southeastern Queensland, Hawaii’s Big Island, Armenia and southwestern Iceland.

Tropical cyclone

Hurricane Agatha left at least nine people dead and 20 others missing after inflicting major damage in southern Mexico’s Oaxaca state. Most of the deaths were due to flooding and mudslides. Agatha was the strongest named storm in May on record for the Pacific. • Remnants of Agatha were gaining strength late in the week over the western Caribbean and were predicted to possibly regenerate into a new tropical depression or storm. Residents across southern Florida were on alert for this potential development.

‘Bottomless pit’

Geologists have discovered a previously undiscovered forest deep in a sinkhole in China’s Guangxi region, where plants and other creatures cover the ground, some possibly new to science. The state-run news agency Xinhua reports that while giant sinkholes are common in that part of China, the new “bottomless pit” has tall trees blocking its floor. Geologists rappelled down the wall and hiked through dense thorns and fig plants to explore the discovery. Experts believe that due to the sinkhole bottom’s isolation, small animals and insects never seen before almost certainly live there.

Largest life

Scientists have discovered that a massive underwater seagrass meadow off Western Australia has cloned itself into the largest single organism on the planet. Known as Poseidon’s ribbon weed, the plant is about 4,500 years old. A team from the University of Western Australia found that it has spread from a single seed to now cover about 77 square miles. The researchers analyzed 18,000 shoots from across the plant and discovered it is a single living thing. The expansive cloning may be due to the extreme conditions of intense sunlight along with large fluctuations in temperature and salinity in its Shark Bay home.

Eruption

Far East Russia’s Bezymianny volcano erupted with a violent blast that sent ash soaring high above the Kamchatka Peninsula and the far northern Pacific Ocean.

Wild takeover

More than a decade after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdowns, wildlife populations are growing across the evacuated landscape, with animals damaging the places humans used to live. Fukushima Minpo reports that cities and farms in the exclusion zone are also becoming overgrown with vegetation. This makes it difficult for evacuees to consider returning to their homes. “It hurts to see my house ravaged by animals,” said 65year-old Hiromi Aizawa, who evacuated from the town of Okuma. Killing or capturing the animals for food is not an option. A recent study found that radioactive cesium in some of the birds, deer and wild boars caught across Fukushima prefecture exceeds safety standards. The government restricts the shipment of animals captured there to areas outside the contaminated zone.