UNESCO release a new World Heritage Map.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been identifying sights of significant World Heritage Sites around the globe since 1972, under the terms of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Countries are (in theory) obliged to protect Heritage Sites on their territory, although countries have been known to opt out of the convention, and it is difficult to enforce in times of war or other major civil breakdown. Nevertheless the awarding of World Heritage Site status is considered highly prestigious, and the majority of the world's governments take such sites seriously, and even consider gaining such status as for areas of national heritage an achievement.

Each year UNESCO in partnership with the National Geographic Society produce a wall chart (50 × 78 cm) sized map of World Heritage Sites, the 2011/12 map having just become available. These can be ordered from UNESCO in English, French or Spanish, at a cost of €2.50 here, or downloaded as a PDF in English, French. Spanish or Korean here.

The 2011/12 World Heritage Map. UNESCO/National Geographic.

See also John Snow's Cholera Map, Mapping Africa's groundwater resources and United States Geological Survey releases a geological map of Io.

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Earthquake in southeast Kazakhstan.

On Thursday 31 May 2012 at 3.20 am local time (9.20 pm on Wednesday 30 May, GMT), an Earthquake shook the southeastern Kazakhstan province of Almaty, and neighboring areas of Kyrgyzstan and northwest China. The quake was centered about 148 km east of the provincial capitol, also Almaty, near the village of Kokpek and the Charyn Canyon National Park, and was recorded by the United States Geological Survey as measuring 5.4 on the Richter Scale and occurring at a depth of 23.1 km. There are no reports of any significant damage or injuries.

Map showing the location of the quake, and the areas which suffered the strongest shaking (shading). USGS.

Kazakhstan is located to the north of the Himalayas, where the Indian Plate is impacting into the Eurasian Plate from the south. This causes uplift in the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau and the mountains of Central Asia. This is not a smooth process, and causes quakes throughout the region.

See also Earthquake in Tajikstan, Earthquake rattles Assam, northeast India, Earthquake in northwest Azerbaijan, What a 4.6 million-year-old Three Toed Horse can tell us about the climate of Mid Pliocene Tibet and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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Los Angeles shaken by Earthquake.

On Tuesday 29 May 2012 slightly before 10.15 pm, local time, (slightly before 5.15 am on Wednesday 30 May, GMT), an Earthquake centered in the California Channel Islands, 85 km west of central Los Angeles City, shook the southern part of Los Angeles County, according to the United States Geological Survey, who measured the quake as 4.0 on the Richter Scale, at a depth of 16.4 km. There are no reported  casualties or injuries, and residents of the areas where the quake was felt were reportedly unconcerned. 

Map showing the areas where the quake was felt (shading), the point where it was centered (red star) and known geological faults in the area (red lines). USGS.

California lies on the boundary between two tectonic plates; the Pacific to the west and the North American to the East. These plates are moving past one-another, the Pacific moving to the north, the North American to the south along the San Andreas Fault (a transform fault). This passes to the north of Los Angeles, but the plates do not move past one-another cleanly, but drag on one-another causing friction, and leading to many smaller faults on either side of the plate boundary, such as the one upon which Tuesday's Earthquake occurred.

The San Andreas Fault. Geology.com.

See also Earthquake in the Gulf of California, Understanding the subduction zone beneath Mexico, Mexico shaken by major Earthquake, Hydrothermaly heated active seeps from the continental shelf margin, south of Costa Rica and Earthquake off the coast of Vancouver Island.

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John Snow's Cholera Map.

John Snow was a nineteenth century London doctor, who is widely credited with the discovery of the transmission mechanism of Cholera, a severe and often fatal infection of the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. In Snow's time our understanding of microbiology was in its infancy, and Snow may not even have heard of the concepts of germs or bacteria, but he did, nevertheless, come up with the theory that Cholera was spread by a poison that was formed within the body of its victims and which then went on to infect other people. Prior to this the assumption had been that Cholera, like other diseases, was spread by 'bad air'.

Portrait of John Snow. National Library of Medicine.

A year after he published this theory a major Cholera epidemic hit London (sadly a common occurrence in the mid-nineteenth century), giving him the opportunity to put his theory to the test. Snow set about mapping the course of the outbreak, noting where people were infected, and where they got their water from (most people in London did not have domestic water supplies at the time, instead being dependent on public stand-pipes). Using this method Snow discovered that almost all of the victims got their water from a single company, the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company, who obtained there water from the lower reaches of the Thames, i.e. water that had passed through the city and had the opportunity to become infected. In particular Snow found that one pump, on the corner of Broad Street (since renamed Broadwick Street) and Cambridge Street, was at the center of a cluster of infections that had killed over 500 people in 10 days. Snows findings led to the removal of the handle of the Broad Street Pump, which reputedly still resides in a local pub, The John Snow, and to a major reworking of London's water supply.

John Snow's map was based upon the geological maps of Robert Mylne, and was eventually presented to the Geological Society of London by the pioneering hydrogeologist William Whitaker. It is featured in the June 2012 edition of Geoscientist, the magazine of the Society and copies if the map are available for purchase from the Society, priced £25 + VAT and postage for fellows of the Society and £35 + VAT and postage for non-fellows.

John Snow's Map of London.

See also Mapping Africa's groundwater resources and United States Geological Survey releases a geological map of Io.

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The enigmatic Carboniferous Arthropod Camptophyllia.

The Carboniferous Arthropod Camptophyllia is known from coal measure deposits in northern England. It is always preserved as a dorsal exoskeleton about 25 mm in length, made up of 10 segments, each segment being split into five plates; three apparently dorsal and two apparently lateral. Since its discovery in the 1920s it has been assigned to a number of different Arthropod groups, but none with any degree of confidence.

Line drawing of Camptophyllia. Gill (1924).

In a paper published in the journal Palaeontologica Electronica in April 2012, Russell Garwood of the Manchester X-ray Imaging Facility at the School of Materials at The University of Manchester and Mark Sutton of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London present the results of a high-resolution X-ray micro-tomography study of Camptophyllia, which attempted to gain a better insight into the structure and affinities of the animal.

Examples of Camptophyllia from museum and private collections. (1) 44 mm specimen from the Tyne Coalfield, Natural History Museum, London. (2) 28 mm specimen from Crawcrook, near

Ryton-On-Tyne, Durham, Natural History Museum, London. (3) Counterpoint to (2), 30 mm. (4) 39 mm specimen from the Tyne Coalfield, Natural History Museum, London. (5) 42 mm specimen from Crock Hey, private collection of Stephen Livesley. (6) 35 mm Specimen from Crock Hey, private collection of Sean Sale. (7) 18 mm specimen from Coseley Colliery, Natural History Museum. (8) 13 mm specimen from Coseley Colliery, Natural History Museum, London. (9) 20 mm specimen from Coseley Colliery, Natural History Museum, London. (10) 20 mm specimen from Coseley Colliery, Natural History Museum, London. Garwood & Sutton (2012).

Garwood and Sutton carried out high-resolution X-ray micro-tomography studies of six specimens from the Natural History Museum in London and from the private collections of Stephen Livesley and Sean Sale. These were not, however able to resolve any features of the underside of Camptophyllia on any specimen. They concluded that this was unlikely to be a coincidence, and that therefore the undersides had not been preserved for a common reason. Arthropods shed their outer shells periodically as they grow, making it possible that the Camptophyllia specimens are in fact shed carapaces. However no known Arthropod sheds its dorsal carapace intact in this fashion without any other part of the exoskeleton, making this scenario unlikely. For this reason Garwood and Sutton favor the alternative possibility, that the dorsal shell of Camptophyllia was significantly mineralized, but that the underside was not; a pattern found in several Arthropod groups. Unfortunately this in no way helps to resolve the problem of Camptophyllia's taxonomic position.

Garwood and Sutton have placed two animations made from high-resolution X-ray micro-tomographs of specimens online. (Animation 1. Animation 2.).

Even thought they were unable to resolve the taxonomic position of Camptophyllia Garwood and Sutton were able to make some deductions from their study. A heavily mineralized dorsal skeleton, combined with soft underparts, is often associated with an ability to roll up into a ball for defensive reasons, something which would seem to be possible from Camptophyllia's bodyplan. None of the preserved specimens show any sign of eyes or similar structures, suggesting that Camptophyllia lived in an environment where vision was not a useful sense. The fossils have previously been identified as coming from shallow lacustrine (lake) environment, which could quite possibly have been murky or cloudy. In addition Camptophyllia has a 'snowshoe' shape, which is often associated with animals that live on soft sediments, and need to avoid sinking in such.

See also An Eocene False Scorpion from Baltic amber, Two new species of True Bug from the Mesozoic of China, An Assassin Bug from the Palaeocene of Spitsbergen Island, A fossil termite from the Late Oligocene of northern Ethiopia and Preserved Trilobite digestive tracts from the Middle Cambrian of Utah.

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Earthquake on the Isle of Islay.

On Monday 28 May 2012, at 3.07 pm, British Summertime (2.07 GMT), the British Geological Survey recorded an Earthquake in Loch Indaal on the Isle of Islay, about 2.5 km southwest of the island's administrative capital, Bowman. The quake was recorded as measuring 1.6 on the Richter Scale and occurring at a depth of 10 km. Such a small quake at thus depth is highly unlikely to have caused any damage or injuries, and may not even have been felt by anyone.

The location of the 28 May quake. BGS.

As a rule of thumb, the further north and west you travel in Great Britain the more Earthquakes you will encounter (though quakes large enough to cause significant damage are very rare), making the west coast of Scotland one of the most earthquake-prone areas of the country. The largest quake ever recorded in Scotland, on 28 November 1880 is thought to have been centered in Argyll, about 70 km northwest of the 28 May 2012 quake. This is thought to have measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale and to have occurred at a depth of 25 km (there were no seismometers in 1880, so these are estimates).

Most earthquakes in Scotland are attributed to glacial rebound; till about 10 000 years ago the northernmost parts of Britain were buried beneath hundreds of meters of ice, pushing the lithosphere down into the underlying mantle. Now this ice is gone the rocks are rebounding, albeit very slowly, and this can lead to Earthquakes.

This is slightly over-simplistic, as the rocks of Scotland are subject to stresses from a number of sources, and the origin of quakes is generally complex, without a single obvious cause. Eurasia, including Scotland, is being pushed to the east by the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean, and to the North by the impact of Africa from the south. There are also lesser centers of expansion beneath the North Sea, the Rhine Valley and the Bay of Biscay, all of which have some influence on rock movements beneath the UK.

See also Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake north of Norway, Earthquake in South Yorkshire, Earthquake near Rochdale, Lancashire, Earthquake beneath the English Channel and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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Asteroid 2012 KP24 passes Earth at a distance of 51 000 km.

On Monday 28 May 2012, at about 3.00 pm, GMT, the newly discovered Asteroid 2012 KP24 passed the Earth at a distance of 51 000 km (seven times as close as the Moon ever gets). The asteroid, a 25 m rock had been discovered only three days previously on 25 May, by the Catalina Sky Survey. The asteroid has a calculated orbital period of 593 days, with an average distance from the Sun of 1.38 AU (i.e 1.38 times the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), though at its closest it is 0.98 AU from the Sun, so that it crosses the Earth's orbit twice every 593 days; it last passed close to the Earth itself in 1939, when it passed us at slightly over 1.6 million km. At its furthest it is 1.84 AU from the Sun, taking it outside the orbit of Mars; it thus crosses Mars's orbit twice every 593 days as well.

The orbit of 2012 KP24. NASA/Space.com.

There has never (since its discovery) been any danger of a collision with 2012 KP24, though a collision with either Earth or Mars in the remote future is a possibility in the remote future. A more likely scenario is that is might pass close enough to one of the planets for the gravity of the larger body to through it onto a different path, possibly into the Sun or out of the Solar System altogether. Even if it did impact onto the Earth a body this size would be unlikely to do us serious harm; it would probably be fairly unpleasant for anyone standing directly underneath, but there would be no danger of serious global effects.

See also Fragments of 22 April meteor found in California, Fireball over Nevada and California, The Lyrid Meteors, Asteroid 2012 DA14 may pass within 21 000 km of the Earth and How the Moon got its strange magnetic field.

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Modena Plane hit by second major Earthquake.

The Modena Plane of northern Italy was hit by an Earthqake measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale at 9.00 am local time (7.00 am GMT) on Tuesday 29 May 2012, according to the United States Geological Survey. The quake was recorded as occurring 20 km northeast of the city of Modena at a depth of 9.6 km. There are eight recorded deaths so far, with more people reportedly trapped beneath rubble, making it highly likely that the death toll will rise, possibly considerably.

Map showing the location of the quake and the areas hit by the worst shaking; within successive contour lines. USGS.

The same area was hit by a magnitude 6.0 quake on 20 May, which is now known to have killed seven people, as well as causing a number of factories to collapse and damaging several historic buildings, most notably the Castle of Finale Emilio and the Palace of Venice in Finale Emilia, both of which are reported to have suffered further damage. 

The aftermath of the 20 May quake in Finale Emilio. Luca Bruno/AP.

The Modena Plane lies close to the boundary between two tectonic plates; to the west is the Eurasian Plate, which underlies the western part of Italy, but to the east is the Apulian (or Adriatic) Plate, a microplate that has broken away from Africa, and is now jammed into the Eurasian Plate, underlying eastern Italy and the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. This is being squeezed by the northward movement of Africa, making Italy and the Balkans highly prone to Earthquakes. 

Outline map showing the approximate positions of the Eurasian (EU), Adriatic (AD) and African (AF) Plates. Di Bucci & Mazzuli (2003).

See also Earthquake in western Bulgaria, Earthquake on the Modena Plane, northern Italy, Earthquakes shake northern Italy, Torino (Turin) rocked by mild earthquake and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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An Eocene False Scorpion from Baltic amber.

False Scorpions are Arachnids related to Camel Spiders, Harvestmen and True Scorpions; they resemble Harvestmen with enormous, Scorpion-like claws, but are very small (the largest known species is only 12 mm in length) and consequently quite harmless. They have a long fossil history, dating back 380 million years to the Middle Devonian, and have changed little in this time.

In a paper published in the May 2012 edition of the journal Palaeontologica Electronica, Hans Henderickx of the Department of Biology at Universiteit Antwerpen and Paul Tafforeau and Carmen Soriano of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility describe a new species of False Scorpion from two specimens in Baltic amber.

The new species is placed in the genus Pseudogarypus; modern members of this genus are known from North America and Tasmania, but fossil European species have previously been described, including at least one species from Baltic amber. It is named Pseudogarypus synchrotron in honor of the equipment that allowed detailed visualization of the optically hidden parts of the fossil.

(1) Photograph of the first specimen in the amber. (2) Magnified view. Henderickx et al. (2012).

Pseudogarypus synchrotron is a 2.5 mm False Scorpion with elongated, slender pincers. It has been described from two specimens obtained from (separate) commercial dealers, both being set in Baltic amber, thought to be about 46 million years old.

Synchrotron images of the first specimen of Pseudogarypus synchrotron. Henderickx et al. (2012).

Synchrotron images of the second specimen of Pseudogarypus synchrotron. Henderickx et al. (2012).

Baltic amber is the preserved resin of Eocene coniferous trees that formed huge forests covering much of Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Since this floats it is often found on beaches around the Baltic Sea, and sometimes further afield, making the precise dating of individual pieces difficult.

Interpretive drawing of Pseudogarypus synchrotron. Henderickx et al. (2012).

See also Two new species of True Bug from the Mesozoic of China, An Assassin Bug from the Palaeocene of Spitsbergen Island, A fossil termite from the Late Oligocene of northern Ethiopia, Preserved Trilobite digestive tracts from the Middle Cambrian of Utah, Evidence of fungal parasites modifying the behavior of ants from the Eocene Messel Shale.

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Earthquake in the Loyalty Islands.

On Saturday 26 May 2012, slightly after 11.50 am local time (slightly after 0.50 GMT) the United States Geological Survey recorded an Earthquake in the Loyalty Islands (part of the French territory of New Caledonia) roughly 102 km northeast of Máre Island, at a depth of 10.1 km and measuring 5.1 on the Richter Scale. This far from any inhabited area the quake is unlikely to have caused any damage or injuries, and may not have been noticed by anyone.

The location of the 26 May 2012 Earthquake. USGS.

New Caledonia is located on the North Bismarck Plate, one of a series of microplates caught between the Australian and Pacific Plates. To the north of the islands the Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the North Bismark Plate, causing friction that can cause Earthquakes. As it sinks further into the planet the friction and the heat of the Earth's interior combine to melt the plate, some of the melted material rising through the overlying North Bismarck Plate to feed the volcanoes of the Loyalty Islands.

The location and movement of the North Bismarck and surrounding Plates. Oregon State University.

See also Eruption on Mount Pago, Earthquake in Vanuatu, Earthquake shakes New Britain, Earthquake shakes New Caledonia and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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Geological Society of London to host a public meeting on Shale Gas extraction.

Shale Gas is naturally occurring gas trapped within shale (sine grained sedimentary rocks, typically mostly clay) formations. This is harder, and more expensive, to extract than other forms of Natural Gas, but is becoming increasingly attractive to hydrocarbons companies as other sources of gas start to dwindle. Typically Shale Gas is extracted using a technique called Hydraulic Fracturing, or Fracking, which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals into shale beds at high pressure in order to fracture the rocks and release the Gas.

Diagram of a Hydraulic Fractioning operation. geology.com

Shale Gas extraction has expanded rapidly in the US in recent years, and is expected to produce half of all the Natural Gas extracted in the US by the year 2020. It has, however, proved to be extremely unpopular with environmental groups, both within the US and in other countries, to the extent that some countries have altogether banned the practice.

There are four principle objections to Shale Gas extraction. One of these is that Natural Gas is a hydrocarbon, and potentially contributes to Global Warming; this is no different to the objections to the extraction of Natural Gas from other sources, excepting that extracting the gas from shale significantly increases the available reserves. The remaining objections are with the Fracking process, and are therefore specific to Shale Gas extraction.

Firstly the process causes Earthquakes. This is not in dispute, though the scale of the quakes the process can cause is hotly disputed between environmentalists and the industry. An Earthquake is shaking in the ground, regardless of the source; a large truck driving past your house does not merely feel like its causing an Earthquake, it actually is. Blasting water, sand and chemicals into buried sediments with the intention of fracturing the rock will certainly cause Earthquakes (if it did not it would not work). 

Industry experts do not expect the process to produce quakes larger than a magnitude of 1 on the Richter Scale, but areas where Fracking occurs in the US have seen an unexpected increase in quake activity, with some quakes exceeding magnitude 3. Since the Richter Scale is logarithmic this represents quakes more than a hundred times as large as predicted, leading the industry to claim that any connection is impossible, but not able to provide an alternative explanation (in some cases this is further confused by the employment of lobbyists who do not understand the process and who will offer blanket denials for even the most minor of quakes). In the UK the process has been linked to two small quakes near an experimental Fracking operation at Preese Hall in Lancashire, leading to a halt in operations.

Secondly the process has been linked to the contamination of aquifers; the chemicals used in the process are potentially toxic, and people do not like the idea of these getting into drinking water. Again industry models do not predict that the chemicals could escape the targeted deposits into other strata, but the chemicals have been found in the aquifers. A report into the industry in the US was unable to confidently say that the process had caused the contamination, but only because the chemical containment at the surface was so poor that contamination from ground-level sources could not be ruled out.

Thirdly the process uses large amounts of water, a matter of some concern in more arid parts of the US, where the industry is suspected of the using water that could be used for other purposes, notably agriculture.

In the UK a report commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change was published last month (April 2012), recommending that the process should be allowed in the UK, subject to very tight environmental regulation, bringing the process back into the public eye.

On 18 June 2012 the Geological Society of London is hosting a public meeting to discuss Shale Gas Extraction, at Burlington House in London. The meeting will not seek to address whether the process should be used in the UK, but will seek to explain the geological science behind the process, and whether it can be undertaken safely. The meeting is not aimed at geologists, but rather at elected representatives (politicians), local and central government officials, regulators, NGOs, representatives of other industries likely to be affected (such as water companies) and other interested parties.

The location of Burlington House.

The meeting will be addressed by Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey, who will discuss the nature and distribution of shale gas reserves in the UK, Richard Davies, of Durham University, who will discuss the Hydraulic Fractionation process, Peter Styles of Keele University (one of the authors of the Department of Energy and Climate Change report), who will discuss the safety of the process with regard to induced seismicity (i.e. causing Earthquakes). The meeting will also discuss the potential effects on groundwater, and the uses of water in the industry, as well as the regulatory framework for the industry in the UK, though the speakers on these subjects are yet to be confirmed.

The layout of Burlington House.

See also Report recommends Fracking should be allowed to continue in the UK, Protests against hydraulic fractionation across Bulgaria, Oklahoma shaken by Earthquake on Christmas Day, Earthquake in Texas attributed to fracking and Fracking linked to earthquakes in Lancashire, northeast England.

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Two new species of True Bug from the Mesozoic of China.

The Hemiptera, or True Bugs, are one of the most numerous and widespread groups of Insects, but there taxonomy is poorly understood. Modern genetic studies have suggested that many long established taxonomic relationships are in fact incorrect, but have not been able to propose alternative models for the taxonomy of the group. An alternative method of determining the relationship between living groups of animals is to study their fossil record, though this can be difficult with Insects, as fossils are often fragmentary, and, until fairly recently, were often overlooked in favor of larger, more spectacular fossils.

To this end a team of scientists led by Yunzhi Yao of the Key Laboratory of Insect Evolution and Environmental Changes at Capital Normal University and the State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology have been collecting fossil Bugs from a number of sites in China noted for their exceptionally preserved Insect faunas. In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on 24 May 2012, they describe two new species of True Bug from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, China, and the implications of these new species for the classification of the group.

The first of these new species is Venicoris solaris, the Solar Vein-bug. It is a ~10 mm Bug from Chaomidian Village, near Beipiao City, described from 85 male and 125 female specimens.

Photographs of Venicoris solaris from the Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, China. (A) Male under ethanol. (B) Male, dry. (C & D) Females under ethanol. Scale bar is 2 mm. Yao et al. (2012).

Interpretive drawings of Venicoris solaris. (A) Male. (B) Female. Scale bar is 2 mm. Yao et al. (2012).

The second species is named as Clavaticoris zhengi, Zheng's Claval Bug, in honor of Dr. Leyi Zheng of the Institute of Entomology at the College of Life Science at Nankai University. It is an 18.5 mm bug from the same locality as Venicoris solaris, named from two female and one male specimens.

Photographs of Clavaticoris zhengi. (A & B) Female under air; two halves of same specimen, obverse and reverse from rock that has been split. (C) Male under ethanol. (D) Female under air. Scale bar is 4 mm. Yao et al. (2012).

Interpretive drawing of female Clavaticoris zhengi (A, above). Scale bar is 2 mm. Yao et al. (2012).

The two new species are together placed in a new Family, the Venicoridae, which Yao et al. suggest may be ancestral to the Trichophora (Sheild Bugs, Chust Bugs, Stink Bugs, Broad-headed Bugs, Leaf-footed Bugs, Squash Bugs, Scentless Plant Bugs, Spurgebugs, Stilt Bugs, True Seed Bugs, Atypical Seed Bugs and several other groups).

See also New species of Leaf-Mining Moth from northern Chile, An Assassin Bug from the Palaeocene of Spitsbergen Island, A fossil termite from the Late Oligocene of northern Ethiopia, New species of moth from Yunnan Province and New species of Owlfly from Morocco.

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Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake north of Norway.

On Thursday 24 May 2012, slightly after 10.45 pm, GMT, the United States Geological Survey recorded an Earthquake on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, roughly 600 km north of Tromsø, at a depth of 8.8 km, and measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale. Since this time there have been a number of fairly large aftershocks at roughly the same spot. Although this is a large, shallow Earthquake that could prove very hazardous in other places, the remote location makes it very unlikely that it will have caused any damage or injuries, and quite likely that nobody will have noticed it at all. Such a large Earthquake at this shallow depth has the potential to cause a tsunami, but in this occasion no unusual waves have been observed.

Map showing the location of the quake, and subsequent aftershocks (blue squares; each square represents a different quake, larger squares representing larger quakes). The red line is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The black lines on land are national borders. USGS.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs the length of the Atlantic Ocean; it is a divergent plate margin separating the North and South American Plates on the west from the Eurasian and African Plates on the east. Along the length of the ridge new crust is constantly being created, widening the Atlantic by about 25 mm each year. The ridge itself takes the form of a chain of volcanic mountains running the length of the ocean, fed by the upwelling of magma beneath the diverging plates.

Diagrammatic section through the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. A magma chamber beneath the ridge feeds the volcanoes at the surface via a series of vertical dykes; newer dykes are red-to-orange, older dykes transparent. Volcanoes are fed via lava tubes from the dykes, where the dykes reach the surface there are fissure eruptions. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 

See also The magma chamber beneath the Erta Ale Volcano, What happens when a volcano meets a subduction zone? The dangers of a modern Laki style eruption in Iceland, The Hekla Volcano - is the Gateway to Hell about to open? and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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NASA releases digitally remastered view of Copernicus Crater.

On 24 November 1966 NASA's Lunar Orbiter 2 probe photographed the 93 km wide Copernicus Crater on the Moon from an altitude of 45 km and a horizontal distance of 207.7 km, effectively looking sideways at the surface of the Moon. This was the first time such a landscape view of the Moon had been seen, and was widely hailed as one of the most iconic images of the century at the time, though it was later overshadowed by images from the Apollo Moon Lander Program.

This image has now been digitally remastered and released by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, which aims to preserve the Lunar Orbiter images for posterity. The versions of the print have a considerably better resolution than the original, allowing details that were not previously visible to be seen.

The newly remastered view of the Copernicus Crater. NASA/LOIRP.

Enhanced details on the new image. NASA/LOIRP.

The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Program has rereleased a number of other iconic images of the Moon recently.

Earthrise, as imaged by Apollo 8 on 24 December 1968. Apollo 8 orbited the moon 10 times with a human crew of three, seven months before the Apollo 11 moon landing. NASA/LOIRP.

Image of the Moon from orbit, taken from the Gemini VII spacecraft on 23 March 1965. NASA/LOIRP.

See also How the Moon got its strange magnetic field, Recent tectonic activity on the moon? Could we mine the moon for titanium? Is the Moon younger than we think? and Volcanoes on the far side of the moon.

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Earthquake in South Yorkshire.

On Wednesday 23 May at about 10.45 pm British Summertime (11.45 GMT), the British Geological Survey recorded an Earthquake in South Yourkshire, roughly 3 km west of the Village of Thorne, or 10 northeast of Doncaster, measuring 1.4 on the Richter Scale and at a depth of 1 km. This is a very small quake and is highly unlikely to have caused any damage or injuries, but may have been felt as it was close to the surface.

Map showing the rough location of the quake. BGS.

As a rough rule of thumb, the UK becomes more Earthquake prone the further north and west you travel, making Yorkshire one of England's more Earthquake prone counties.

The precise causes of Earthquakes in the UK are often hard to determine, as the country is not close to any active tectonic margins, or other obvious sources of quakes. The country is on the eastern margin of the Eurasian Plate, and therefore is being pushed to the east by the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean, as well as to the north by the impact of Africa into Europe from the south. There are also smaller expansion centers beneath the North Sea, the Rhine Valley and the Bay of Biscay, all of which excerpt pressure upon UK rocks. The country is also still undergoing glacial rebound. Until about 10 000 years ago the north of the country was still covered by hundreds of meters of ice, which pushed the rocks of the crust down into the underlying mantle. Now that this ice is gone the rocks are slowly rebounding, providing a source of Earthquakes.

Scientists can learn more about the structure and movement of the rocks beneath the UK by gathering information from people who have felt Earthquakes. If you felt the 23 May Yorkshire quake, or were in the area but did not feel anything (which is also data), then you can report it to the BGS here. 

See also Earthquake near Rochdale, Lancashire, Earthquake in Burnley, Lancashire, Earthquake in Cumbria, Earthquake in Yorkshire and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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Earthquake near Rochdale, Lancashire.

On Friday 25 May 2012, slightly before 4.25 British Summertime (slightly before 3.25 GMT) the British Geological Survey recorded an Earthquake roughly 1 km south of the Lancashire village of Bacup, or 10 km north of Rochdale, at a depth of 7 km, measuring 1.2 on the Richter Scale. An Earthquake this deep and this small is highly unlikely to have caused any damage or injuries, and may not have been felt by anyone.

Map showing the approximate location of the quake. BGS.

As a rough rule of thumb, the further north and west you go in Great Britain the more Earthquakes there are; thus Lancashire is one of the most quake-prone counties in England.

The causes of Earthquakes in the UK are complex, as the country is not near any active tectonic margins. Europe is being pushed to the East buy the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean and the North by the impact of Africa from the south. There are also lesser expansion centers beneath the North Sea, the Bay of Biscay and the Rhine Valley, which all excerpt stresses on UK rocks. Finally there is glacial rebound; the northernmost parts of Britain were covered by hundreds of meters of ice until about 10 000 years ago. This pushed the rocks of the crust down into the underlying mantle, and now that the ice is gone these rocks are slowly rebounding.

If you did feel the quake, or were in the area at the time but did not feel it, then you can inform the British Geological Survey here. Statements from people who have felt shaking help geologists to build up a better understanding of the movement of the rocks under the UK.

See also Earthquake in Burnley, Lancashire, Earthquake in Cumbria, Earthquake in Yorkshire and Earthquakes on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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New Cassini Images of Titan, Tethys and Methone.

The Cassini Space Probe was launched on 15 October 1997 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and entered orbit around Saturn on 30 June 2004. It has been sending back data on and images of the planet, its moons and its ring system ever since. This month it has produced a number of new images of three of Saturn's moons, Titan, Tethys and Methone.

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, and the second largest in the Solar System (after Jupiter's moon Ganymede). It is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere and has a volume 17% larger than that of Mercury. On 14 January 2005 the Huygens Probe, which had been launched from Cassini, landed on the surface of Titan, beaming bake images of a world with lakes and rivers of hydrocarbons at the surface.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 17 May from a distance of 2 592 461 km, and received on Earth on 18 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 21 May from a distance of 283 125 km, and received on Earth on 22 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 21 May from a distance of 253 205 km, and received on Earth on 22 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 22 May from a distance of 124 753 km, and received on Earth on 22 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 22 May from a distance of 153 964 km, and received on Earth on 22 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Titan taken by Cassini on 22 May from a distance of 205 137 km, and received on Earth on 22 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Tethys is the 5th largest moon of Saturn and the 16th largest moon in the Solar System. This makes it the smallest large moon in the Solar System, having a greater mass than all the smaller moons combined. It has an icy, crater covered, surface and a low density, causing scientists to believe it is largely made of ice.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 53 810 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 53 968 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 54 203 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 54 613 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 54 758 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 54 997 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 55 458 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 57 981 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 61 730 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 61 849 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 93 995 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 127 872 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Image of Tethys taken by Cassini on 20 May from a distance of 53 808 km, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Methone is a minor moon of Saturn that was discovered by the Cassini Probe in 2004. It is smooth and egg-shaped, with an average radius of 1.6 km.

Image of Methone taken by Cassini on 20 May, and received on Earth on 21 May. NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

See also NASA releases new Cassini images of Saturn's moons Enceladus, Janus and Dione, NASA releases new Cassini images of Saturn's moon Rhea, Saturn's moon Dione found to have an atmosphere and Saturn on Sciency Thoughts YouTube.

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