CRYPTOZOOLOGY
Rare Species of Mammal Believed to Have Been Extinct Spotted for First Time in Decades

Stacey Ritzen
Fri, November 10, 2023

Getty Images


Oxford University researchers on an expedition to Indonesia were stunned to have come across video evidence of an extremely rare species of echidna that had been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species for decades, and possibly even extinct.

The Attenborough echidna, named for natural historian and biologist Sir David Attenborough, is one of three species of the Zaglossus genus of echidna that lives only in the Cyclops Mountains on the island of New Guinea. Echidna most closely resemble hedgehogs or porcupines in appearance, in that they're covered in coarse hair that resembles spines. There also are one of only two egg-laying mammals; the other being the duck-billed platypus.

The creatures are often referred to as "living fossils" as they are believed to have first appeared on Earth around 200 million years ago when dinosaurs still roamed. While the ancestor of the species was aquatic, echidnas eventually adapted to life on land.

As nocturnal creatures who live in burrows and tend to be very shy, echidnas are rarely seen, making the discovery that much more groundbreaking.

Researchers recorded four three-second clips of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna during a month-long expedition to treacherous, previously unexplored stretches of the rainforest habitat. The mountains are steep and dangerous, filled with deadly venomous snakes and leeches that drop from trees to feed on blood.


Dr, James Kempton, an Oxford University biologist who led the multi-national Expedition Cyclops, told BBC News that he and the entire team were "euphoric" at the discovery of the creature, which they identified in camera trap footage.

"I'm not joking when I say it came down to the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our expedition," Kempton explained. He added that he had already alerted Attenborough to the rediscovery via letter correspondence, who was "absolutely delighted."

Before the video footage was captured, the only evidence of the Zaglossus attenboroughi that existed was a deceased specimen that had been collected near the top of Mount Rara in the Cyclops Mountains in 1961. It wasn't until 1998 that X-rays revealed that the specimen was not a juvenile of another echidna species, and was subsequently named after Attenborough.

The "lost echidna" was one of many discoveries the team made during the expedition. In addition to "several dozen" new species of insects and frogs, they also found a new species of tree-dwelling shrimp and a previously unknown cave system.

"The top of the Cyclops are really unique," said Gison Morib, a local conservationist who partnered with Oxford University on the expedition. "We have to protect these sacred mountains. There are so many endemic species we don't know."

First-ever images prove 'lost echidna' not extinct

Jonah Fisher and Charlie Northcott - BBC News
Fri, November 10, 2023

Scientists have filmed an ancient egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough for the first time, proving it isn't extinct as was feared.

An expedition to Indonesia led by Oxford University researchers recorded four three-second clips of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna.

Spiky, furry and with a beak, echidnas have been called "living fossils".

They are thought to have emerged about 200 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Until now, the only evidence that this particular species Zaglossus attenboroughi existed was a decades-old museum specimen of a dead animal.

"I was euphoric, the whole team was euphoric," Dr James Kempton told BBC News of the moment he spotted the Attenborough echidna in camera trap footage.

"I'm not joking when I say it came down to the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our expedition."

Dr Kempton said he had been in letter correspondence with Sir David about the rediscovery and that he was "absolutely delighted".

Dr Kempton, a biologist from Oxford University, headed a multi-national team on the month-long expedition traversing previously unexplored stretches of the Cyclops Mountains, a rugged rainforest habitat 2,000m (6,561ft) above sea level.

In addition to finding Attenborough's "lost echidna" the expedition discovered new species of insects and frogs, and observed healthy populations of tree kangaroo and birds of paradise.

Echidnas and other animals named after Sir David Attenborough

Aside from the duck-billed platypus, the echidna is the only mammal that lays eggs. Of the four echidna species three have long beaks, with the Attenborough echidna, and the western echidna considered critically endangered.


Factbox on echidna

Previous expeditions to the Cyclops Mountains had uncovered signs, such as 'nose pokes' in the ground, that the Attenborough echidna was still living there.

But they were unable to access the remotest reaches of the mountains and provide definitive proof of their existence.

That has meant that for the last 62 years the only evidence that Attenborough echidna ever existed has been a specimen kept under high security in the Treasure Room of Naturalis, the natural history museum of the Netherlands.

"It's rather flat," Pepijn Kamminga, the collection manager at Naturalis, says as he holds it for us to see.

To an untrained eye it's not dissimilar to a squashed hedgehog because when it was first gathered by Dutch botanist Pieter van Royen it wasn't stuffed.

The importance of the specimen only became clear in 1998 when X-rays revealed it was not a juvenile of another echidna species but in fact fully grown and distinct. It was then that the species was named after Sir David Attenborough.

"When that was discovered, people thought, well, maybe it's extinct already because it's the only one," Mr Kamminga explains. "So this [the rediscovery] is incredible news."

Dr James Kempton led the expedition to the Cyclops Mountains

The Cyclops Mountains are precipitously steep and dangerous to explore. To reach the highest elevations, where the echidna are found, the scientists had to climb narrow ridges of moss and tree roots - often under rainy conditions - with sheer cliffs on either side. Twice during their ascent the mountains were hit by earthquakes.

"You're slipping all over the place. You're being scratched and cut. There are venomous animals around you, deadly snakes like the death adder," Dr Kempton explains.

"There are leeches literally everywhere. The leeches are not only on the floor, but these leeches climb trees, they hang off the trees and then drop on you to suck your blood."

Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou says they have found several dozen new species

Once the scientists reached the higher parts of the Cyclops it became clear the mountains were full of species that were new to science.

"My colleagues and I were chuckling all the time," Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, a Greek insect specialist, said.

"We were so excited because we were always saying, 'this is new, nobody has seen this' or 'Oh my God, I can't believe that I'm seeing this.' It was a truly monumental expedition."

Dr Davranoglou broke his arm in the first week of the expedition but remained in the mountains collecting samples. He says they have already confirmed "several dozen" new insect species and are expecting there to be many more. They also found an entirely new type of tree-dwelling shrimp and a previously unknown cave system.

Gison Morib, a conservationist with Yappenda, a local non-profit that partnered with Oxford University on the expedition, said: "The top of the Cyclops are really unique. I want to see them protected.

"We have to protect these sacred mountains. There are so many endemic species we don't know."

A new species of terrestrial shrimp, found in the soil and the trees of the Cyclops Mountains

Sacred mountains

Previous expeditions had struggled to reach the parts of the Cyclops Mountains where the echidnas live because of the belief of local Papuans that they are sacred.

"The mountains are referred to as the landlady," Madeleine Foote from Oxford University says. "And you do not want to upset the landlady by not taking good care of her property."

This team worked closely with local villages and on a practical level that meant accepting that there were some places they couldn't go to, and others where they passed through silently.

The Attenborough echidna's elusiveness has, according to local tradition, played a part in conflict resolution.

When disputes between two community members arose one was instructed to find an echidna and the other a marlin (a fish).

"That can sometimes take decades," Ms Foote explains. "Meaning it closes the conflict for the community and symbolises peace."

The expedition team spent four weeks living in the damp forest

Dr Kempton says he hopes that rediscovery of the echidna and the other new species will help build the case for conservation in the Cyclops Mountains. Despite being critically endangered, Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is not currently a protected species in Indonesia. The scientists don't know how big the population is, or if it is sustainable.

"Given so much of that rainforest hasn't been explored, what else is out there that we haven't yet discovered? The Attenborough long-beaked echidna is a symbol of what we need to protect - to ensure we can discover it."

Map showing Cyclops Mountains

Rare egg-laying mammal named after Attenborough caught on film for first time
Nina Massey, PA Science Correspondent
Fri, November 10, 2023 



A rare egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough – which had been lost for more than 60 years – has been captured on video for the first time.

An expedition team has rediscovered Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, an animal that had previously only been recorded once by science in 1961.

It was captured for the first time in photos and video footage using remote trail cameras set up in the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia’s Papua Province.

The elusive animal has the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater, and the feet of a mole.

Because of its hybrid appearance, it shares its name with a creature of Greek mythology that is half human, half serpent.

The creatures are nocturnal, and so are notoriously difficult to spot.

Additionally, Attenborough’s echidna is currently classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

However, after four weeks, on the last day of Expedition Cyclops, with the last images on the final memory card, the team obtained their shots of the elusive mammal – the first-ever photographs of Attenborough’s echidna.

Dr James Kempton, department of Biology at University of Oxford, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “When we discovered it, there was initially just this great sense of relief.

“Because this expedition was three and a half years of planning and we’d seen signs of the echidna or in the field, the holes that it makes when it forages, but no pictures until that very final day.”

He added: “Initially it’s this intense relief but instantaneously afterwards a great sense of euphoria.

“I was the the last scientist who had remained, I’d already come down from the mountains and I was looking through the images for the echidna and just burst out beaming and ran out into the living room of the base house where we were, and said to my Papuan colleagues, who are still with me, ‘we found it, we found it’.”

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna is a monotreme – an egg-laying group that separated from the rest of the mammal tree of life about 200 million years ago.

The echidna species is so special because it is one of only five remaining species of monotremes.

To give themselves the best chance of finding the animal, the team deployed more than 80 trail cameras, making multiple ascents of the mountains, and climbing more than 11,000 meters (more than the height of Mount Everest) in the process.

For almost the entire four weeks that the team spent in the forest, the cameras recorded no sign of the echidna.

As well as searching for the echidna, the expedition carried out the first comprehensive assessment of invertebrate, reptile, amphibian and mammal life in the Cyclops Mountains.

By combining scientific techniques with the Papuan team members’ experience and knowledge of the forest, the team made a number of new discoveries, including several dozens of insect species completely new to science.

They also rediscovered Mayr’s honeyeater (Ptiloprora mayri), a bird lost to science since 2008 and named after famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr.

The researchers were surprised to find an entirely new genus of ground and tree-dwelling shrimp.

Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou, a Leverhulme Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, was the lead entomologist for the expedition.

He said: “We were quite shocked to discover this shrimp in the heart of the forest because it is a remarkable departure from the typical seaside habitat for these animals.

“We believe that the high level of rainfall in the Cyclops Mountains means the humidity is great enough for these creatures to live entirely on land.”

The expedition was a partnership between the University of Oxford, Indonesian NGO Yayasan Pelayanan Papua Nenda (YAPPENDA), Cenderawasih University (UNCEN), Papua BBKSDA, and the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN), Re:Wild.

Scientists took the first-ever photos of an adorable echidna, named after David Attenborough, that hasn't been seen for over 60 years
Sonam Sheth,Maiya Focht
Fri, November 10, 2023 


Scientists captured images of an elusive echidna named after David Attenborough for the first time in over 60 years.

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna was last recorded in 1961.

Researchers dispatched 80 camera traps that finally spotted this adorable creature.

Scientists captured images of an elusive echidna named after the British biologist Sir David Attenborough for the first time in over 60 years.

Attenborough's long-beaked echidna was last recorded in 1961, according to a news release from the University of Oxford.

A team of researchers dispatched 80 camera traps to capture the first-ever video and photos of the animal.

The photos were taken at night, so it might be easy to mistake the animal's spines for fur in the photo. "Attenborough's long-beaked echidna has the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater, and the feet of a mole," James Kempton, a biologist from the University of Oxford who led the exploration, said in the release.

The echidna — also known as Sir David's long-beaked echidna or the Cyclops long-beaked echidna — inhabits New Guinea and lives in the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesia.

"The discovery is the result of a lot of hard work and over three and a half years of planning," Kempton said in the release.
What is the echidna?

The short-beaked Echidna species is found in Australia, and is closely related to the species re-discovered in this study.DeAgostini/Getty Images

Echidnas are part of a group of animals called monotremes, which is the only group of mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

Echidnas are one of only five remaining monotreme species in the world. This group also includes the platypus.

The spiny critters are notoriously difficult to find since they're nocturnal and tend to be shy. They also roll up into a ball when they feel threatened and usually only come out to mate once a year, in the summer.

Since there hadn't been a sighting in decades, scientists feared that the animal had gone extinct, The New York Times reported.
The mountainous jungle echidna's call home

Gison Morib setting up one of the 80 camera traps which were placed in the Cyclops Mountains.Expedition Cyclops

Another complicating factor is that Sir David's echidna lives in a mountainous jungle region that's difficult for researchers to explore. The researchers were only able to conduct their research with help from local organizations, according to the news release.

During the course of the study, one researcher contracted malaria, another broke his arm in two places, and a third had a leech latch onto his eye for a day and a half, per the news release.

"I think the landscape is magical, at once enchanting and dangerous, like something out of a Tolkien book," Kempton said. The expedition also uncovered lots of other intriguing animals, like a never-before-seen species of shrimp that lives in trees and on the ground.

A catalyst for conservation

The long-beaked echidna is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, according to the news release.

Part of the reason may be because the tropical forests surrounding the Cyclops Mountains are under threat from logging and mining, per the Times.

"I really hope and believe this will become a catalyst for strong conservation of the Cyclops Mountain Range," Iain Kobak, a co-founder of Yappenda that organized and trained people for the expedition, told the Times.

Attenborough’s long-lost echidna rediscovered in New Guinea jungle

Nick Squires
Fri, November 10, 2023 

A long-lost species of egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough has been rediscovered by a British-led expedition in the dense jungles of New Guinea more than 60 years after it was last spotted.

A living specimen of Sir David’s long-beaked echidna, which resembles a large hedgehog with a long snout, was last documented in 1961.

Scientists had no idea whether it had become extinct or not. But it has now been filmed by a University of Oxford expedition in the Cyclops Mountains of Papua, the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea.

It is the first video footage ever recorded of the species.

A multinational team of scientists braved earthquakes, sheer cliffs, deadly snakes, malaria and blood-sucking leeches as they scoured the rainforest for the elusive creature.

The long-beaked echidna was captured on a trail camera on the very last day of a month-long expedition. Images of the creature were found on the last memory card retrieved from more than 80 cameras that had been set up in the rainforest by the scientists.

Dr James Kempton and his team spotted the species in the jungles of the Cyclops mountains of Indonesia's Papua Province - Expedition Cyclops

“I’m not joking when I say it came down to the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our expedition,” biologist Dr James Kempton told the BBC.

The camera trap footage shows the animal waddling across the forest floor with a distinctive loping gait.

“(The reason) it appears so unlike other mammals is because it is a member of the monotremes – an egg-laying group that separated from the rest of the mammal tree-of-life about 200 million years ago,” Dr Kempton said in a statement.

He said the animal has “the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole”.

The last time the species was recorded scientifically was by a Dutch botanist in 1961. The only evidence that the species existed, until now, was a specimen held by a museum in the Netherlands.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna echidna walks amid vegetation in the Cyclops Mountains, Papua, Indonesia

The importance of the specimen was revealed in 1998, when x-rays showed it wasn’t a juvenile of another echidna species, but in fact fully grown and distinct. The species was named after Sir David following the discovery.

One of the many unusual features of echidnas is the fact that they are equipped with a four-pronged penis. It has four separate heads, or glans, although only two of them are used during each erection.

Sir David’s long-beaked echidna, also known as Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, plays an important part in local culture, with a tradition saying that if a conflict breaks out between villagers, one party should be sent into the jungle to look for one of the animals while another should travel to the coast of New Guinea to find a marlin.

Both creatures are so rare that finding them could take years or decades, by which time the reasons for the conflict would be forgotten.

The scientifically named Zaglossus attenboroughi is classified as critically endangered because of habitat loss and hunting for its meat. The only living relative of the echidnas is the duck-billed platypus of Australia.

Aside from rediscovering the lost echidna, the expedition also found two new species of frog and a new species of terrestrial shrimp as they explored the Cyclops Mountains. The scientists are calling for the region to be given much better protection.

“With 83 per cent of Indonesian New Guinea’s old-growth forest still intact, we are at a critical moment to ensure the preservation of the world’s most biodiverse island,” said Dr Kempton.



Endangered egg-laying mammal seen for the first time in over 60 years

Natalie Kainz
Fri, November 10, 2023 

An expedition through an unpredictable, perilous mountain range in Indonesia’s province of Papua led to the rediscovery of a critically endangered egg-laying mammal that hasn’t been seen for more than 60 years.

For the researchers of Expedition Cyclops, Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna — a bizarre-looking, quill-covered creature with powerful digging feet — is a symbol of the biodiversity that can be rediscovered in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains.

On a nine-week expedition, a 25-person crew battled malaria and earthquakes, and one student researcher even had a leech stuck in their eye for 33 hours.

“Climbing those mountains I like to think of as climbing a ladder whose rungs are made of rotting wood, with rails cladded in spikes and thorns, and a frame shrouded by sunken vines and falling rocks,” said team leader James Kempton of Oxford.

The less than 90-square-mile mountain range has been subject to illegal hunting for years. It’s the only habitat for Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, which is considered critically endangered and is on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Kempton’s team deployed over 30 camera traps to look for the echidna, suspecting it was around because of holes in the ground the animal uses to forage for worms. In the last images on the last SD card on the final day of the expedition, they finally found it.

“The first feeling was one of great relief, because we had tried so hard and thought they were there, but we needed concrete evidence for the scientific proof,” said Kempton. “That was followed by extreme euphoria.”

Kempton said the echidna’s critically endangered status is unlikely to change for a long time and is not protected under Indonesian law.

The effort to change that is among the reasons why Expedition Cyclops included more than six local partners in its research project, said Kempton. These include Indigenous groups, students and organizations of the Indonesian government.

Kempton hopes the findings will help local partners raise funds to research and protect the Cyclops Mountains.

The Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna is also one of five guardians of a highly unique and fragile evolutionary history that dates back over 200 million years, said Kempton.

Echidnas are monotremes, which means they are part of the only group of living mammals that lays eggs instead of bearing live young, he explained. There are only five existing species of monotremes: the platypus and four species of echidna.

“To a biologist, the idea that that branch could go extinct would be a great tragedy,” Kempton said. “It’s evolutionary history that can never be gained back.”

Rediscovering Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was only one of the goals of Expedition Cyclops. Researchers also set out to investigate the origins of the biodiversity of the Cyclops Mountains. They came back with hundreds of new insect species, at least two new species of frogs, and a new species of shrimp that lives on land and in trees.

Kempton said the Cyclops Mountains’ unique geologic origins are a huge driving force behind the region’s biodiversity. The mountain range used to be islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As the Earth’s continents gradually drifted together, they collided with the mainland of New Guinea to form mountains.

Expedition Cyclops also rediscovered Mayr’s honeyeater, a species of bird not seen for 15 years.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

GAIA LIVES

New island that emerged from the ocean off Japan is now visible from space

Hannah Osborne
Fri, November 10, 2023

The new island that emerged after an underwater volcanic eruption off Japan's Iwo Jima seen from space

A newborn island that recently emerged from the Pacific Ocean after an underwater volcanic eruption is now visible from space, images from the European Space Agency (ESA) reveal. The satellite images show the new landmass sitting around 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) off the coast off Japan's Iwo Jima island.

The submerged volcano began erupting on Oct. 21, with activity ramping up over the next 10 days. By Oct. 30, explosions were taking place every few minutes, according to a translated statement. The eruption threw large lumps of rock into the air, and shot a jet of gas and ash over 160 feet (50 meters) almost vertically above the water's surface.

Related: Scientists discover ancient, underwater volcano is still active — and covered in up to a million giant eggs

Since the volcano started erupting, "volcanic ash and rocks have piled up to form the new island, which is now also visible from space," a statement from the ESA said. The latest image was captured with the Landsat 9 satellite on Nov. 3. It shows Iwo Jima — which sits around 750 miles (1,200 km) south of Tokyo — before and after the latest eruption.

A close up of the new island that formed after a volcanic eruption.

Along with the new island, the volcano also produced a sea of floating pumice — an extremely porous type of rock that forms during explosive eruptions. New analysis of this pumice found its chemical composition differed from that of ejecta from other volcanoes in this chain, according to a different translated statement. The pumice likely came from an eruption along the back-arc rift zone — the area behind a volcanic arc, the statement noted.

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The latest eruption is in almost the exact same spot as one that took place in July 2022, suggesting magma activity is resuming at Iwo Jima. The eruption has now subsided, Yuji Usui, an analyst with the Japan Meteorological Agency, told the AP.

The new island was approximately 330 feet (100 m) wide and up to 66 feet (20 m) high, but it appears to be shrinking as the waves erode the "crumbly" rock, Usui said. Whether the new island will survive is unclear and depends on what it is made of: If it is lava, it could remain for longer. "We just have to see the development," he told the AP.

A volcanic eruption gave birth to a new island, and a NASA satellite saw it from space (photo)

Robert Lea
Fri, November 10, 2023 

A split-screen image of an island formed from a volcano eruption.

A NASA satellite has spotted a newly formed island off the coast of Japan that experienced a fiery birth at the end of October.

The joint NASA/U.S. Geological Survey satellite Landsat-9 saw the island rise from the sea off the coast of Iwo Jima island, part of the Volcano Islands archipelago in south Japan, on Nov. 3.

The island was born 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) south of Tokyo between 12:20 and 12:35 local time on Oct. 30 when blisteringly hot magma fell into the ocean and exploded, creating chunks of rock several feet long more than 160 feet (50 meters) into the air, according to the University of Tokyo.

"According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the eruption appears to have started on October 21, 2023," University of Tokyo researchers wrote. "The location of this eruption is almost the same as the 2022 eruption location and is thought to indicate the resumption of magma activity on Iwo Jima."

The underwater eruptions broke the ocean's surface at two locations in the form of explosions at the southern tip of Iwo Jima, and rocks gathered to the north of these explosions. This growing rubble pile eventually formed a 330-foot (100-meter) wide island, around half a mile (1 kilometer) from Iwo Jima, sat in discolored water littered with very porous rock called pumice.

An extremely light rock, pumice is created when lava with a very high content of water and gases is discharged from a volcano. As gas bubbles escape this lava, it becomes "frothy," cooling and hardening into a bubble-filled rock.

Landsat-9 saw the island from its position 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth on Nov. 3, and this image was compared to observations of the region collected by the same satellite on Oct. 18 in which the island was not present.

The birth of the island was witnessed by a craft much closer to home when an aircraft owned by Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, was the initial stages of an underwater eruption in the southern part of the Izu-Ogasawara arc — an oceanic trench in the western Pacific Ocean.

The site of the new island has been a hotbed of underwater eruptions of steam and lava over recent years, University of Toyko researchers said, adding that this is one of the fastest-rising caldera volcanoes — a large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses — in the world.

Watch: New island appears off Japan coast – but it might not last long
Danielle Demetriou
Fri, November 10, 2023 

Earth and sand are sent into the air above a new islet off the coast of Iwoto island in Ogasawara, Tokyo, Japan - The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images


A small new island has appeared unexpectedly off the coast of Japan following the eruption of an undersea volcano, although experts warn it may be washed away before long.

The land mass emerged from the Pacific Ocean after the volcano began a series of underwater eruptions late last month near the Ogasawara island chain.

It sits around 745 miles south of Tokyo and half a mile off Iwo Jima.

Eruptions led to volcanic ash and rocks accumulating on a shallow seabed and within 10 days, the tip of the unnamed island eventually emerged above the water.

The newly formed land mass then continued to grow, expanding to dimensions of around 330 feet in diameter, with a highest point of some 66 feet above sea level, by early November.

But volcanic activity at the site has since subsided and the island has now begun to shrink because its “crumbly” formation is easily washed away by waves, according to Yuji Usui, an analyst in the Japan Meteorological Agency’s volcanic division.

“We just have to see the development,” he said. “But the island may not last very long.”

The new landmass has risen from waters about half a mile off the coast of Iwoto – a volcanic island previously known as Iwo Jima, which was the scene of intense fighting during the Second World War.

In this aerial photo, plume billows out from the water off the Ioto island, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan - Kyodo News via AP

Fukashi Maeno, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute, discussed the creation of the island after flying over the site late last month.

Magma and seawater reportedly interacted to cause plumes of smoke to rise as high as 160 feet into the air every few minutes during eruptions, with large rocks also spewed from the waters, Mr Maeno told local media.

The intensity of the eruptions also caused the seawater to change colour, while pumice stones were spotted floating around the new island, he added.

The emergence of a new island is the latest in a long history of intense volcanic activity for Japan, one of the most seismically sensitive countries in the world, with more than 100 active volcanoes.

Undersea volcanoes and seismic activities have formed new islands in the past.

In 2013, an eruption at Nishinoshima in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo led to the formation of a new island, which kept growing during a decade long eruption of the volcano.

Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Japanese archipelago spans the convergence of several major tectonic plates, resulting in centuries of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Experts are currently monitoring the region surrounding the new island to determine whether it will become a permanent fixture on Japan’s map or disappear.

The new island could survive longer if it is made of lava, or something more durable than volcanic rocks such as pumice.

An official at the Japan Meteorological Agency told local media: “If only a cinder eruption, as it is now, it will be eroded by waves and is unlikely to remain for a long time, but if it turns into an eruption with lava, it may remain for quite a while.”

New island forms in Japan after undersea volcano erupts but experts warn it may not last long

Joanna Adhem
Fri, November 10, 2023

In a remarkable event that unfolded three weeks ago, the eruption of an undersea volcano off the southern coast of Iwo Jima has created a new island.

Despite the awe-inspiring nature of this phenomenon, experts caution that the newfound landmass may not last long.

The unnamed undersea volcano, located roughly 1 kilometre off the coast of Iwo Jima - known as Ioto in Japan - and 1,200 kilometres south of Tokyo, erupted on October 21.

In just 10 days, volcanic ash and rocks built up on the shallow seabed, forming an island that emerged from below the water's surface.

By early November it was approximately 100 meters in diameter and had reached a height of 20 meters above sea level, according to Yuji Usui from the Japan Meteorological Agency's volcanic division.

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How long do experts think the island will last?

Two similar undersea eruptions have been documented in recent years, but the emergence of a distinct landmass is a rare occurrence.

The fragile nature of its composition, described as "crumbly" by Usui, makes it susceptible to erosion by ocean waves. Ongoing analysis by experts includes an examination of the deposits to determine exactly what it is made of.

It is still possible that the island could survive for a more extended period if it is composed of more durable materials such as lava, as opposed to the easily weathered volcanic rocks like pumice.

Japan has 111 of the roughly 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. It sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire” - a 40,000-kilometre-long chain of volcanos and seismically active sites which is home to much of the world’s volcanic and earthquake activity.

Watch the video above to learn more about Japan's newest volcanic island.

Volcano creates a new island off Japan, but it may not last

The Associated Press
Fri, November 10, 2023 



TOKYO (AP) — An undersea volcano erupted off Japan three weeks ago, providing a rare view of the birth of a tiny new island, but experts say it may not last very long.

The unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21.

Within 10 days, volcanic ash and rocks piled up on the shallow seabed, its tip rising above the sea surface. By early November, it became a new island about 100 meters (328 feet) in diameter and as high as 20 meters (66 feet) above the sea, according to Yuji Usui, an analyst in the Japan Meteorological Agency’s volcanic division.

This aerial photo shows steam billowing from the waters off Iwoto Island, Ogasawara town in the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo, on Oct. 30, 2023. A new island, 100 meters in diameter, formed by erupted rock, is seen near the steam, according to Kyodo News. (Kyodo News via AP)More


In this photo provided by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, steam billows from the waters off Ioto island, Ogasawara town in the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo, on Nov. 1, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force via AP)More


In this aerial photo, plume billows from the water off the Ioto island, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 30, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Kyodo News via AP)More


In this aerial photo, plume billows out from the water off the Ioto island, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 30, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Kyodo News via AP)More


In this aerial photo, plume billows from the water off the Ioto island, seen rear, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 30, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Kyodo News via AP)More


This aerial photo shows steam billowing from the waters off Iwoto Island, Ogasawara town in the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo, on Oct. 30, 2023. A new island, 100 meters in diameter, formed by erupted rock, is seen near the steam, according to Kyodo News. (Kyodo News via AP)More


This aerial photo shows steam billowing from the waters off Iwoto Island, Ogasawara town in the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo, on Oct. 30, 2023. A new island, 100 meters in diameter, formed by erupted rock, is seen near the steam, according to Kyodo News. (Kyodo News via AP)More


In this aerial photo, smoke billows from the water off the Ioto island, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan on Oct. 30, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Kyodo News via AP)More


In this aerial photo, plume billows from the water off the Ioto island, following an eruption in Ogasawara, southern Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 30, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about 1 kilometer (half a mile) off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. (Kyodo News via AP)More

Volcanic activity has increased near Iwo Jima and similar undersea eruptions have occurred in recent years, but the formation of a new island is a significant development, Usui said.

Volcanic activity at the site has since subsided, and the newly formed island has somewhat shrunk because its “crumbly” formation is easily washed away by waves, Usui said.

He said experts are still analyzing the development, including details of the deposits. The new island could survive longer if it is made of lava or something more durable than volcanic rocks such as pumice.

“We just have to see the development,” he said. “But the island may not last very long.”

Undersea volcanoes and seismic activities have formed new islands in the past.

In 2013, an eruption at Nishinoshima in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo led to the formation of a new island, which kept growing during a decadelong eruption of the volcano.

Also in 2013, a small island surfaced from the seabed after a massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan. In 2015, a new island was formed as a result of a monthlong eruption of a submarine volcano off the coast of Tonga.

Of about 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, 111 are in Japan, which sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Iwo Jima was the site of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, and the photograph taken by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal of a flag-raising atop the island’s Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, came to symbolize the Pacific War and the valor of the U.S. Marines.

World’s newest island forms off the coast of Japan thanks to undersea volcano

Rebecca Olds
Fri, November 10, 2023

In this photo provided by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, steam billows from the waters off Ioto island, Ogasawara town in the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo, on Nov. 1, 2023. An unnamed undersea volcano, located about half a mile off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, which Japan calls Ioto, started its latest series of eruptions on Oct. 21. 

| Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force 


A new island formed a week ago off the coast of the Japanese island Iwo Jima thanks to the work of an undersea volcano.

The unnamed volcano first began erupting on Oct. 21 and has spewed enough volcanic ash and rocks to start the formation of a new island, reported The Associated Press. The island is about 328 feet across and 66 feet above sea level.

One expert, Yuji Usui from the Japan Meteorological Agency’s volcanic division, told the AP that the island’s “crumbly” formation could be washed away by waves.

“We just have to see the development,” Usui said. “But the island may not last very long.”

For now, the volcano continues to eject a mixture of large gray particles and magma. No injuries have been reported from the event, reported The New York Times.
How can islands be created?

Islands can be created in a variety of ways, but the new island off the coast of Japan is attributed to the build-up of enough material from the underwater volcano that the pile has reached the surface, per The Associated Press.
Did Japan find 7,000 new islands?

The new island adds to the thousands discovered earlier this year in the region.

The Guardian reported that it was previously thought that the Japanese archipelago had around 6,000 smaller islands with four main ones. Then, digital mapping discovered that there were actually more than twice that many.

More than 7,000 new islands were discovered in early 2023.

Japan recounts its number of islands, discovering more than 7,000

How many islands make up Japan in 2023?

With the discovery earlier this year, Japanese geographers believe there are a total of 14,152 islands in the region.

And it’s possible that more, smaller islands will continue to pop up since the area is part of the “Ring of Fire” region, known for volcanoes, per The Associated Press. Currently, 111 out of the world’s 1,500 active volcanos are in Japan.
What type of volcano is found on the islands of Japan?

The main type of volcano found in Japan is the stratovolcano, or composite volcano, per the National Parks of Japan. These volcanoes are created by layer after layer of ash and rock, especially pumice. There are also cinder cones and lava dome volcanoes in the country.
Are there any active volcanoes in Japan?

Most of the volcanos in Japan are considered “active” because they’ve erupted in the past 10,000 years, including the most famous Mount Fuji volcano, which hasn’t erupted since 1707, per the National Parks of Japan.

Sakurajima is considered the most active in the country because it experiences small eruptions almost daily, per the travel website Japan Guide.

Related
What’s going on with Italy’s supervolcano?

‘Be prepared for all outcomes’: Inside the saga of a supervolcano that’s waking up

Barbie Nadeau, CNN
Fri, November 10, 2023 

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

Forget Italy’s most famous active volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompei in 79 AD.

The most dangerous volcanic threat in Italy right now is one you’ve probably never heard of: Campi Flegrei, or the Phlegraean Fields.

This unassuming plain, which stretches 200 kilometers (125 miles) under the bay of Naples and the islands of Capri and Ischia to the outskirts of the city of Naples, is a giant caldera, or depression, left by a supervolcano some 2 million years ago.

Campi Flegrei, a large dormant volcano near Naples, has a history of eruptions, and the last one was in 1538. Recently, increased seismic activity and rising land levels have raised concerns among local residents. 

- Jesse Allen/Robert Simmon/NASA

It is now the site of multiple volcanoes that have been active for 39,000 years, many of which lie underwater. It’s also populated with villas, small villages and shopping malls and home to 800,000 people and a hospital under construction. More than 500,000 of the locals live in what Italy’s civil protection agency has deemed a “red zone,” an area encompassing 18 towns that’s at highest risk in the event of an eruption. An additional 3 million residents of Naples live immediately outside the eastern edge of the caldera, according to the civil protection agency.

The last major eruption of Campi Flegrei was in 1538, and it created a new mountain in the bay. Seismic activity in the area has been intensifying since December of 2022, according to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), and experts fear that the volcano could be reawakening after generations at rest.

The densely populated region, which is less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Vesuvius, is prone to a seismic phenomenon known as bradyseism, defined by cycles of uplift and gradual lowering of the ground. The last time the region saw such activity was 1984, when the ground rose 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) before it began a slow descent accompanied by seismic activity similar to what is happening in the area now.

Currently in a state of positive bradyseism, when the ground moves upward, the entire volcanic zone is also experiencing a surge in earthquakes that has rattled nerves and sent residents seeking safety out into the streets. In September, the strongest earthquake in 40 years struck the region, and that 4.2 magnitude quake was followed by one of a similar strength just days later.

So far in 2023 Campi Flegrei has recorded more than 3,450 earthquakes, 1,118 of which occurred in August alone. This is more than triple the previous year’s total, according to INGV’s data. More than 500 earthquakes occurred in October, the strongest of which hit 4.0 magnitude, followed by a dozen aftershocks.

Until the beginning of May, the quakes were almost all under 3.0 magnitude, according to INGV.

Many experts think the local population should be better prepared to cope with the seismic activity and the possibility of an eruption. On October 5, the country’s civil protection agency laid out an updated evacuation plan, which calls for the movement of half a million people over a 72-hour period of time on roads many locals fear won’t accommodate such intense traffic. The last time a such a plan had been studied was in 2019, and the findings showed the evacuation plan was lacking.

Carlo Doglioni, head of the INGV, gave testimony on the potential outcomes of the seismic activity before the Italian government’s Environmental Commission’s lower chamber on September 28.

“There are two possible scenarios relating to the evolution of the situation in the Campi Flegrei: the best is that the ongoing bradyseism crisis ends as happened in 1983 to 84; the worst is an eruption similar to that of 1538,” he said.

“It is an evolution that we do not know and that we are monitoring,” Doglioni said.
What’s behind the increase in activity

Dr. Giuseppe De Natale, a research director at the INGV in Naples, said the current cycle of uplift is associated with pressure below the surface of the caldera. “We don’t know exactly the depth of the increase of pressure, it could be between zero and 3.5 kilometers,” he said.

There are two hypotheses as to what could be causing the current increase in seismic activity at Campi Flegrei, according to De Natale.

The first — and potentially most dangerous — possibility is that it could be an “intrusion of magma coming from the magma chamber located about 8 kilometers deep,” De Natale said.

The second, which he said is more likely, is that there is a large “degassing” of gases created by the magma coming from the deep magma chamber. The degassing at the same depth as the magma chamber is what he believes has caused the ground to rumble.

“The problem is the rocks,” De Natale said. “The shallow rocks cannot hold high levels of pressure, so if the pressure increases too much, there could happen complete fracturing of the rocks, which is generally the cause of the eruption of a volcano.”

Fumaroles, or vents, emit volcanic gases in the Pisciarelli area of Campi Flegrei on October 23, 2023. - Ivan Romano/Getty Images

Dr. Benedetto De Vivo, a retired professor of geochemistry at the University of Naples and an expert on bradyseism, agrees that the crater is degassing, and doesn’t think that the rising land is due to magma alone. These gases, he believes, are caused by the magma below the caldera receding, not rising. But he said it is impossible to know exactly what is happening.

“We can use statistics to create models, but we cannot predict the natural process because we do not know all of the variables in play,” De Vivo said.

In spite of objections by the local residents that drilling could trigger more seismic activity, De Natale won approval in 2009 to lead a team of volcano experts from 18 countries in 2012 on a mission to drill a pilot hole 501 meters (1,644 feet) deep into the caldera in an attempt to see exactly what was going on. However, Rosa Russo Iervolino, who was mayor of Naples at the time, halted the drilling project before it began, citing concerns for the population. In 2012, after she left office, the project was briefly reinstated by the new mayor, Luigi di Magistris, but by then funding had dried up and only the borehole was drilled.

De Natale said there is no plan to resume drilling and the current city government told CNN that there are areas “of greater concern” from a budgetary standpoint when it comes to city projects, including developing better evacuation plans for both Mt. Vesuvius and the Campi Flegrei area.

Planning around a natural enigma

Supervolcanoes are among the most perplexing and least understood natural threats in the world.

What distinguishes a supervolcano from an ordinary volcano is the amount of volcanic material it has ejected during past eruptions — a reflection of the volcano’s explosive power.

A supervolcano is one that has ejected more than 240 cubic miles of material and reached a level 8 — the highest threat — on the Volcano Explosivity Index or VEI, according to the US Geological Survey. The VEI index measures how much debris is ejected, at what height, and for how long the eruption lasts. Yellowstone, which erupted 2.1 million years ago, was one of the largest ever known eruptions. The most recent eruptions of other notable supervolcanoes, including Long Valley in California, Toba in Indonesia, and Campi Flegrei, were all around the same size.

Scientists have a 2,000-year record of activity on Campi Flegrei. Pillars at the Roman Temple of Serapis in the city of Pozzuoli in the middle of the caldera, which were excavated in the 18th century, show evidence of holes made by molluscs, revealing the pillars were once underwater. The base of the temple is connected to the sea by a series of underground tunnels, and the rising and falling of the ground caused by bradyseism has resulted in the water flooding and then draining out of the structure, making it possible to observe the seismic phenomenon over time.

In 2016, the regional government designated the Campi Flegrei area “yellow” under its warning system, the second of four levels that move from green to red to indicate the danger to the population from the movement of the ground.

Italy’s civil protection agency said in October it would be moving some parts of the area to next level, orange, given the intensity of the recent activity. The INGV now has to sign off on the level change, which it is expected to do since it originally petitioned the civil protection agency for the move. Upping the level to orange will allow civil protection agencies to evacuate the area most vulnerable to the effects of bradyseism and the continuing earthquakes more easily and keep the most vulnerable populations safe, officials say.

During a meeting with the civil protection agency and government on November 7, the INGV also determined that 15,000 buildings, including 125 schools and other academic structures, are in the high-risk area. A directive will be released November 27 outlining a new protocol for evacuations, drills and potentially moving some institutions from the area temporarily until the current cycle of bradyseism subsides.
The likelihood of an eruption

Parts of the volcano could be weakening due to the effects of bradyseism, according to a paper published in the scientific journal Communications Earth & Environment in June. But the situation remains unpredictable, experts say.

“What we expect depends on whether the ground keeps rising. If it carries on moving at its current rate, we expect the number of small earthquakes per day will fluctuate over weeks from just a handful to the swarms of a few hundred events, as felt in mid-August and late September,” said study coauthor Christopher Kilburn, a professor of volcanology at University College London.

“Any larger magnitude earthquakes are most likely to occur during the swarms. These are the classic signals of crust being stretched to breaking point.”

However, this does not mean an eruption is inevitable.

“It’s the same for all volcanoes that have been quiet for generations,” said study coauthor Stefano Carlino, a volcanologist from the Vesuvius Observatory, in news release accompanying the paper.

“Campi Flegrei may settle into a new routine of gently rising and subsiding, as seen at similar volcanoes around the world, or simply return to rest,” Carlino said. “We can’t yet say for sure what will happen. The important point is to be prepared for all outcomes.”

The Solfatara crater, pictured here, is part of Campi Flegrei, which is a densely populated area. 

- Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket/Getty Images

A first step toward preparing should be avoiding population increase by prohibiting more construction in Campi Flegrei, which is one of the most developed areas in Italy, said Dr. Benedetto De Vivo, a retired professor of geochemistry at the University of Naples.

He also said there should be a better evacuation route with wider roads so that people who live in the densely populated area could evacuate within 24 hours. “We cannot construct even one more home in the area,” he said.

Italy’s volcano experts are wary about making specific predictions about volcanic eruptions for fear of being held accountable if they are wrong, according to the INGV.

Seven scientists were convicted of manslaughter for telling residents of L’Aquila in central Italy not to worry about an increase in seismic activity in 2009. An earthquake that struck a few days after one scientist had appeared to say it was OK to relax and have a glass of wine killed more than 300 people. The scientists were eventually acquitted on appeal, but the experience left the scientific community in Italy shaken.

One of the largest kinds of volcanic eruptions, called an “ignimbritic eruption” — such as the one that occurred in the Campi Flegrei area around 39,000 years ago — is not what Natale believes could happen any time soon.

“It is difficult to study these potential huge eruptions, very rare but very catastrophic, and this is one of the most important but also the most challenging areas of vulcanology,” Natale said.

He said the next Campi Flegrei eruption — if one were to occur in the near future — would most likely be more in line with the last significant activity in 1538, which created the 133-meter-tall (463-foot-tall) Monte Nuovo cone visible in the sea. However, due to population growth, the impacts of a similar event could look very different in present day.

“That (1538) was a very small eruption, that, if it would happen today, in a densely urbanized area, would be very destructive anyway,” Natale said.

Katie Hunt contributed to this story.

Stanford engineer's study show CO2 pipelines costlier, dirtier than wind and solar

Alan Guebert
Sat, November 11, 2023


“Mathematics,” once explained Edward Frenkel, a renowned mathematician and author, “directs the flow of the universe, lurks behind its shapes and curves, [and] holds the reins of everything from tiny atoms to the biggest stars.”

Another explanation notes that “Math is the only place where truth and beauty mean the same thing.”

That elegant, beautiful truth comes to mind when reading a just-published “case study” that compares the cost and net carbon dioxide (CO2) output of the planned 2,000-mile Summit CO2 pipeline to the wind- and solar-based electricity that could fuel “battery-electric vehicles,” or BEVs.

At its heart, the new study asks, what gives the better environmental and financial return — billions spent on a CO2 pipeline that encourages more ethanol use or investing the same amount on solar and wind generators to power BEVs?

The resulting math, presented by the study’s author, Mark Z. Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University, is detailed, compelling and irrefutable in its conclusion: Don’t spend another penny on Summit’s five-state, CO2 pipeline.

Jacobson's focus is on E85, the 85-percent-ethanol-to-gasoline blend now being pushed by farm groups as the way to maintain production of the corn-based fuel even as BEVs rise in popularity. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that 35% of the 2023/24 U.S. corn crop, or 5.3 billion bushels, will be used to make ethanol.)

The higher ethanol blend, however, doesn’t change the hard math underlying the colossal investment and environmental costs of CO2-generating ethanol plants, ethanol’s use or any of the three proposed CO2-carrying pipelines, Jacobson writes.

“This study concludes that investing in wind turbines to provide electricity to BEVs is far more beneficial in terms of consumer cost savings, CO2 emissions, land use, and air pollution than making the same investment in a plan to capture CO2 from ethanol refineries, pipe the CO2 to an underground storage facility, and use the ethanol to produce E85 for FFVs,” or flex fuel vehicles.

Moreover, Jacobson continues, quoting his revealing math, “The fuel savings alone,” an estimated “$66.9-$111 billion over 30 years”–“is 12-20 times the $5.6 billion investment in [the] Summit [pipeline] project.”

And just to drive home his rural bona fides, Jacobson offers a comparison of the costs to operate competing models of the ever-popular, four-wheel-drive, Ford F-150 — the eight-cylinder flex fuel version that costs “$48,290” — versus its electric twin that costs $21,705 more or “$69,995.”

“Even with this upfront cost difference … the net fuel cost saving to drivers over 30 years (of the electric F-150) is still … 7-12 times Summit’s investment [cost],” he notes.

Environmental costs between the two technologies — wind and solar versus ethanol — show even bigger differences because wind and solar electric generation are zero-carbon emitters and easily beat almost any blend of any fossil or bio-based fuel.

A key element of ethanol’s argument, however, is Big Ag’s insistence that it’s a “green” fuel that, at worst, is carbon neutral and, at best, is carbon negative. Still, no outside-of-ag scientist supports ag’s contention and neither does the Stanford engineer. His math shows more brown and no green.

“With respect to air pollution, tailpipe emissions from E85 vehicles may increase the level of ozone throughout most of the United States in comparison with tailpipe emissions from gasoline vehicles.”

“Moreover,” he adds, “the production, transport, and refining of corn to produce ethanol creates air pollution that may exceed the upstream pollution from gasoline.”

The engineer’s hammering math dives into other aspects of the bad bargain that is CO2 pipelines. For example, photosynthesis “is only 1% efficient” while solar panels are “20-23% efficient” and therefore need “only 1/20th of the land to produce the same energy as a biofuel crop.”

The clear bottom line to the Summit pipeline — and, really, any CO2 pipeline — Jacobson says, is as obvious as one-plus-one: Don’t bury CO2 pipelines; instead, bury their very idea. Fast.

Alan Guebert writes "Farm and Food"

Alan Guebert is an agricultural journalist. See past columns at farmandfoodfile.com. © 2023 ag comm

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Farm and Food: Don't bury just the CO2 pipelines; bury their very idea

SpaceX Workers Suffered 600 Unreported Injuries, Amputations

Chaya Tong
Sat, November 11, 2023 

Steve Nesius / Reuters

In his race to space, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has had at least 600 unreported workplace injuries since 2014, many that ended in serious injury and amputations, according to Reuters. Musk himself reportedly throws safety to the curb, discouraging workers from wearing yellow safety clothes and even having machinery that was painted in industrial safety yellow repainted as blue or black because he hates bright colors. Four employees said that Musk played with a flamethrower at SpaceX sites proving his disregard for safety. Records show that more than 100 workers got cuts or lacerations, 29 suffered broken bones, 17 had their hands or fingers crushed, nine received head injuries including a skull fracture, and another eight had amputations. SpaceX reportedly says that employees should be responsible for their own safety because the main goal is to reach Mars as fast as possible.

SpaceX chief told employees to 'focus on your job' for humanity's sake after they raised workplace complaints, report says

Marta Biino
Sat, November 11, 2023

SpaceX's COO told employees to "focus on your job" when they raised workplace concerns in 2022.


The COO's response followed an open letter that accused the company of dismissing employee concerns.


A Reuters investigation found that Elon Musk's company has had at least 600 worker injuries since 2014.

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell told employees in a 2022 email to "focus on your job and the mission of SpaceX — to get humanity to Mars as quickly as possible," after they raised workplace complaints in an open letter, Reuters reported.

Shotwell's email was in response to an open letter written by SpaceX employees that criticized the company's dismissive attitude toward employee concerns and inconsistent enforcement of discipline policies, per the report.

Nine employees were fired for raising complaints in the letter — and eight of those have since filed unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board.

One major area of concern for employees at the company is the company's safety procedures.

The Reuters investigation found that at least 600 SpaceX workers were injured since 2014 at its facilities across the US, noting that prior to 2021 and 2022, the workplaces often did not submit the required data.

The findings showed that SpaceX's average injury rates at three of the facilities far outpaced that of the wider space industry, which stood at 0.8 injuries per 100 workers in 2022, per the report. The Brownsville, Texas, site had an average injury rate of 4.8 injuries per 100 workers in 2022, Hawthorne, California, was at 1.8, and McGregor, Texas, was at 2.7.

According to the report, among the injuries were nine workers who suffered head injuries, including one traumatic brain injury, and 17 who had their hands or fingers "crushed."

Other issues at the SpaceX facilities were also detailed by current and former workers, including one former welder at the Brownsville site who told Reuters that workers took the stimulant Adderall without prescriptions and that some would sleep in bathrooms at the site.

Others said that employees who were tasked with welding rockets in tents worked in extreme temperatures of up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and were given IV treatments to continue working if they suffered from the heat.

Musk's seemingly relaxed attitude to safety was also apparent in his visits to the facilities, with four employees telling Reuters that Musk would sometimes play with a novelty flamethrower that can shoot a flame over five feet and that he preferred workers not to wear safety yellow due to his dislike of bright colors.

SpaceX's mission "to go to Mars as fast as possible and save humanity permeates every part of the company," Tom Moline, a former SpaceX engineer who was fired after he made workplace complaints, told Reuters.

"The company justifies casting aside anything that could stand in the way of accomplishing that goal, including worker safety," he said.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from Insider, which was made outside of regular working hours.

SpaceX workers face above-average injury rates as Musk prioritizes Mars over safety, report finds

A Reuters investigation found hundreds of previously unreported injuries.

Cheyenne MacDonald
·Weekend Editor
Sat, November 11, 2023 

Veronica Cardenas / reuters

A Reuters investigation into unsafe working conditions at SpaceX has uncovered more than 600 injuries going back to 2014 that have not been publicly reported until now. Current and former employees cited in the report blame CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive deadlines and hatred of bureaucracy, alleging his goal of getting humans to Mars “as fast as possible” has led the company to cut corners and eschew proper protocols.

Injury rates at some SpaceX facilities are much higher than the industry average of .8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers, Reuters found. At its Brownsville, Texas location, the 2022 injury rate was 4.8 per 100 workers. At the Hawthorne, California manufacturing facility, it was 1.8. In McGregor, Texas, where the company conducts rocket tests, the injury rate was 2.7.

Employees have suffered broken bones, lacerations, crushed fingers, burns, electric shocks and serious head wounds — including one that blinded Brownsville worker Florentino Rios in 2021 and another that left employee Francisco Cabada in a coma since January 2022. At SpaceX’s McGregor site, one worker, Lonnie LeBlanc, was killed in 2014 when wind knocked him off the trailer of an improperly loaded truck. Yet over the years, SpaceX has only paid meager fines as a result of its safety lapses. After LeBlanc’s death, the company settled with OSHA for $7,000, according to Reuters.

Reuters spoke to over two dozen current or former employees, as well as others “with knowledge of SpaceX safety practices.” One SpaceX ex-manager told Reuters that “workers take care of their safety themselves,” and others said employees were even told not to wear bright-colored safety gear because Musk does not like it. SpaceX has also repeatedly failed to submit injury data to regulators for much of its history, according to Reuters.

SpaceX workers reportedly took Adderall and IV fluids, and some slept in the bathroom, to keep up with Elon Musk's deadlines

Grace Kay
Updated Sat, November 11, 2023 

SpaceX workers reportedly put in over 80-hour workweeks in Elon Musk's race to colonize Mars.


A Reuters investigation looked at 600 work injuries at SpaceX from 2014 to now.


Musk has long been known for his "maniacal sense of urgency," his biographer said.

Some SpaceX workers resorted to taking Adderall to keep up with the pace of work at the company's launch facility, and others found themselves falling asleep in the bathroom during long workweeks, a recent Reuters investigation found.

Travis Carson, a former SpaceX worker at the company's facility in Brownsville, Texas, told Reuters some workers took Adderall — a stimulant designed to help people with ADHD improve their focus and concentration levels — without a prescription to keep up with the pace of work. Carson was a welder and later a production supervisor at SpaceX from 2019 to 2022, when he was terminated following an argument with his manager, the publication said.

Four current and former SpaceX workers at the location, including Carson, told the publication that employees would sometimes work over 80 hours a week and some would sleep at the facility to get more work done. Some employees would fall asleep in the bathrooms, the four current and former workers who spoke with Reuters said.

SpaceX welders like Carson, the report said, would also work in tent structures at the launch site, sometimes dealing with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit while welding rocket machinery. To address the heat issue, workers would receive IV treatments to continue working, Reuters reported.

Elon Musk's rocket company, which employs about 13,000 people, had at least 600 worker injuries over the course of nine years across its facilities, the publication reported. The number does not represent the full number of injuries at SpaceX because the company has not submitted reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for any of the years it has been in operation, Reuters said. The injury rate at the facilities for the years that were reported exceeded space-industry averages for the same years, the publication said.

Reuters launched an investigation into SpaceX workplace injuries.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In interviews with over 36 people, Reuters wrote that some current and former workers said the injuries pointed to Musk's breakneck pace for the company. The billionaire has long been pushing for SpaceX to build a rocket allowing humans to one day travel to Mars.

Tom Moline, an ex-SpaceX engineer, told Reuters that he was one of a handful of employees fired after they brought forth complaints about SpaceX's work environment.

Four current employees told Reuters Musk himself had even contributed to some of the safety concerns at SpaceX by toying with the company's flamethrower on-site, as well as through his aversion to bright colors that are sometimes used for safety reasons. Three ex-SpaceX supervisors told the publication Musk would have yellow machinery repainted to black or blue and some workers were told not to wear bright-yellow safety vests when the billionaire was on-site.

A spokesperson for SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment ahead of publication. But the company has responded to OSHA inquiries, saying it's not liable for the worker injuries as the company gives workers safety training, Reuters reported.

Responsible engineers "are ultimately responsible for all aspects of their components and systems," the company said in a response to one OSHA inquiry, according to Reuters.

Reuters' report came after some SpaceX employees wrote an open letter last year criticizing Musk's behavior as a "source of distraction and embarrassment."

Musk has been known to run his companies with high intensity, sometimes calling for work sprints and even sleeping on the factory floor at Tesla.

His biographer, Walter Isaacson, has said the billionaire has a "maniacal sense of urgency" that could frighten some of his workers — a characteristic that Isaacson said was effective 80% of the time and was "problematic" 20% of the time. Ultimately, the biographer said Musk believed empathy at the expense of the larger mission, like colonizing Mars, was a form of "egotism."

SpaceX workers suffered ‘amputations and crushed limbs’ in Musk’s rush to get to Mars

Matthew Field
Fri, November 10, 2023 

In 2022 SpaceX’s injury rate at its facility in Brownsville, Texas, was six times the industry average - VERONICA CARDENAS

SpaceX workers have suffered hundreds of injuries, including amputations and “crushed limbs”, in pursuit of Elon Musk’s goal of reaching Mars, an investigation into the company has claimed.

More than 600 workplace injuries have occurred at the rocket company since 2014, according to Reuters, as well as one previously unreported death.

The injuries included 100 “cuts or lacerations”, 29 broken bones or dislocations, 17 “crushed” hands or fingers, and eight accidents that led to amputations.

Former workers claimed Mr Musk’s obsession with reaching Mars came at the expense of workers’ safety training. The report cited more than a dozen current and former SpaceX workers who said there was insufficient training on dangerous equipment.

The accidents included the death of Lonnie LeBlanc, a SpaceX worker and former US marine, in 2014. He was killed when he hit his head on the road after falling from a truck at a SpaceX facility in Texas.

Another severe injury occurred when a part flew off a Raptor engine during testing in January 2022, leaving worker Francisco Cabada in a coma.

In 2016 a worker’s leg was crushed and later amputated while attempting to retrieve a Space rocket that had landed in the Pacific Ocean, according to legal filings.

Reuters obtained logs of accident reports filed by SpaceX with US health and safety regulators. Other incidents were uncovered in legal filings or emergency response records.

While the company is required to submit annual injury data to regulators for its facilities, it failed to update officials over multiple years between 2016 and 2021.

According to data filed with regulators, in 2022, SpaceX’s injury rate at its facility in Brownsville, Texas, was 4.8 injuries or illnesses per hundred workers – six times the industry average of 0.8.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets have been used extensively for Starlink and Nasa launches - SpaceX via Getty Images

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets have been used to launch hundreds of satellites for Mr Musk’s Starlink constellation, undertaken dozens of missions for Nasa and carried crew to the International Space Station.

The company is racing to develop a new superheavy rocket, Starship, which will carry humans to the Moon with a planned mission in 2025.

However, SpaceX’s latest launch test in April ended with the 400ft rocket spiralling out of control before exploding.

Tom Moline, a former SpaceX engineer who was fired from the company after raising complaints over the company’s culture, said the company’s mission to Mars to “save humanity” had left safety a secondary concern.

He said: “The company justifies casting aside anything that could stand in the way of accomplishing that goal, including worker safety.”

In filings with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, SpaceX said it provided staff with extensive safety training, while it also employed “responsible engineers” who had oversight of safety.

Regulators had fined SpaceX a total of just over $50,000 (£41,000) across the safety incidents, according to the report.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX Employees Suffer Broken Bones, Head Injuries Due to Company's Disregard of Safety, Report Claims

Passant Rabie
Fri, November 10, 2023

SpaceX is desperate to see its Starship rocket fly again for a second test flight.

SpaceX has undoubtedly cemented its position as a leader in the emerging space industry, but that may have come at a painful price. A shocking new investigation by Reuters documents 600 workplace injuries and one death at Elon Musk’s rocket company, highlighting a dangerous disregard for safety practices for the sake of SpaceX’s ambitious goals.

In its report, Reuters talked to more than a dozen current and former employees and reviewed medical and worker compensation records. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were “crushed,” and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury, according to Reuters. The reports also indicated five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, and seven eye injuries.

SpaceX is currently focused on launching its Starship megarocket for a second time after its debut flight didn’t go so well. Starship’s inaugural launch ended in a fiery explosion and the rocket has remained grounded ever since pending a safety review. Despite its botched first flight, Musk continued to push for a second test flight within two months of its April launch.

SpaceX is in a rush to launch Starship as it is under contract to use a modified version of its rocket to land humans on the Moon as part of NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions. From there, Musk’s ultimate vision for his company is to land humans on Mars and build a colony on the Red Planet. The SpaceX CEO recently claimed that an uncrewed Starship could land on Mars within the next three to four years.

Musk speaks of his ambitious Mars plans as a way to save humanity and sustain our species beyond Earth, hence the sense of urgency. As a result, Musk’s execution of his space ambitions have leaned towards an aggressive schedule and unrealistic expectations.

SpaceX, therefore, doesn’t waste its time on safety regulations and instead urges that its workers are responsible for protecting themselves, according to the Reuters report. The report cites an incident from 2014 in which a SpaceX employee by the name of Lonnie LeBlanc died at a SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas, while transporting foam insulation. LeBlanc had reportedly offered to sit on top of the insulation because there were no straps to hold down the cargo on the truck while on its way to the hangar.

Another incident took place in January 2022 when a part flew off during pressure testing of a Raptor V2 rocket engine, fracturing the skull of SpaceX employee Francisco Cabada, which resulted in him being in a coma. Employees familiar with the incident told Reuters that the part was discovered to have a flaw but it was not fixed before the testing.

“SpaceX’s idea of safety is: ‘We’ll let you decide what’s safe for you,’ which really means there was no accountability,” Travis Carson, a former Brownsville welder and production supervisor at SpaceX, told Reuters. “That’s a terrible approach to take in industrial environments.”

The Reuters report also highlighted Musk’s personal disregard to safety, with the CEO documented while waving around a flame thrower at the company’s site in Hawthorne and his request to paint over the safety yellow color of machinery to change it to black or blue due to his aversion to bright colors.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Gizmodo

Elon Musk told SpaceX workers not to wear safety clothes because he doesn't like bright colors: report


Natalie Musumeci,Grace Kay
Fri, November 10, 2023 

SpaceX workers told Reuters that Elon Musk discouraged employees from wearing yellow-colored safety clothes.


The employees said that Musk, the rocket company's founder, doesn't like bright colors.


An investigation by Reuters found that SpaceX has had at least 600 worker injuries since 2014.

SpaceX employees have accused Elon Musk, the rocket company's founder, of being fast and loose when it comes to safety measures.

Four SpaceX workers told Reuters that Musk discouraged employees from wearing yellow-colored clothes for safety purposes because he does not like bright colors.

The employees also told the news outlet that Musk would play around with a novelty flamethrower during visits that the billionaire made to SpaceX sites.

Three former SpaceX supervisors told Reuters that Musk would have machinery painted in industrial safety yellow repainted to black or blue because of he didn't like how it looked. The ex-supervisors also said that some workers were told not to wear yellow safety vests when Musk was on site.

The investigation by Reuters found that SpaceX has had at least 600 previously unreported worker injuries since 2014, including eight accidents that led to amputations.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Friday.

Reuters' report comes after some SpaceX employees wrote an open letter last year criticizing Musk's behavior as a "source of distraction and embarrassment."

Musk has been known to run his companies with a high level of intensity, sometimes calling for work sprints and even sleeping on the factory floor at Tesla.

Safety, not speed, should be the priority in launch mishap probes, FAA advisory group says

Elizabeth Howell
Fri, November 10, 2023 

SpaceX's latest Starship prototype is rimmed with frost during a fueling test on Oct. 24, 2023.


Safety, not speed, should be the priority when conducting launch mishap investigations, members of a U.S Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advisory committee say.

Amid reports of pressure from companies like SpaceX to add licensing staff to speed up approvals for new launches, FAA committee members instead urged caution Wednesday (Nov. 8) during a livestreamed meeting of the agency's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).

"We've got to put safety first," Polly Trottenberg, deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation, emphasized. Paraphrasing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, she said the FAA is often told "to move at exactly the speed of Silicon Valley. I know there's the 'move fast and break things' motto. I'm kind of the 'move fast and fix things' motto."


Still, Trottenberg acknowledged there can be a "conservatism" in the public sector, where "failure is swiftly punished" among politicians. She emphasized that safety cannot be compromised. But, she added, "we recognize that we need to find ways to ensure that, if we're not moving at the speed of industry, that we're moving faster where we can."

Related: FAA wraps up safety review of SpaceX's huge Starship rocket

COMSTAC was established in 1984 to report "on critical matters concerning the U.S. commercial space transportation industry" to the FAA administrator, according to the committee's documentation.

The membership includes not only senior executives from commercial space transportation, but also representatives from fields such as academia, the satellite industry, local and state government and companies that provide services such as insurance and legal matters.

As an advisory group to the FAA, COMSTAC plays no active role in evaluating "mishaps" that arise from failed commercial spaceflight launches. Committee members were also careful during Wednesday's meeting not to discuss ongoing investigations, including that of SpaceX. The company's debut Starship space launch in April saw the spacecraft spin out of control high over coastal Texas. SpaceX deliberately detonated the spacecraft, scattering debris over an environmentally sensitive area.

The FAA announced Oct. 31 that it had wrapped up the safety review of Starship, which examined the risks the launch poses to public health and safety. An environmental review with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still ongoing, however. Meanwhile, Starship has performed several static fires, and SpaceX has emphasized that the system could launch as soon as mid-November if the regulators approve.

SpaceX has had mixed feelings about the FAA approval process over the years. For example, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in 2021 on Twitter — now rebranded after Musk's 2022 takeover as X — that the FAA's space division has "a fundamentally broken regulatory structure," as the rules are based on "a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities."

However, on Sept. 8 of this year, in discussing the 2023 relicensing of Starship, Musk posted hat it is "rare" for the FAA "to cause significant delays in launch [as] overwhelmingly, the responsibility is ours." But, on Sept. 5, he noted that Starship was "ready to launch" and is only "awaiting FAA license approval." SpaceX senior officials also told Ars Technica in October, speaking on background, that they want the FAA to double agency licensing staff.

Related: SpaceX's giant Starship vehicle towers above turquoise waters in gorgeous photo

SpaceX's Starship explodes minutes after launch

The FAA leads the investigation of all mishaps that did not, or plausibly could not, result in "a fatality or serious injury to any person;" in cases where such injuries or deaths would be possible, responsibility is led by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Licensing for systems like Starship also can involve multiple government agencies or groups, as the ongoing environmental investigation shows.

Committee members acknowledged that there are more space systems than ever and that launch rates are accelerating. While companies would like the FAA to move faster, however, safety must remain the primary consideration, said the agency's Michael O'Donnell at the same meeting.

"It's really about applying the regulations reasonably so that you can innovate and you can do things differently," said O'Donnell, the FAA's deputy associate administrator for commercial space transportation. "One thing I've learned is the difference between aviation and space is the tolerance for mishaps. On the space side, it's a very different world."

He explained that the aviation industry tends to fly "very similar types of vehicle," while in spaceflight, there's customization: "every single vehicle is unique." The custom builds are part of what makes the licensing process so complex, he emphasized.

O'Donnell acknowledged, however, that the FAA's flat budget for spaceflight investigation needs to accommodate a burgeoning launch industry "an order of magnitude greater than it was five years ago." (To cite just one example, SpaceX has launched 80 orbital missions already in 2023, quadruple its 2018 rate.)

One solution may be for the companies to share safety data along with their "risk acceptance" for certain systems, ranked perhaps between low, medium and high. O'Donnell said this may allow industry and the FAA alike to "then make the determination what the severity is, the likelihood of it (a mishap) happening, and then working from that and trying to build consensus about what the severity is, what the likelihood is, and then work together."

Related: Do space tourists really understand the risk they're taking?

Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle suffered an anomaly during an uncrewed launch on Sept. 12, 2022. This screengrab shows New Shepard just before the vehicle's capsule successfully engaged its emergency escape system.

O'Donnell noted that the FAA and industry would need to agree on what constitutes "safety data," which has been a sticking point. Industry reticence to such sharing has been brought up repeatedly: given each vehicle is so unique, it is difficult to anonymize information, representatives heard at meetings of COMSTAC in October 2018 and again in May 2023.

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket launches a Capella Space satellite on Sept. 19, 2023. The rocket suffered an anomaly, resulting in the loss of the satellite.

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While SpaceX has been getting most of the attention from the media concerning mishaps, it's not the only one the agency addressed in 2023. The FAA closed five space mishap investigations this year — such as SpaceX's Starship, and a 2022 incident with an uncrewed Blue Origin New Shepard flight — and still has three that are open, O'Donnell said.

One example of an active investigation is that of Rocket Lab, which had a failure on Sept. 19 with its Electron rocket that caused the loss of a commercial Earth observation satellite. An electrical arc within a key power supply system was likely at fault, and the company hopes to fly in late November. (The mishap inquiry continues, but the FAA did tell Rocket Lab its launch license is still active, company representatives recently said.)