Earth regions 'primed' for earthquakes
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Geologic features and activity in the Himalayas and the Pacific Northwest suggest those regions could be primed for major earthquakes, researchers say.
Geophysicists from Stanford University are presenting findings from studies of the regions at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this week, a university release reported.
The Himalayan range was formed and remains active due to the collision of the Indian and Asian continental plates, creating a fault knows as the Main Himalayan Thrust where 20 seismometers have been gathering data for two years.
Stanford geophysics doctoral student Warren Caldwell noted the MHT has historically been responsible for a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake every several hundred years.
"What we're observing doesn't bear on where we are in the earthquake cycle, but it has implications in predicting earthquake magnitude," Caldwell said.
Recent detections of magma and water around the MHT indicate which segments of the thrust will rupture during an earthquake, said Caldwell's adviser, geophysics Professor Simon Klemperer.
"The findings are important for creating risk assessments and disaster plans for the heavily populated cities in the region," he said.
Studies were also presented at the AGU meeting focusing on the Pacific Northwest's Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from northern California to Vancouver Island but has not experienced a major seismic event since it ruptured in 1700.
Stanford postdoctoral scholar Annemarie Baltay said measurements of small seismic tremors in the region can be utilized to determine how ground motion from larger events might behave.
"We can't predict when an earthquake will occur, but we can try to be very prepared for them," Baltay said. "Looking at these episodic tremor events can help us constrain what the ground motion might be like in a certain place during an earthquake."
The 1700 earthquake, estimated at between 8.7-9.2 magnitude, shook the region and created a tsunami that reached Japan.
Mars trip radiation said 'survivable'
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Astronauts on a long-term, round-trip mission to Mars would experience radiation exposure levels considered significant but survivable, NASA says.
Radiation data gathered by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity -- both on the way to the Red Planet and while on the planet's surface -- suggest astronauts on a two-and-a-half year mission there would receive a total radiation dose of about 1.1 sieverts, the space agency reported.
"The rough ballpark average for an astronaut career limit is on the order of a sievert," Curiosity scientist Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., said Monday.
Data from instruments on Curiosity show radiation levels on the Martian surface -- about 0.7 millisieverts a day -- are similar to the 0.4 to 1.0 daily millisieverts astronauts in low-Earth orbit encounter, SPACE.com reported.
Levels encountered in space during the long trip to Mars would be a greater concern, scientists said.
Radiation levels recorded by Curiosity instruments during the 8-month voyage to Mars averaged 1.9 millisieverts a day.
"We can survive the Mars surface," Hassler said. "The hard part is the cruise."
Hassler made the comments at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Smartphone app gives air quality reports
HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- People with respiratory problems can get an instant up-to-date local report on a key air pollutant with a new free mobile phone app, its U.S. developers say.
MobileAQI (Mobile Air Quality Index), developed at the University of Alabama Huntsville, combines data from satellites operated by NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration with other pollution estimates to give app users an accurate and reliable report on fine particulates in the air, the researchers said.
Fine particulates are defined as particles no bigger than 2.5 microns.
"That is the size that is most efficient at getting into your lungs," atmospheric science Professor Udaysankar Nair said. "The population most at risk is the elderly, especially people with respiratory problems, although this could be of use to children or anyone with serious respiratory problems, such as bad asthma."
The app, available for both Android and iPhone systems, provides a quick reading on local particulate levels, a university release said, with an estimate of current conditions and air quality forecasts hour-by-hour as much as 24 hours in advance.
The app's coverage area includes most of the eastern United States from the tip of Florida as far north as Milwaukee and from the Atlantic Ocean as far west as the border between Kansas and Colorado, the researchers said.
Study: Lions losing habitat across Africa
NEW YORK, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- About 75 percent of Africa's savannahs and much of the lion population once estimated to live there have disappeared in the last 50 years, a study found.
Burgeoning human population growth and subsequent massive land-use conversion has led to a two-thirds drop in the number of lions living on the shrinking savannahs, a study by Duke University and wildlife conservation group Panthera reported.
Researchers used Google Earth's high-resolution satellite imagery to study savannah habitat across Africa and analyze human population density data to identify areas of suitable habitat currently occupied by lions, a Panthera release said Monday.
The analysis found just 67 isolated regions across the continent where significant lion populations may persist, of which only 15 were estimated to contain a population of at least 500 lions, researchers said.
"The reality is that from an original area a third larger than the continental United States, only 25 percent remains," Stuart Pimm of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment said.
In West Africa lions are classified as Regionally Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
"Lions have been hit hardest in West Africa, where local governments often lack direct incentives to protect them," said Philipp Henschel, Panthera's Lion Program Survey Coordinator.
"While lions generate billions of tourist dollars across Eastern and Southern Africa, spurring governments to invest in their protection, wildlife-based tourism is only slowly developing in West Africa. Currently lions still have little economic value in the region, and West African governments will require significant foreign assistance in stabilizing remaining populations until sustainable local conservation efforts can be developed."
