Major fire out of control at Libya's largest oil storage facility.

A fire is burning out of control at a fuel storage facility in Tripoli, after a tank holding 6 million liters of oil was hit by a rocket during fighting between militia groups on Sunday 27 July 2014. The fire was initially brought under control by firefighters, but the were forced to withdraw when fighting resumed early on Monday 28 July, shortly after which a second oil tank was ignited by shrapnel. The fire is now described by the Libyan National Oil Company as 'out of control', provoking fears of a major explosion or environmental catastrophe. Local officials are recommending that residents evacuate the area within five kilometers of the facility, but with ongoing fighting in the area it is unclear whether many people will be able to comply.

Smoke from the burning storage facility hangs over Tripoli. Reuters.

Fighting between militia groups has occurred sporadically since the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, as the various groups that took part in the regime change had little in common and since then have been engaged in an uneasy truce with intervals of open conflict. The situation appears to have deteriorated markedly during the past two weeks, with over 100 people killed in Tripoli alone, including 23 Egyptian migrant workers in a single incident. Turkey, the United States and the United Nations have begun to evacuate their diplomatic staff, while Britain, France Germany and Spain are recommending their nationals to leave.

The fire at the oil terminal appears to have been caused by fighting over control of the cities airport, between the Zintan Militia (a regional militia from the Zintan Mountains), who have held the airport since the revolution, and the Islamist Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room, who were formerly responsible for policing and security within the capitol and Benghazi, but who were stripped of their authority in October 2013 after attempting to kidnap Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, apparently as part of a botched coup attempt in which other militia groups may-or-may-not have been planning to join, and who are now engaged in an escalating conflict with other groups.

See also...

 Yemeni oil pipeline re-opens.

A pipeline carrying Marib Light Crude from the  Safer Oilfield to the port of Ras Isa on the Red Sea reopened on Thursday 24 July 2014, forty two days after it was blown up by unknown insurgents near...

 South Sudan denies involvement in Abyei pipeline explosion.

A pipeline carrying oil from the Diffra Oil Field to the Red Sea was blown up at Abyei, on the border between South Sudan and the...

 Uranium mine in northern Niger attacked by suicide bomber.

Thirteen workers at uranium mine operated by French company Areva were injured when the site was attacked by a suicide bomber...

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Sangihe Dwarf-kingfisher classified as Critically Endangered.

Birdlife International published an assessment of the conservation status of 350 newly described Bird Species for the  International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species on 24 July 2014, the first such assessment by the organization. 25% of the species described are considered to be threatened, compared to about 13% of all known bird species, though this is in part due to the discovery of cryptic species; populations of birds formerly thought to be part of more widespread species, that are now understood to be genetically distinct species, incapable of reproduction with the species of which they were thought to form a population. Such cryptic species have smaller populations and more restricted ranges than they were previously thought to have, and therefore are more likely to be threatened.

One such newly described species is the Sangihe Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx sangirensis) formerly thought to be a population of the Sulawesi Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx fallax) but reclessified in the 2014 edition of the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. The Sangihe Dwarf Kingfisher is a small Kingfisher (about 13 cm) with a bright red beak, a black cap speckled with blue, lilac cheeks, white neck patch and throat, orange underparts, brown wings and a blue back and tail.

The Sangihe Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx sangirensis). John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912)/Wikimedia Commons.

The Sangihe Dwarf Kingfisher has not been sighted since 1997, despite searches in 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2014. It is native to lowland forests on Sangehi (Indonesia) and possibly the neighbouring island of Taub. However the indigenous forests of Sangehi have been almost entirely cleared to make ways for agriculture, making it likely that any remaining population will be extremely small.

The former range of the Sangihe Dwarf Kingfisher (Ceyx sangirensis) (yellow). International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

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 Bugun Liocichla classified as Critically Endangered.

Birdlife International published an assessment of the conservation status of 350 newly described Bird Species for International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species on 24 July 2014, the first such assessment by the organization. 25% of...

 Blue-bearded Helmetcrest Hummingbird classified as Critically Endangered.

Birdlife International published an assessment of the conservation status of 350 newly described Bird Species for International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species on 24 July 2014, the first such assessment by the organization. 25% of the species described are considered to be threatened, compared to about 13% of all known bird species, though this is in part due to the discovery of cryptic species; populations of birds formerly thought to be part of...

 Belém Curassow classified as Critically Endangered.

Birdlife International published an assessment of the conservation status of 350 newly described Bird Species for International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species on 24 July 2014, the first such assessment by the organization. 25% of...

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Asteroid 2014 OP2 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2014 OP2 passed by the Earth at a distance of 199 700 km (0.52 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon), at about 8.35 am GMT on Thursday 24 July 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented no threat. 2014 MG6 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 3-9 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 3-9 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to break up in the atmosphere between 45 and 32 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

The calculated orbit of 2014 OP2. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

2014 OP2 was discovered on 25 July 2014 (the day after its closest approach to the Earth) by the European Space Agency's Optical Ground Station on Tenerife. The designation 2014 OP2 implies that it was the 65th asteroid (asteroid P2) discovered in the second half of July 2014 (period 2014 O).

2014 OP2 has a 1331 day year orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 1.8° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 0.93 AU from the Sun (i.e. 93 % of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 3.80 AU from the Sun (i.e. 380% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than twice the distance at which the planet Mars orbits the Sun). It is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid (an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer).

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 Asteroid 2014 MJ55 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2014 MJ55 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 11 080 000 km (28.83 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 7.4% of the average distance between the Earth and...

 Asteroid 2014 MA6 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2014 MA6 passed by the Earth at a distance of 7 275 000 km (18.93 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 4.9% of the average distance between the Earth and the...

 Asteroid 2013 YG passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2013 YG passed by the Earth at a distance of 19 190 000 km (49.68 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 12.7% of the average distance between the Earth and the...

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The Keplerian Disk of Class I Protostar L1489 IRS.

Recent studies of the Keplerian Disks around other Protostars with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) have suggested that in the early Class 0 Protostar stage little rotation occurs within the Keplerian Disk and the rate of infalling (i.e. the rate at which material falls from the Disk onto the Protostar) is high. In late Class 0 stage and early Class 1 Stage Protostars, infalling continues and the Keplerian Disk begins to rotate due to angular momentum. Eventually in later stage Class 1 Protostars the Keplerian Disk begins to rotate  so fast that centrifugal force prevents further accretion of material onto the Protostar, which then ceases the main stage of its growth (though it will still need to undergo several stages of evolution before being regarded as a true star). The remaining material in the Keplerian Disk can then form a Protoplanetary Disk, from which planets and other bodies can form around the star.

In a paper published on the arXiv database at Cornell University Library on 10 July 2014, a team of scientists led by Hsi-Wei Yen of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taipei describe the results of a study of the Class I Protostar L1489 IRS with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and the conclusions drawn from this.

L1489 IRS is located in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, roughly 140 parsecs from Earth (456.6 light years). It is surrounded by a protostellar envelope containing about 3% of the Sun’s mass which reaches about 4200 AU from the central Protostar (i.e. 4200 times the distance at which the Sun orbits the Earth), within which a faint molecular outflow, reaching several thousand AU from the Protostar and flowing both north and south, has been observed. Within this envelope a Keplerian Disk has been observed, which SMA observations suggest reaches about 200 AU from the Protostar and contains about 0.4% of the Sun’s mass, while Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) observations suggest this disk reaches 250-450 AU from the Protostar and contains about 0.5% of the Sun’s mass. The Protostar itself is estimated to be 1.4 times as massive as the Sun (SMA) or 1.8 times as massive (CARMA).

Yen et al. determined a Keplerian Disk reaching 700 AU from the Protostar, containing approximately 0.5% of the Sun’s mass. The central Protostar has a mass equivalent to 1.6 time that of the Sun and has an angle of inclination of 66˚. The disk is 15-25 AU deep with a temperature of 30-50 K (-243 to -223˚C) at a distance of 100 AU. 

Moment 0 map (contour) overlaid on the moment 1 map (color) of the C¹⁸O (2–1) emission in L1489 IRS. A filled ellipse at the bottom-right corner denotes the beam size. A cross shows the protostellar position. Contour levels are from 3σ to 15σ in steps of 3σ, from 15σ to 50σ in steps of 5σ, and then from 50σ to 90σ in steps of 10σ, where 1σ is 10 mJy Beamˉ¹ km sˉ¹. Yen et al. (2014).

Yen et al. also detected the presence of significant areas of blue- and red-shifted material beyond this disk and offset from it at angles of about 65˚ to the north and 35˚to the south. In astronomy red- and blue-shifting are taken to be signs of movement away ant towards the observer; this is because the speed of light is absolute, so an object moving towards the observer will compress the lightwaves slightly and an object moving away extend them slightly.

These areas of red- and blue-shifted material are reversed with regard to the known areas of outflow from the protostar (i.e. blue to the north, where material outflowing from the Protostar will appear red and red to the south where material outflowing from the Protostar will appear blue), so Yen et al. conclude that these are areas where material is inflowing onto the Keplerian Disk, and from there accreting onto the Protostar.

Schematic figure demonstrating the configuration of Yen et al.’s model of a flared Keplerian disk with two streams of infalling flows toward the disk. Blue and red arrows show the directions of the blueshifted and redshifted outflows, respectively. Yen et al. (2014).

Yen et al.  further conclude that the protostellar envelope around L1489 IRS still contains about 2% of the Sun’s mass, and that material is infalling from this to the Keplerain disk at a rate of 0.00004-7% of the Sun’s mass per year.

See also…

 Protoplanetary disks around Class I Protostars in the ρ Ophiuchi Star Forming Region.

Stars are thought to form from the aggregation of material from vast clouds of molecules known as Stellar Nurseries or Star Forming...

 Water and Hydroxides in the Circumstellar Disk around HD 163296.

HD 163296 is a young Herbig Ae star (a star producing heat by gravitational collapse, which is expected will fuse Hydrogen in the future, but which has not reached this stage yet) slightly under 400 light years from Earth. It is surrounded by a fairly well documented circumstellar disk, which reaches slightly over 900 AU from the star...

 The formation of a Keplerian Disk in the L1551 NE Protostellar System.

Protostars are areas within molecular clouds where stars are forming, areas of increased density surrounded by dusty envelopes of gas hundreds of AU across (AU stands for Astronomical Unit, 1 AU being the average distance between the Earth and the Sun). As these...

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Magnitude 4.4 Earthquake in Balochistan Province, Pakistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 4.4 Earthquake at a depth of 33 km in the Kirthar Mountains of Balochistan Province, slightly after 1.10 am local time on Monday 28 July 2014 (slightly after 8.10 pm on Sunday 27 July, GMT). There are no reports of any damage or injuries associated with this quake, though it is likely to have been felt locally.

The approximate location of the 28 July 2014 Kirthar Mountains Earthquake. Google Maps.

The Kirthar Mountains lie on the boundary between the Indian Plate, to the southeast and the Eurasian Plate to the west. The Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. When two tectonic plates collide in this way and one or both are oceanic then one will be subducted beneath the other (if one of the plates is continental then the other will be subducted), but if both plates are continental then subduction will not fully occur, but instead the plates will crumple, leading to folding and uplift (and quite a lot of Earthquakes). The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has lead to the formation of the Kirthar Mountains as well as Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.

In addition to this the Arabian Plate is being subducted along the Makran Subduction Zone to the south of Balochistan, passing under the province, which sits on the southern Eurasian Plate, as it sinks into the Earth. The two plates do not move past one another smoothly, but continuously break apart and then stick together until the pressure builds up sufficiently to cause another break, leading to Earthquakes in the process. In addition to this the Eurasian Plate is scraping sedimentary material off the leading edge of the Arabian Plate as it is subducted, forming an accretionary prism of material over the subduction zone up to 7.5 km think in places. This takes the form of a series of parallel folded hill ranges running east to west across the province and Sistan & Baluchistan Province in neighbouring Iran.

Plate boundaries and movements beneath southern Pakistan and Iran and the Arabian Sea. University of Southampton.

See also...

 Magnitude 4.9 Earthquake in northeast Balochistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 4.9 Earthquake at a depth of 20.8 km in the northern Kirthar...

 Magnitude 5.3 Earthquake in eastern Balochistan Province, Pakistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.3 Earthquake at a depth of 10 km in the Kirthar Mountains of eastern...

 Magnitude 4.7 Earthquake in southern Balochistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 4.7 Earthquake at a depth of 15.6 km in southern Balochistan Province...

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A new species of Abalone from São Tomé & Príncipe.

Abalones (Haliotidae) are large, flattened marine Gastropods with distinctive shells. They have a row of small circular openings on their shells used for breathing, and a mother-of-pearl interior. They are widely eaten, and farmed in many areas, though in other places over-collection of wild Abalones has provoked conservation concerns.

In a paper published in the journal Zootaxa on 16 July 2014, Buzz Owen of Gualala, California, describes a new species of Abalone from the São Tomé & Príncipe Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa. The São Tomé & Príncipe Islands form an extension of the Cameroon Volcanic Line from the coast of Cameroon to the island of Annobón in the eastern Atlantic, and are considered a biodiversity hotspot with a large proportion of endemic species, although one that has been poorly studied to date.

The new species is placed in the genus Haliotis, and given the specific name geigeri, in honour of Daniel Geiger, an expert on Abalones. Haliotis geigeri is a small Abalone, reaching 41 mm (many species exceed 10 cm), slightly oblong in shape and with a reddish colouration. The species is described entirely from shells collected at depths of 5-20 m; no living specimens were collected (Gastropods are often described from shells alone).

Specimens of Haliotis geigeri from São Tomé & Príncipe. Owen (2014).

See also…

 Three new species of Vetigastropod Snails from the Plio-Pliestocene of The Philippines.

Vetigastropods are considered to be the most ancient, and...

 Seven new species of Pomatid Land Snails from Hispaniola.

Pomatid Land Snails are terrestrial Gastropods closely related to...

 A new species of Slipper Limpet from Chile.

Slipper Limpets, Calyptriaeidae, are new world Gastropods more closely related to Conches and Cowries than to true Limpets; they are so named because their shells tend to be broad, flat and relatively...

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At least six dead following Uttarakhand landslide.

Six people are known to have died and two more have been injured following a landslide that hit part of the village of Pangla in the Dharchula district of Uttarakhand State, India, on the afternoon of Sunday 27 July 2014. Border guards from the Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police arrived quickly at the site, which is close to the border with Nepal, and dug out five bodies and three survivors. However one of these survivors subsequently died before reaching hospital.

The approximate location of the 27 July 2014 Pangla village landslide. Google Maps.

The precise cause of the landlside is unknown, however July marks the beginning of the monsoon season in Uttarakhand (which typically lasts until September), and the state has experienced heavy rainfall from much of the last week, resulting in a number of flash floods and several fatalities. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Approximately 90% of all landslides are caused by heavy rainfall.

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 Man killed in Uttarkhand rockfall.

A 25-year-old Bangalorean man has been killed in a rockfall at Dharasu in Uttarkashi District, Uttarakhand, on Monday 30 August 2013. Maneesh Manjunath, of...

 Five injured in Uttarakhand landslide.

ive members of the same family, including three women, were injured when a house partially collapsed in a landslide at Haridwar in Uttarakhand Province, India, in the evening of Wednesday 28 August 2013. The incident comes following months of heavy rains...

 Elderly woman and granddaughter killed by landslide in Uttarakhand.

An elderly woman and her granddaughter were killed when a landslide hit their home in Kot Village in...

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