Record drought keeps grip on U.S. states
LINCOLN, Neb., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- The percentage of land suffering from exceptional drought reached record levels in August in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, scientists said.
A record 81.08 percent of Texas was facing exceptional drought as of Aug. 31, Brian Fuchs of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said.
Oklahoma at 69.1 percent and Kansas with 17.4 percent also experienced record high-level marks for exceptional drought, a university release said Wednesday.
The report comes amid concerns about how long the drought conditions may linger.
"It's alarming to drought watchers," Fuchs said, noting the increasing likelihood of the drought keeping its grip on the region through the coming months, which are typically wet and mild.
"Even if we enter into a mild La Nina pattern, it's still taking a bad situation and compounding it."
"The fall and winter in that area is typically a time for recharging," he said.
"Not if this persists."
Earth's gold a gift of meteor showers
BRISTOL, England, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Precious metals in Earth's mantle are the result of a bombardment of meteorites more than 200 million years after the planet was formed, U.K. researchers say.
As the Earth formed, molten iron sank to its center to make the core, taking with it the vast majority of the planet's precious metals such as gold and platinum.
That movement to the core should have left the crust and mantle without any appreciable reserved of the precious metals, researchers at the University of Bristol said, but precious metals are tens to thousands of times more abundant in the Earth's silicate mantle than anticipated.
Researchers say they believe the presence of abundant amounts of gold and other precious metals is due to a massive meteor shower that struck Earth well after the core had formed.
Matthias Willbold and Professor Tim Elliott of Bristol University analyzed rocks from Greenland that are nearly 4 billion years old that provide a unique window into the composition of our planet shortly after the formation of the core.
Differences in certain metal isotopes in the ancient rocks compared with modern day rocks strongly support the theory that the excess of accessible gold on Earth is the fortunate byproduct of meteorite bombardment, Willbold said.
"Our work shows that most of the precious metals on which our economies and many key industrial processes are based have been added to our planet by lucky coincidence when the Earth was hit by about 20 billion billion tons of asteroidal material," he said in a university release Wednesday.
Floating islands mulled as sea levels rise
AUKLAND, New Zealand, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- The small Pacific island nation of Kiribati says it's considering building what it describes as 'floating islands' to deal with rising sea levels.
The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, put forward the idea at the Pacific Islands Forum in New Zealand where regional leaders are meeting to discuss ways to deal with climate change.
The meeting was hosted by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who urged delegates to work together to solve the region's common problems.
Sea-level rise has been a particular concern to low-lying Kiribati, and Tong said it's not a question of adapting to a new environment but rather a matter of survival.
"We're considering everything including floating islands, including everything, because we are running out of options," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
"The concept is that it would be something like drilling -- oil drilling rigs, OK? I'll ask you the question: If you're faced with the option of being submerged with your family what would you do? Would you jump on the rig like that on a floating island or not?
"And I think the answer is yes."
Tong said such a plan would cost about $2 billion, money that would have to come from the international community.
Tree rings yield region's fire history
COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Tree rings can yield valuable information on forest fires, even ones that occurred hundreds of years ago, a U.S. researcher says.
Charles Lafon, Texas A&M professor of geography, has studied the fire history of forests throughout the southern and central Appalachian Mountains, and says trees have a lot to tell.
"We found one tree that has had at least 14 fires, and we found many other trees that had endured multiple fires," he said, noting many trees in the area had survived numerous fires over the past centuries.
That reveals a lot about the area's human history, he said.
"We know that Indians often set fires to clear areas, and from records we have learned that the early settlers of the area also set fires so they could clear lands for grazing and planting crops," he said.
A demand for lumber in the late 1800s and early 1900s led to a tremendous amount of logging, he said, and fires were seen as a threat to a natural resource, motivating the fire protection campaigns of the 20th century.
"The point is, there have always been fires in forests," Lafon said. "Sometimes fires are a good thing because they are nature's way of starting over and producing new growth, and sometimes they are destructive."
