Optical seismometer survives 'hellish' summit of Caribbean volcano

by Seismological Society of America

Survey of La Soufrière de Guadeloupe optical seismometer site. Credit: Romain Feron

The heights of La Soufrière de Guadeloupe volcano can be hellish, sweltering at more than 48 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) and swathed in billows of acidic gas. Researchers would like to monitor gas and steam eruptions at its summit, to learn more about the volcano's explosive potential, but conventional seismometers are destroyed quickly in the hostile environment.


An instrument called an optical seismometer appears to be up to the challenge, however. In the journal Seismological Research Letters, a team of scientists describes how they developed and installed an optical seismometer just ten meters away from a spewing fumarole (a gas and steam vent) at the Caribbean volcano's summit.

The motion of the optical seismometer (and therefore of the ground) is estimated using an interference phenomenon, which occurs when an infrared laser beam is reflected by the mirrored surface of the seismometer mobile mass. This laser beam is carried between the seismometer at the summit and a remote and safe optoelectronic station through a long fiber optic cable, climbing the volcano's slope. The station calculates the ground displacement and sends the records in real-time to the French Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Guadeloupe.

The seismometer operates purely mechanically, and requires no electronics or power supply that would be vulnerable to the summit conditions, said Romain Feron, the paper's lead author from the ESEO Group and the LAUM laboratory at the Université du Mans. The instrument is encased in Teflon to protect it from the sulfuric gases released by the fumarole.

"It is, to our knowledge, the first high-resolution optical seismometer ever installed on an active volcano or other hazardous zone," Feron and colleagues write in SRL.

Laying the optic cable close to the fumarole at the summit of La Soufrière de Guadeloupe. Credit: Romain Feron

The success of the seismometer, after ten years of development, suggests that it could be a good seismic solution in other challenging environments, they noted, including oil and gas production fields, nuclear power plants and high-temperature geothermal reservoirs.

Now in operation on the volcano for nine months, the instrument is collecting data that will be combined with other observations from the Guadeloupe observatory to better monitor La Soufrière. The volcano's last significant eruption of gas and steam in 1976 caused evacuations in Basse Terre, Guadeloupe's capital city. Since 2018, the volcano's dome and summit fumaroles have become increasingly active.

Seismic monitoring at volcanoes can help researchers understand the movement and pressurization of underground fluids. The new optical seismometer could provide better locations for microseismic events under the dome, and offers a more detailed glimpse of "the fumarole signature, which helps to constrain the geometry and activity of the plumbing system of the dome," Feron said.

The instrument has recorded seismic waves from a regional earthquake, an earthquake in Chile, and small seismic events within the volcano less than 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) below the summit, the researchers reported.

Feron and colleagues made an arduous climb to La Soufrière's 1,467-meter (4,813-foot) summit in September 2019 to install the seismometer, using gas masks to protect themselves from the toxic gases spewing from active fumaroles. In addition to the gases and high temperatures, the team needed to keep a close eye on the weather during the installation, Feron said.

"It could be beautiful at the bottom of the volcano, but hellish at the top at the same time," he recalled. "It becomes very risky to climb the steep and slippery slopes of the volcano with heavy equipment on the back, not to mention lightning."

Explore further Philippine villagers brace as volcano grows restive

More information: Romain Feron et al, First Optical Seismometer at the Top of La Soufrière Volcano, Guadeloupe, Seismological Research Letters (2020). 

DOI: 10.1785/0220200126

Journal information: Seismological Research Letters

Provided by Seismological Society of America

New Guinea has the world's richest island flora
by University of Zurich

View of mature forest and mountains taken from the Lae-Madang Highway at Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. (Image: Zacky Ezedin) Credit: Zacky Ezedin

New Guinea is the most floristically diverse island in the world, an international collaboration led by the University of Zurich has shown. The study presents a list of almost 14,000 plant species, compiled from online catalogs and verified by plant experts. The results are invaluable for research and conservation, and also underline the importance of expert knowledge in the digital era.

Almost 20 times the size of Switzerland, New Guinea is the world's largest tropical island. It features a complex mosaic of ecosystems, from lowland jungles to high-elevation grasslands with peaks higher than Mont Blanc. Botanists have long known that this mega-diverse wilderness area is home to a large number of plant species. Efforts to identify and name thousands of plants collected in New Guinea and archived in herbaria all over the world have been ongoing since the 17th century.

However, since researchers have worked mostly independently from each other, a great uncertainty remains as to the exact number of plant species, with conflicting estimates ranging from 9,000 to 25,000. "Compared to other areas like Amazonia, for which plant checklists were recently published, New Guinea remained the 'Last Unknown'," says Rodrigo Cámara-Leret, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Jordi Bascompte in the UZH Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies. Under his lead, 99 scientists from 56 institutions and 19 countries have now built the first expert-verified checklist for the 13,634 vascular plant species of New Guinea and its surrounding islands.

Merging databases and human knowledge

The researchers began their large-scale collaborative effort by compiling a list of plant names from online catalogs, institutional repositories and datasets curated by taxonomists. After standardizing the scientific names, 99 experts on New Guinea flora checked almost 25,000 species names derived from over 700,000 individual specimens. For this, they reviewed the list of original names in their plant family of expertise and assessed whether these names were correctly assigned in the online platforms. Finally, an independent comparison was performed between the list accepted by experts and a list contained in Plants of the World Online for New Guinea.

The pitcher plant Nepenthes biak, a terrestrial climber that is endemic to limestone coastal cliffs in the lowland evergreen forest zone of Biak island in Indonesian New Guinea. Credit: Matin Cheek

Tremendous, mostly endemic plant diversity

The resulting checklist contains 13,634 plants, demonstrating that New Guinea has the world's richest island flora—with about 20% more species than Madagascar or Borneo. By far the most species-rich family are the orchids and almost a third of the species are trees. One particularly remarkable finding is that 68% of the plants are endemic, meaning they are only found in the region. "Such high endemic species richness is unmatched in tropical Asia," says Cámara-Leret, "It means that Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, the two states into which the island is divided, have a unique responsibility for the survival of this irreplaceable biodiversity."


Foundation for research and protection

The new authoritative checklist will improve the accuracy of biogeographic and ecological studies, help focus DNA sequencing on species-rich groups with high endemism, and facilitate the discovery of more species by taxonomists. Thousands of specimens remain unidentified in the collections and many unknown species have yet to be discovered in the wild. "We estimate that in the next 50 years, 3,000 to 4,000 species will be added," says Michael Kessler, co-author of the study and scientific curator of the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich. These efforts will be important for conservation planning and modeling the impact of changes in climate and land use.

Musa ingens is a species of banana endemic to New Guinea. It is the largest and tallest non-woody plant in the world, with stems that can exceed 15 meters in height and 2 m in circumference, and fruits of more than 1.5 kg. Credit: Rodrigo Cámara Leret

The collaboration also underscores that expert knowledge is still essential in the digital era—reliance on online platforms alone would have erroneously inflated species counts by one fifth. However, many of the New Guinea plants experts are already or soon to be retired, and almost half of them are non-residents. The researchers therefore advocate building a critical mass of resident plant taxonomists.

Policy-wise, the study shows that long-term institutional and financial support is critical if significant advances are to be made over the next decades. "Our work demonstrates that international collaborative efforts using verified digital data can rapidly synthesize biodiversity information. This can serve as a model for accelerating research in other hyper-diverse areas such as Borneo," says Cámara-Leret. "Such initiatives pave the way for the grand challenge of conserving the richest island flora of the world."

The study is published in Nature.


Explore further An overview of the parasitic plant Langsdorffia

More information: New Guinea has the world's richest island flora, Nature,

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2549-5 , 

www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2549-5

Journal information: Nature


Provided by University of Zurich

In ancient Arabia, some tools were created to show off skills

by Jeff Grabmeier, The Ohio State University

This rock shelter was part of the excavation of the Manayzah site in Yemen. Credit: Joy McCorriston

People living in southern Arabia some 8,000 years ago created intricate stone weapons that were not just useful, but designed to "show off" their tool-making skills, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), The Ohio State University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History excavated and examined projectile points—such as spearheads and arrowheads—created during the Neolithic period in what is now Yemen and Oman.

They found that the Arabians independently invented a process to create projectile points—called fluting—that was first used by people living in North America thousands of years earlier.

But there was one key difference between fluting as it was used in North America and the way it was used in Arabia, said Joy McCorriston, co-author of the study and professor of anthropology at Ohio State.

In North America, fluting was used just to make the arrowhead or spearhead more functional. But in Arabia, people also used it to demonstrate their technical skills.

"It was like a peacock's feathers—it was all for appearance. They used fluting to show just how skilled they were at using this very difficult technology, with its heightened risk of failure," McCorriston said.

The study was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

The scientists studied projectile points from two archaeological sites: Manayzah, in Yemen, and Ad-Dahariz, in Oman. McCorriston and a team from Ohio State oversaw the excavation in Manayzah, which lasted from 2004 to 2008.

Finding fluted points outside of North America was an important discovery, said Rémy Crassard of CNRS, lead author of the study.

The sites of Manayzah (Yemen) and Ad-Dahariz (Oman) yielded dozens of fluted points. The Arabian examples date to the Neolithic period, about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, at least two thousand years later than the American examples. Credit: Joy McCorriston, OSU

"These fluted points were, until recently, unknown elsewhere on the planet. This was until the early 2000s, when the first isolated examples of these objects were recognized in Yemen, and more recently in Oman," Crassard said.

Fluting involves a highly skilled process of chipping off flakes from a stone to create a distinctive channel. It is difficult and takes much practice to perfect, McCorriston said.

In North America, almost all fluting on projectile points was done near the base, so that the implement could be attached with string to the arrow or spear shaft. In other words, it had a practical application, she said.

Stone fluted points dating back some 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, were discovered on archaeological sites in Manayzah, Yemen and Ad-Dahariz, Oman. Until now, the prehistoric technique of fluting had been uncovered only on 13,000 to 10,000-year-old Native American sites. Credit: © Jérémie Vosges / CNRS

But in this study, the researchers found some Arabian points with fluting that appeared to have no useful purpose, such as near the tip.


As part of the study, the researchers had a master technician in flintknapping—the shaping of stones—attempt to create projectile points in a way similar to how researchers believe the ancient Arabians did.

"He made hundreds of attempts to learn how to do this. It is difficult and a flintknapper breaks a lot of these points trying to learn how to do it right," McCorriston said.

The question, then, is why would these Neolithic people do this when it was so costly and time-consuming and didn't make the points more useful? In addition, they only used fluting on some points.

Fluting is a specific technique that involves the extraction of an elongated flake along the length of a projectile point, leaving a distinctive groove or depression at the base of the spearhead or arrowhead. Credit: Rémy Crassard, CNRS

"Of course, we can't say for sure, but we think this was a way for skilled toolmakers to signal something to others, perhaps that one is a good hunter, a quick study, or dexterous with one's hands," she said.

"It showed one was good at what one did. This could improve one's social standing in the community."

The findings suggested that while there were many similarities between the American and Arabian fluted points, there were also differences. The way that people performed the fluting in the two places was different, which is not surprising since they were separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years, McCorriston said.

Detailed technological analysis, backed up by stone tool experiments and replication by an expert modern flintknapper, illustrate the similarities between the American and Arabian fluting procedures. Credit: Jérémie Vosges, CNRS

Finding the fluted points in Arabia provides one of the best examples of "independent invention" across continents, said co-author Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute.

"Given their age, and the fact that the fluted points from America and Arabia are separated by thousands of kilometers, there is no possible cultural connection between them," Petraglia said.

"This is a clear and excellent example of cultural convergence, or independent invention, in human history."


Explore further

Archaeologist explains innovation of 'fluting' ancient stone weaponry

More information: PLOS ONE (2020). dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236314
Journal information: PLoS ONE

Provided by The Ohio State University

Plate tectonics goes global

by Chinese Academy of Sciences

The Dipping Moho is a sign of one continent being thrust over another. Credit: IGG

Today, the entire globe is broken up into tectonic plates that are shifting past each other, causing the continents to drift slowly but steadily. But this has not always been the case.The earliest evidence for plate tectonic features which could have been localized does not signify when plate tectonics became a global phenomenon. So, when did plate tectonics go global?A research team led by Dr. Wan Bo from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed that plate tectonics went global 2 billion years ago. The study was published in Science Advances on August 5.The Earth is 4.56 billion years old. Although geologists have argued for plate tectonics being operational as early as 4 billion years ago, this is the first study to provide global evidence.Subduction, the pushing of one plate beneath another when two plates converge, is one of the telltale signs of plate tectonics. Usually dense ocean crust is pushed back into the deep Earth as continents ride high. But when two continents collide, something is gonna happen.The best known continental collision on Earth today is the Himalayan Mountains: as India slams into Eurasia, the smaller continent of India is pushed beneath the megacontinent. Geologists can image this collision with seismology: waves from earthquakes show Eurasia ramping up on top of India.

Subduction assembled the Nuna supercontinent. Credit: IGG

The IGG researchers designed a seismological study to investigate the structure of ancient crust at one of the oldest and most stable region, Ordos. Now, it is mostly flat without any high mountains. However, they found essentially the same deep structure. "Even though the dipping structure we found was identical to what we see in the Himalaya today, what we were looking at was 2 billion years old," said Dr. Wan.

On top of their evidence of ancient subduction in China, the researchers demonstrated that several continents with seismological studies showed similar dipping structures 2 billion years ago too.

"The authors do a very nice job of describing their results and placing them into a larger scale context," said Prof. Peter Cawood, an expert in ancient plate tectonics at Monash University who wasn't involved in the study.

Even though subduction may have occurred here or there on Earth early on, it was not until 2 billion years ago that we can say plate tectonics became a global network.

"It's like the invention of the world wide web," said co-author Dr. Ross Mitchell of IGG. "Even though the internet existed in some form or another for decades, it wasn't until the 1990s that the Information Age began." So it was with plate tectonics.

Seismic evidence of subduction from six continents at this age is interpreted as the oldest evidence of global plate tectonics. The continental connections identified can be linked in a plate network that resulted in the assembly of Nuna, likely Earth's first supercontinent.

"Immediately following plate tectonics going global, Earth formed arguably its first supercontinent," said Dr. Mitchell. "This coincidence is too compelling to ignore."

Plate tectonics research rewrites history of Earth's continents

More information: "Seismological evidence for the earliest global subduction network at 2 Ga" Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abc5491

Journal information: Science Advances 

Provided by Chinese Academy of Sciences

New study reveals lower energy limit for life on Earth

ALSO MORE EVIDENCE FOR ABIOGENIC OIL

Abiogenic petroleum origin - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

The abiotic hypothesis is that the full suite of hydrocarbons found in petroleum can either be generated in the mantle by abiogenic processes, or by biological processing of those abiogenic hydrocarbons, and that the source-hydrocarbons of abiogenic origin can migrate out of the mantle into the crust until they escape ...

‎History · ‎Proposed mechanisms of ... · ‎Biotic (microbial ... · ‎Empirical evidence

by Queen Mary, University of London

Photograph taken from ALVIN, a manned deep-ocean research submersible, taking sediment cores at the ocean floor of the Dorado Outcrop in 2014. Credit: Geoff Wheat, NSF OCE 1130146, and the National Deep Submergence Facility.

An international team of researchers led by Queen Mary University of London have discovered that microorganisms buried in sediment beneath the seafloor can survive on less energy than was previously known to support life. The study has implications for understanding the limit of life on Earth and the potential for life elsewhere.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, uses data from the sub-seafloor to construct innovative models that divide the oceans into hundreds of thousands of individual grid cells. A global picture of the sub-seafloor biosphere was then assembled, including key lifeforms and biogeochemical processes.

By combining data on the distribution and amounts of carbon and microbial life contained in Earth's deep biosphere with the rate of biological and chemical reactions, the researchers were able to determine the 'power' consumption of individual microbial cells—in other words—the rate at which they utilize energy. All life on Earth constantly uses energy in order to remain active, sustain metabolism, and carry out essential functions such as growth, and the repair and replacement of biomolecules.

The results show that sub-seafloor microbes survive using far less energy than has ever previously been shown to support any form of life on Earth. By stretching the habitable boundaries of life to encompass lower energy environments, the findings could inform future studies of where, when and how life arose on a hostile early Earth, and where life might be located elsewhere in the solar system.

John Beck (Imaging Specialist, IODP-USIO/TAMU), Chad Broyles (Curator, IODP-USIO/TAMU), Zenon Mateo (Core Laboratory, IODP-USIO/TAMU) and Lisa Crowder (Assistant Laboratory Officer, IODP-USIO/TAMU) carry a sediment core on the catwalk. On site at the South Pacific Gyre, International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 329. October 2010. Credit: Carlos Alvarez Zarikian (Expedition Project Manager/Staff Scientist, IODP-USIO/TAMU).

Dr. James Bradley, Lecturer in Environmental Science at Queen Mary said: "When we think about the nature of life on Earth, we tend to think about the plants, animals, microscopic algae, and bacteria that thrive on Earth's surface and within its oceans—constantly active, growing and reproducing. Yet here we show that an entire biosphere of microorganisms—as many cells as are contained in all of Earth's soils or oceans, have barely enough energy to survive. Many of them are simply existing in a mostly inactive state—not growing, not dividing, and not evolving. These microbes use less energy than we previously thought was possible to support life on Earth.

"The average human uses around 100 watts of power—meaning they burn approximately 100 joules of energy every second. This is roughly equivalent to the power of a ceiling fan, a sewing machine, or two standard lightbulbs . We calculate that the average microbe trapped in deep ocean sediments survives on fifty-billion-billion times less energy than a human."


Jan Amend, Director of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI) at the University of Southern California, and co-author of the study, said "Previous studies of life in the subseafloor—and there have been many good ones—focused predominantly on who's there, and how much of it is there. Now we're digging deeper into ecological questions: what is it doing, and how fast is it doing it? Understanding the power limits of life establishes an essential baseline for microbial life on Earth and elsewhere."

The findings raise fundamental questions about our definitions of what constitutes life, as well as the limits of life on Earth, and elsewhere. With such little energy available, it is unlikely that organisms are able to reproduce or divide, but instead use this miniscule amount of energy for 'maintenance' - replacing or repairing their damaged parts. It is likely, therefore, that many of the microbes found at great depths beneath the seafloor are remnants from populations that inhabited shallow coastal settings thousands to millions of years ago. Unlike organisms on the surface of Earth, which operate on short (daily and seasonal) timescales according to the Sun, it is likely that these deeply buried microbes exist on much longer timescales, such as the movement of tectonic plates, and changes in ocean oxygen levels and circulation.

Photograph taken from ALVIN, a manned deep-ocean research submersible, taking sediment cores at the ocean floor of the Dorado Outcrop in 2014. Credit: Geoff Wheat

The research also sheds light on how the microbes interact with chemical processes occurring deep below the seafloor. Whilst oxygen provides the highest amount of energy to microbes, it is in overwhelmingly short supply—present in less than 3 per cent of sediments.

Anoxic sediments, however, are far more widespread, often containing microorganisms that obtain energy by generating methane—a potent greenhouse gas. Despite being practically inactive, the microbial cells contained in Earth's marine sediments are so numerous, and survive over such extraordinarily long timescales, that they act as an important driver of earth's carbon and nutrient cycles—even affecting the concentration of CO2 in earth's atmosphere over thousands to millions of years.

"The findings of the research call into question not just the nature and limits of life on Earth, but elsewhere in the Universe," added Dr. Bradley. "If life does exist on Mars or Europa for example, it would most likely take refuge in the subsurface of these energy-limited planetary bodies. If microbes only need a few zeptowatts of power to survive, there could be remnants of extant life, long dormant but still technically 'alive', beneath their icy surface."


Explore further

Window to another world: Life is bubbling up to seafloor with petroleum from deep below

More information: "Widespread energy limitation to life in global subseafloor sediments" Science Advances (2020). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.aba0697
Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by Queen Mary, University of London

Virgin Atlantic files for bankruptcy protection in US as virus bites

Virgin Atlantic stopped flying its planes in April because of coronavirus

Virgin Atlantic has applied for bankruptcy protection in the United States, court filings show, as the British airline—which has not flown since April because of coronavirus—seeks to tie up a rescue deal in the UK.

The company—part-owned by Richard Branson—grounded its planes in April because of the pandemic but announced plans for private funding worth 1.2 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) in July, what it called a "major milestone towards securing its future."

A court filing showed Virgin Atlantic sought Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York on Tuesday, a move that would protect its US assets as a foreign debtor while it seeks approval in the UK from creditors for the rescue plan.

In court proceedings currently underway in Britain, Virgin Atlantic was given approval on Tuesday to hold creditor meetings to vote on the rescue plan.

The company has said it plans to slash annual costs by 280 million pounds per year and announced plans earlier in the year to axe more than 3,000 jobs as the pandemic grounded most of its fleet.

Airlines globally have been slammed by the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in bailouts and thousands of job losses.

The Virgin Group has been particularly hard hit, with Virgin Australia going into voluntary administration in April before it was snapped up by a US equity firm.

It announced Wednesday it would close budget subsidiary Tigerair Australia and lay off 3,000 staff as it prepares to relaunch under the new owners.

It would also continue the suspension of long-haul international flights and retire part of its fleet.

Virgin Australia closes budget offshoot, fires 3,000 staff

---

© 2020 AFP

Most airlines expect job cuts over next 12 months: survey

Some 45 percent of airlines reported having already reduced their staff numbers in the second quarter of 2020 due to cost-cutting measures following the COVID-19 pandemic

Most airlines are considering downsizing their staff over the next 12 months due to the coronavirus crisis, the International Air Transport Association said Wednesday, citing an internal survey.

"With the recovery in demand likely to be slow, 55 percent of respondents expect to have to decrease employment levels over the coming 12 months," global aviation body IATA said in a statement following a quarterly business confidence survey of more than 300 airlines.

Some 45 percent reported having already reduced their staff numbers in the second quarter of 2020 due to cost-cutting measures following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile 57 percent expect passenger yields to fall over the next 12 months and think ticket prices could fall due to the weak recovery in demand.

Some 19 percent expect to see a gradual increase in fares once the balance between supply and demand is restored.

Geneva-based IATA represents some 290 airlines comprising 82 percent of global air traffic.

It expects air traffic to return to pre-crisis levels in 2024 and estimates that traffic will fall by 63 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, with a shortfall of $419 billion in the sector due to the coronavirus crisis.

Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are expected to be the first to return to 2019 traffic levels, while the Americas are expected to experience a slower recovery, according to IATA.

The aviation sector has been hit hard by the crisis, with almost all aircraft fleets grounded and tens of thousands of jobs lost.

The US company United has announced that it could lay off up to 36,000 employees. American Airlines has cited the figure of 25,000 redundancies.

Germany's Lufthansa wants to cut 22,000 jobs, Air Canada 20,000, British Airways 12,000, Air France-KLM up to 12,500, Australia's Qantas 6,000, Scandinavia's SAS 5,000 and Britain's easyJet 4,500.

LATAM, the largest airline in Latin America, has announced the loss of 2,700 jobs.

Virgin Australia announced Wednesday that it would close budget subsidiary Tigerair Australia and lay off 3,000 staff as it prepares to relaunch under new owners.

Virgin Atlantic has applied for bankruptcy protection in the United States, court filings showed Wednesday, as the British airline—which has not flown since April due to the virus—seeks to tie up a rescue deal in Britain.

Virgin Atlantic files for bankruptcy protection in US as virus bites

American, pilots agree on steps aimed at reducing job cuts

by The Associated Press

In this March 25, 2020, file photo, American Airlines jets sit idly at their gates as a jet arrives at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. American Airlines is telling 25,000 workers that they could lose their jobs in October because of the sharp drop in air travel during the virus pandemic. The airline said Wednesday, July 15, it was starting new offers of buyouts and partially paid leave, which it hopes will reduce the number of furloughs. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

American Airlines has reached a deal with its pilots' union designed to reduce the number of job losses in October as the airline shrinks because fewer people are flying during the pandemic.

American had previously offered early retirement to pilots and other employees. But, Senior Vice President Kimball Stone said Tuesday, "we still had many more people than necessary to run our operation."

The agreement with the Allied Pilots Association would let pilots work every other month through next May, or take leave while receiving training so they could be rehired if travel demand recovers.

It is the latest among a number of deals negotiated by airlines and their unions to limit or avoid job cuts in October. That is when federal relief for airline labor costs and a ban on layoffs end. Congress is considering giving passenger airlines another $25 billion to avoid layoffs shortly before the Nov. 3 election.

Last month, American, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas, warned 25,000 employees, including about 2,500 pilots, that they could be furloughed, or laid off with rehiring rights. More than 800 American pilots took early retirement.

Delta Air Lines, which sent furlough warnings to more than 2,500 pilots, got 2,200 to take early retirement. United Airlines warned 36,000 employees that they could lose their jobs.

A hoped-for recovery in air travel leveled off in June and July as the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. surged. Passenger traffic is down more than 70% from a year ago.

United Airlines now planning for bigger pilot layoffs

Virgin Australia closes budget offshoot, fires 3,000 staff

Virgin Australia is attempting to revive its fortunes after going into voluntary administration in April

Pandemic-struck airline Virgin Australia announced Wednesday it would close budget subsidiary Tigerair Australia and lay off 3,000 staff as it prepares to relaunch under new owners.attempting to revive its fortunes after going into voluntary administration in April

Pandemic-struck airline Virgin Australia announced Wednesday it would close budget subsidiary Tigerair Australia and lay off 3,000 staff as it prepares to relaunch under new owners.

The carrier is attempting to revive its fortunes following its decision to go into voluntary administration in April shortly after Australia closed its international borders and domestic travel plunged.

Virgin Australia said in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday that it would axe its budget Tigerair Australia brand and 3,000 jobs while retaining 6,000 staff.

It would also continue the suspension of long-haul international flights and retire part of its fleet, with the country's borders likely to remain restricted into 2021.

"Demand for domestic and short-haul international travel is likely to take at least three years to return to pre-COVID-10 levels, with the real chance it could be longer," Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah said in the statement.

"As a business we must make changes to ensure the Virgin Australia Group is successful in this new world," he added.

US private equity giant Bain Capital was successful in its takeover bid for Virgin Australia in late June. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is due to be completed this month.

The global aviation industry is facing its biggest crisis to date, with numerous big-name carriers seeking billions of dollars to stop them from going under, while others have gone out of business.

Before the pandemic, the airline had struggled for years against larger carrier Qantas, which would have enjoyed a virtual monopoly if Virgin went out of business.

Scurrah predicted that even if travel recovers to pre-pandemic levels, successful airlines will "look very different" to the way they did previously, requiring long-term capital and a lower cost base.

Bain wins bid to buy ailing Australian airline Virgin

---

© 2020 AFP

FINTEC 

Google Pay partners with six banks to offer mobile checking accounts next year

by Dalvin Brown, Usa Today

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Google is expanding its push into financial services amid a nationwide shift toward online banking.

The search giant has partnered with half a dozen banks and will offer Google Pay users in the U.S. access to checking accounts as early as 2021, according to BBVA U.S., one of its banking partners that announced the news on Monday.

Other banks that have partnerships with Google include Bank Mobile, BMO Harris, Coastal Community Bank, First Independence Bank and SEFCU.

"Collaborations with companies like Google represent the future of banking. Consumers end up the true winners when finance and big tech work together for their benefit," said Javier Rodríguez Soler, president and CEO at BBVA, in a statement.

The move also gives the search giant more data about its users as people flock toward digital banking during the pandemic.

Google Pay is a digital wallet and payment system that lets you send and receive money. It also lets you use banking information stored in your phone to pay for items in apps, online and in-person.

Under the banking collaborations, Google will focus primarily on the front-end experience and offer "financial insights", while the banks offer advanced security, BMO Harris said in a press release. The digital checking account will be built on top of BMO's existing banking infrastructure and the accounts will be FDIC-insured, the Chicago-based bank added.

Google previously announced mobile banking partnerships with Citi and SFCU as the search behemoth joined a list of big tech companies to edge further into personal financial services.

In 2019, Apple partnered with Goldman Sachs to launch Apple Card, a branded, digital card that's managed through the Wallet app on iPhones. It later sparked claims of gender discrimination. And Facebook designed a cryptocurrency, Libra, to allow people to move money around the world with ease. The company later scaled back plans after it faced regulatory scrutiny.Google plans to offer checking accounts

---

©2020 USA Today
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.