Seismic waves from earthquakes reveal changes in the Earth's outer core

by Suzanne Irby, Virginia Tech

The blue path illustrates a core-penetrating seismic wave moving through a region in the

 outer core, where the seismic speed has increased because a low-density flow has moved

 into the region. Credit: Ying Zhou

In May 1997, a large earthquake shook the Kermadec Islands region in the South Pacific Ocean. A little over 20 years later, in September 2018, a second big earthquake hit the same location, its waves of seismic energy emanating from the same region.

Though the earthquakes occurred two decades apart, because they occurred in the same region, they'd be expected to send seismic waves through the Earth's layers at the same speed, said Ying Zhou, a geoscientist with the Department of Geosciences in the Virginia Tech College of Science.

But in data recorded at four of more than 150 Global Seismographic Network stations that log seismic vibrations in real time, Zhou found an anomaly among the twin events: During the 2018 earthquake, a set of seismic waves known as SKS waves traveled about one second faster than their counterparts had in 1997.

According to Zhou, whose findings were recently published in Communications Earth & Environment, that one-second discrepancy in SKS wave travel time gives us an important and unprecedented glimpse of what's happening deeper in the Earth's interior, in its outer core.

What's inside counts

The outer core is sandwiched between the mantle, the thick layer of rock underneath the Earth's crust, and the inner core, the planet's deepest interior layer. It's composed mainly of liquid iron that undergoes convection, or fluid flow, as the Earth cools. This resulting swirling of liquid metal produces electrical currents responsible for generating the Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet and all life on it from harmful radiation and solar winds.

Without its magnetic field, the Earth could not sustain life, and without the moving flows of liquid metal in the outer core, the magnetic field wouldn't work. But scientific understanding of this dynamic is based on simulations, said Zhou, an associate professor. "We only know that in theory, if you have convection in the outer core, you'll be able to generate the magnetic field," she said.

Scientists also have only been able to speculate about the source of gradual changes in strength and direction of the magnetic field that have been observed, which likely involves changing flows in the outer core.

"If you look at the north geomagnetic pole, it's currently moving at a speed of about 50 kilometers [31 miles] per year," Zhou said. "It's moving away from Canada and toward Siberia. The magnetic field is not the same every day. It's changing. Since it's changing, we also speculate that convection in the outer core is changing with time, but there's no direct evidence. We've never seen it."

Blue lines are seismic rays in the outer core, where core-penetrating seismic waves moved

 through that region faster in 2018 than in 1997. Credit: Ying Zhou

Zhou set out to find that evidence. The changes happening in the outer core aren't dramatic, she said, but they're worth confirming and fundamentally understanding. In seismic waves and their changes in speed on a decade time scale, Zhou saw a means for "direct sampling" of the outer core. That's because the SKS waves she studied pass right through it.

"SKS" represents three phases of the wave: First it goes through the mantle as an S wave, or shear wave; then into the outer core as a compressional wave; then back out through the mantle as an S wave. How fast these waves travel depend in part on the density of the outer core that's in their path. If the density is lower in a region of the outer core as the wave penetrates it, the wave will travel faster, just as the anomalous SKS waves did in 2018.

"Something has changed along the path of that wave, so it can go faster now," Zhou said.

To Zhou, the difference in wave speed points to low-density regions forming in the outer core in the 20 years since the 1997 earthquake. That higher SKS wave speed during the 2018 earthquake can be attributed to the release of light elements such as hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen in the outer core during convection that takes place as the Earth cools, she said.

"The material that was there 20 years ago is no longer there," Zhou said. "This is new material, and it's lighter. These light elements will move upward and change the density in the region where they're located."

To Zhou, it's evidence that movement really is happening in the core, and it's changing over time, as scientists have theorized. "We're able to see it now," she said. "If we're able to see it from seismic waves, in the future, we could set up seismic stations and monitor that flow."

What's next

That's Zhou's next effort. Using a method of wave measurement known as interferometry, her team plans to analyze continuous seismic recordings from two seismic stations, one of which will serve as a "virtual" earthquake source, she said.

"We can use earthquakes, but the limitation of relying on earthquake data is that we can't really control the locations of the earthquakes," Zhou said. "But we can control the locations of seismic stations. We can put the stations anywhere we want them to be, with the wave path from one station to the other station going through the outer core. If we monitor that over time, then we can see how core-penetrating seismic waves between those two stations change. With that, we will be better able to see the movement of fluid in the outer core with time.Swarm satellites unveil magnetic waves that sweep the outermost part of Earth's outer core

More information: Ying Zhou, Transient variation in seismic wave speed points to fast fluid movement in the Earth's outer core, Communications Earth & Environment (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00432-7

Journal information: Nature Communications Earth & Environment 

Provided by Virginia Tech 

Hidden carbon layer may have sparked ancient bout of global warming

Rift between Greenland and Europe implicated in 56-million-year-old hothouse

23 JUN 2022
BY PAUL VOOSEN

The Vestmanna cliffs of the Faroe Islands were formed by rare, carbon-rich lavas during the rifting of Greenland 56 million years ago.

STEVE HUMPHREYS/ISTOCK

There is no perfect parallel in Earth’s past for present-day climate change—human-driven warming is simply happening too fast and furiously. The closest analog came 56 million years ago, when over the course of 3000 to 5000 years, greenhouse gases soared in the atmosphere, causing at least 5°C of warming and pushing tropical species to the poles.

The cause of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) has long been debated, with researchers invoking exotic mechanisms such as catastrophic releases of methane from the sea floor or even asteroid strikes. But over the past few years, evidence has mounted for a more prosaic culprit: carbon-spewing volcanoes that emerged underneath Greenland as it tore away from Europe. Now, researchers have found signs of an effect that would have supercharged the warming effect of the volcanoes, making them a stronger suspect. The underside of Greenland is thought to be encrusted with carbon-rich rocks, like barnacles on the keel of a ship. During the rifting, they might have liberated a gusher of carbon dioxide (CO2), says Thomas Gernon, a geologist at the University of Southampton and leader of the new study. “It’s a perfect storm of conditions.”

The PETM has long fascinated paleoclimatologists. “Since dinosaurs kicked the bucket, this is the biggest global warming event we have,” says Pincelli Hull, a paleoclimate scientist at Yale University. It can yield clues to how quickly Earth warms as greenhouse gas levels rise and how climate extremes alter ecosystems. But the comparison to today isn’t exact. Although the total release of carbon during the PETM exceeded the total of today’s known oil and gas reserves, it was slower than today’s surge of greenhouse gases and drove more gradual warming. Life had more time to adapt than it does today: Fossil records show trees migrated uphill and to higher latitudes, with animals following in their wake, even as tropical corals disappeared and ecosystems wholly changed.

Past explanations for the PETM centered on methane, a greenhouse gas even more powerful than CO2 although shorter lived. Samples of ancient plankton shells seemed to show the atmosphere during the brief hothouse was enriched in light carbon, the isotope favored by life. That suggested the carbon responsible for the warming surge originated in living things, as most methane does, rather than in the gases spewed by volcanoes, which rise from deep Earth.

At first, researchers thought a small amount of warming might have destabilized methane hydrates—seafloor deposits of methane trapped in cages of ice crystals—triggering a massive release of carbon. But the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico put a dent in that theory. Microbes simply chewed up the methane the broken well released into the ocean, suggesting seeps of seabed methane would rarely get all the way into the air. “Most modeling studies suggest you can’t release enough greenhouse gases just through hydrates,” says Sev Kender, a palaeoceanographer at the University of Exeter.

Mudrocks on the sea floor also contain carbon that originated in living things, and magma from submarine eruptions could have heated the rocks and liberated the carbon. But in 2017, researchers analyzed plankton fossils from an ocean core and found the carbon released during the PETM was heavier than previously thought. For some, that indicated the carbon wasn’t from living sources. “Given the current state of knowledge, it seems likely to be volcanism,” says Marcus Gutjahr, a geochemist at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, who led the 2017 study.

Greenland was rifting away from Europe at the time of the PETM as a mantle plume traveled under the island, priming the 180-kilometer-thick crust above to be pulled apart. Like all volcanism, the process would have released CO2. Gernon calculated, however, that the eruptions during the rifting would have only provided one-fifth of the more than 10,000 gigatons of carbon needed to explain the PETM warming. But he knew that over the eons, CO2 and other gases can bubble out of tectonic plates as they dive into the mantle, percolating up into the underside of thick crusts like Greenland’s, and forming carbonate formations that can be stable for millions or even billions of years.

If the crust is ever pulled apart by rifting, however, the trapped carbon can spill upward and erupt as rare carbonatite lava, which contains far more CO2 than standard lava. Indeed, such a process appears to be underway in East Africa right now, where a rift has begun to tear the horn of Africa away from the rest of the continent, says James Muirhead, a structural geologist at the University of Auckland. “At the very edge of the craton we get these carbonatite lavas,” he says. “And adjacent to the craton we get high CO2 fluxes.”

Similarly, the hot spot that burned through Greenland starting 60 million years ago could have mobilized any carbonate under its crust, Gernon says. When the rifting began to open up what today is the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, “you’ll have a huge amount of carbon venting.”

Evidence of the carbon-rich melt is abundant on either side of the North Atlantic rift, the tectonic division that marks the old boundary between Greenland and Europe, Gernon and his co-authors report in a study published today in Nature Geoscience. In an ocean core collected in 1981, they found volcanic tuffs indicating a sharp increase in volcanism during the PETM. They also combed the literature for studies of other rocks matching the core, and found reports in East Greenland and the Faroe Islands of anomalous lavas rich in magnesium, titanium oxide, and rare earth elements—signatures of melting of carbonate rock from deep in the crust. The lavas date roughly to 56.1 million years ago, and the investigators calculate that the rifting would have produced enough of them to explain nearly all of the needed carbon emissions.

Kender says Gernon makes a compelling case, but adds the timing is key. The PETM happened in a geological instant, lasting only several thousand years. Meanwhile, the volcanism has not been precisely dated. “Whether it was at the onset, in the middle, or later, we can’t say yet,” Kender says. Gernon’s team says more precise geochemical dating from the ocean core, still unpublished, supports the idea that the lavas they’re studying could be from the onset of the PETM. “I’m quietly confident the story works,” Gernon says.

O'Regan stops in Edmonton to tout talks with unions over federal green transition plans

Lisa Johnson - Yesterday 

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan.

Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan stopped in Edmonton Friday to tout his government’s work with unions in developing its plan to help transition energy workers to a green economy.

The Liberals have set aside a $2 billion Futures Fund to support fossil fuel-reliant provinces like Alberta, but the government is still in consultations on its Just Transition plan intended to support workers affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy.

O’Regan said it will be released “very soon” and he expects “significant” investments, with many coming from the corporate sector.

“That plan is going to be sweeping and doesn’t just involve what we refer to as Just Transition, which is about workers, but it’s also about energy transition — they are absolutely interlinked,” he said.

“The jobs that we’re creating in renewable energy need to be good jobs.”


Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said at the news conferences labour leaders have been telling government leaders there is a need for major infrastructure investments.

“Don’t just give us promises of training alone. Give us a plan, give us projects, give us jobs — we’ll do the rest,” said McGowan.

“We need a plan for economic transformation and the money and the political will to back it up. That doesn’t mean shutting down our oil and gas sector, but it does mean helping them pivot, and decarbonize so that they can remain competitive and viable for as long as possible,” he said.

Associate Finance Minister and Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault said the “evolution of energy” will require investments of between $100 billion to $125 billion per year until 2050 for it to be done.

“If we think $2 billion is going to get us to where we need to get, then we’ve got to have a reset of expectations,” he said, pointing to the federal government’s investment in Alberta of $1 billion towards orphan well cleanup, as well as the $15 billion Canada Growth Fund.

lijohnson@postmedia.com

twitter.com/reportrix

BC

Lower Mainland concrete workers' strike ends after 5 weeks

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New agreement includes 15 per cent wage increase over four years

Michelle Gomez · CBC News · Posted: Jun 24, 2022 12:06 PM PT | Last Updated: June 24

Striking workers, shown June 9 at Ocean Concrete in Vancouver, shut down operations at 12 facilities in the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver. (Ben Nelms/CBC

A deal was reached Thursday between the unions representing concrete workers and Rempel Bros. Concrete, ending a five-week-long strike in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. 

The strike, which shut down operations at 12 facilities operated by Rempel Bros. Concrete, Ocean Concrete and Allied Ready Mix on May 20, put concrete foundation projects weeks behind schedule.

The strike saw almost 300 employees off the job, and initially impacted more than 50 per cent of construction projects in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, according to a statement from the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 115. 

The workers are represented by both the Teamsters and the IUOE. They include concrete plant operators, concrete mixer truck drivers and others in their ranks.

Residential and industrial projects were affected, as well as public infrastructure projects such as the Pattullo Bridge replacement and the Broadway subway project. 

Workers were back on the job at 6 a.m. Friday, according to the union. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The union said major concerns in the dispute included long working hours, missed breaks, and wages. They said drivers were being asked to work 14-hour days without sufficient breaks. 

The parties worked with a mediator, former chair of the Labour Relations Board Jacquie De Aguayo, to reach the agreement. 

Josh Towsley, assistant business manager with IUOE Local 115, said while workers previously had to ask for breaks, workers will now be able to inform their employer when they are taking their break. 

"This crew has been working really hard for a long time and I think they felt a bit burnt out and a bit under appreciated," said Towsley.

The agreement also includes wage increases of 15 per cent over the next four years, he said. 

• B.C.'s construction industry continues to boom despite skilled labour shortage

The strike involved about 160 workers at the six Lower Mainland Rempel Bros. facilities. Since those employees also work at six other concrete sites operated by Ocean Concrete and Allied Ready Mix, 134 workers at those facilities respected picket lines and refused to work during the strike. 

"People are relieved that the supply of concrete is coming back online, there's no doubt ... our members are focused on getting back to work, getting the industry moving again," said Towsley. 

Workers were back working at 6 a.m. Friday, according to the union. 

Canadian Forces Base Edmonton celebrates Pride with first ever parade on a base

Anna Junker - Yesterday 
Edmonton Journal

Maj. John McDougall raises the Pride flag and then participates in a Pride walk at 3rd Canadian Division Support Base (3 CDSB) on Friday, June 24, 2022.

Members of Canadian Forces Base Edmonton and their families made history on Friday, marching in the first Pride parade to take place on a Canadian military base.

Acceptance and love were celebrated in an emotional ceremony, where the Pride flag was raised, followed by a parade of military members and their loved ones through the base, with military police vehicles, tanks and trucks decked out in Pride memorabilia.

Master Sailor Antoine Lavoie, co-chair of the Defense Team Pride Advisory Organization (DTPAO), said Friday was an important day, that showed the LGBTQ2S+ community is supported.

“Knowing that we can be here and there’s not this binary and we can be who we are and serve, that means the world,” said Lavoie.

Maj. John McDougall, champion for the DTPAO, said he has now been a part of “three firsts.” He marched in the first Pride parade in Toronto that allowed military members, and he raised the first Pride flag on the base in 2013.

“Today, I cannot define how I feel,” he said. “The support, the respect, the inclusion, everybody wanting to join this, we can put out policy, but we can’t make people be inclusive. And these people are here because they chose to be part of our family, part of our queer community.”

McDougall was arrested by the military police and RCMP in the early ’90s when it was still illegal to be gay in the military.

“I used to have to put on two uniforms. I’d put on my military uniform, and then I’d put on the ‘straight John’ uniform,” he said.

“Now I get to wear just one uniform, a uniform that says we’re inclusive, we’re welcoming, we want this to be a safe place for anybody that wants to be part of the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s a sigh of relief. My shoulders are lighter. It feels amazing.”

Col. Rob McBride, commander of the 3rd Canadian Division Support Group, said Friday was a historic day.

“I’ve been in the military now for 29 years, and I can say during that 29 years, we’ve come leaps and bounds ahead of where we were,” he said. “The inclusivity now, the strength that that inclusivity brings to the defence team is truly phenomenal.”

Lavoie added that it felt surreal he could march in a Pride parade on the base while in uniform.

Experts caution against becoming 'air-conditioned society' as heat waves get hotter



Hundreds of people who perished during the historic heat wave in British Columbia last summer died in homes ill-suited for temperatures that spiked into the high 30s and beyond for days,a report by B.C.'s coroners' service found this month.

It was hot outside, but inside it was often much hotter, with tragic consequences.

Of 619 deaths linked to the heat, 98 per cent happened indoors, the review from the coroners' service shows.

Just one per cent of victims had air conditioners that were on at the time.

But one year on, experts caution that residents and policymakers need to think beyond air conditioning as the predominant solution to the risks as climate change fuels heat waves that scientists say are becoming hotter and more frequent.

"What I worry is that we're talking about mechanical ventilation as this umbrella measure for all buildings, and that's hugely problematic if that's what we ultimately end up doing," said Adam Rysanek, assistant professor of environmental systems in the University of British Columbia's school of architecture.

"We're going to get totally accustomed to this air-conditioned society," with windows closed all year round, said Rysanek, director of the building decisions research group at the university.

Alternative answers can be found in how buildings and cities are designed, landscaped and even coloured, since lighter surfaces reflect more of the sun's energy, he said.

Two thirds of those who died during the extreme heat last summer were 70 or older, more than half lived alone and many were living with chronic diseases.

Ryansek said it's important to ensure such vulnerable people have access to air conditioningwhen temperatures become dangerously hot.

But many sources of overheating in buildings stem from design and performance, and focusing on air conditioning ignores proven solutions, he said.

City planners and the construction industry should adopt lighter coloured materials for buildings and even paved roadways, he said, in addition to adding shading to building exteriors.

"In the peak of the heat, a huge chunk of the cooling demand is coming from solar energy being received on the exterior of the building. Let's reflect that away."

Alex Boston, who served on the coroner's review panel, said "underlying vulnerabilities" to dangerous heat are growing in B.C., and across the country, as a result of demographic change and how homes and communities have been built.

The numbers of people over 65 and people who live alone are on the rise, and both of those characteristics compound risk during extreme heat, said Boston, executive director of the renewable cities program at Simon Fraser University.

"On top of that, it's solo seniors who have chronic illnesses, and then on top of that it's seniors who have some form of material or social deprivation," he said.

"That could be income, it could be the nature of their housing and the neighbourhood they live in that (could) have inadequate tree canopy. All of those factors come together and we have to work on many of them simultaneously."

Failing to ensure that buildings are surrounded by trees to provide shade and evaporative cooling would be "shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of the energy load and the cooling demand of a building in the future," said Ryansek, calling for "very robust" requirements for vegetation and landscaping to mitigate extreme heat.


Metro Vancouver is aiming to increase its urban tree canopy to 40 per cent by 2050, up from an average of 32 per cent across the region, although a 2019 report noted the existing canopy was declining due to urban development. The goal for the City of Vancouver, specifically, is to increase the canopy from 18 to 22 per cent.

Boston said there are significant co-benefits to many of the measures to improve heat resiliency, such as the restoration of urban tree canopies.

Trees and vegetation help reduce flood risk, he said, and neighbourhood parks serve as social hubs that can ease social isolation and foster a sense of community.

"We have complex problems, and if we only look at one isolated component, we don't maximize benefit from solving these problems in an integrated manner," Boston said.

For instance, Boston's organization is working on a project on Vancouver's north shore to consider how social service providers could help older single people manage secondary suites in their homes, an approach he said could ease housing unaffordability while mitigating risks stemming from living alone during extreme heat.

"We have to multi-solve," Boston said.

Meanwhile, a 2020 survey and report from B.C.'s hydro and power authority found residential air-conditioning use had more than tripled since 2001.

Many residents were adding an average of $200 to their summer bill by using air conditioning units inefficiently, with nearly a third of survey respondents setting the temperature below 19 C. Popular portable units use 10 times more energy than a central air-conditioning system or heat pump, the report said.

Globally, the International Energy Agency projected in 2018 that energy demand from air conditioning would triple by 2050.

Continuing on that path would make it difficult for governments to achieve greenhouse gas reduction targets to mitigate climate change, Rysanek said.

"If we exacerbate this problem … the building development costs are a drop in the bucket with regards to the climate impacts we're going to be facing," he said.

The B.C. government should incentivize non-mechanical cooling options to spur their adoption in homes and commercial buildings, he said, pointing to measures such as natural ventilation, ceiling fans and radiant cooling built into floors or ceilings, all of which would cool residents before turning on an air conditioner.

"We should be encouraging our policymakers to realize there's a big world out there of alternatives. We might not have the suppliers here yet in B.C., but it's a great opportunity for business," Rysanek said.

Companies all over the world have been deploying these cooling alternatives in Europe, in Asia and elsewhere, and "we should try to invite them here so that we learn about these things, as a public, as consumers," he said.

The coroner's report calls on B.C. to ensure the 2024 building code incorporates passive and active cooling requirements in new homes, along with cooling standards for renovating existing homes, and to make sure "climate change lenses" are adopted in regional growth strategies and official community plans.

It also recommends that the province consider how to issue cooling devices as medical equipment for those at greatest risk of dying during extreme heat.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth has said the government would consider the report and "take necessary steps to prevent heat-related deaths in the future."

It's difficult to predict how often B.C. might see a repeat of last summer's highest temperatures, but climate change is undoubtedly causing heat extremes to increase in frequency and magnitude, said Rachel White, an assistant professor in the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences at the University of B.C.

"When we have a normal heat wave in the future, it will be hotter than we've been used to," she said.

A heat dome refers to a region of high pressure that settles in place as temperatures below get hotter, White explained.

These regions sometimes become "quasi-stationary," depending on factors such as the strength of winds circulating high in the atmosphere, she said.

As the heat dome blanketed B.C. last year, its effects were amplified by soil that was already stricken by drought, lacking moisture that would evaporate and help cool the land during the long summer days with clear skies, she said.

Earth's "atmosphere is not in equilibrium," White warned, "and the longer we continue to put out these greenhouse gases, the more and more warming we're going to see."

"We need to act now if we don't want it to be dreadful in 40, 50 years' time."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2022.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

'She's perfect and she's beautiful': Frozen baby woolly mammoth discovered in Yukon gold fields

Michel Proulx - Yesterday 

© Government of Yukon

A well-preserved whole baby woolly mammoth was discovered at Treadstone Mine in the Yukon’s Eureka Creek, south of Dawson City, on Tuesday.

Aperfect storm of events has led to a once-in-a-lifetime discovery for a gold miner, a First Nation, a veteran paleontologist and a territory.

"I don't know how to process it all right now, to be honest with you. It's amazing," said Dr. Grant Zazula, the Yukon government's paleontologist.

A little after noon on June 21, National Indigenous People's Day, a young miner working in Yukon's Eureka Creek, south of Dawson City, was digging up muck using a front end loader when he struck something.

He stopped and called his boss who went to see him right away.

When he arrived, Treadstone Mining's Brian McCaughan put a stop to the operation on the spot.

Within half an hour, Zazula received a picture of the discovery.

According to Zazula, the miner had made the "most important discovery in paleontology in North America."

It was a whole baby woolly mammoth, only the second one ever found in the world, and the first in North America.

"She has a trunk. She has a tail. She has tiny little ears. She has the little prehensile end of the trunk where she could use it to grab grass," said Zazula.

"She's perfect and she's beautiful."

The paleontologist started studying the ice age in the Yukon in 1999.

"And this has been something that I've always dreamed of, to see one face to face. This week, that dream really came true."

For the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin, on whose land the baby woolly mammoth was found, the discovery was just as important and just as exciting.

"We're all quite excited including the elders and a lot of the staff and members," said Debbie Nagano, the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin government's director of heritage.
'She would have been lost in the storm'

National Indigenous People's Day is a statutory holiday in the Yukon so when Zazula received the email, he tried to contact anyone he could find in Dawson City that could help.



Two geologists, one with the Yukon Geological Survey and another with the University of Calgary, were able to drive to the creek and recover the baby woolly mammoth and do a complete geological description and sampling of the site.

"And the amazing thing is, within an hour of them being there to do the work, the sky opened up, it turned black, lightning started striking and rain started pouring in," said Zazula.

"So if she wasn't recovered at that time, she would have been lost in the storm."

The baby woolly mammoth, named Nun cho ga, which means "big baby animal" in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin's Hän language, is about 140 cm long, which is a little bit longer than the other baby woolly mammoth that was found in Siberia, Russia, in May 2007.

Zazula thinks Nun cho ga was probably about 30 to 35 days old when she died. Based on the geology of the site, Zazula believes she died between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago.

"So she died during the last ice age and found in permafrost," said Zazula.

He said that the geologists who recovered her saw a piece of the animal's intestine with grass on it.

"So that's telling us what she did the last moments of her life," said Zazula.

He said the mammoth was probably a few steps away from her mother, but ventured off a little bit, eating grass and drinking water and got stuck in the mud.

"And that event, from getting trapped in the mud to burial was very, very quick," he said.
Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in blessing

After Nun cho ga was recovered from the mining site, she was brought to a nearby location where a ceremony took place.

Led by Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in elders, about 15 or 16 people — Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in members, scientists, miners and politicians — gathered in a circle and prayed as Nun cho ga was revealed from the tarp in which she had been wrapped.

"It was very powerful," said Nagano, who added the elders blessed the baby woolly mammoth.

Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in elder Peggy Kormendy said it took her breath away when the tarp was removed.

"We must all treat it with respect. When that happens, it is going to be powerful and we will heal," she said.

"There will be one thing that stands out in a person's entire life and I can guarantee you this is my one thing," said Treadstone Mining's McCaughan.

University of Alberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell, who was not at the ceremony, said he's spellbound at how time can hold on to such poignant stories.

"It's a miracle of sorts preserved into the present, a scientific gold mine and simply a beautiful thing. For all paleontologists, this is amazing, but for those who work on such things it is breathtaking," he said.

Zazula remains overwhelmed by the finding.

"It's going to take days and weeks and months to sink in and it's going to take days and weeks and months working with Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in to decide what we do and learn from this."

Prehistoric Jet Black River Creature With Very Sharp Teeth Found in Florida

BY ROBYN WHITE ON 6/24/22 

A prehistoric jet black river creature with shark-like teeth has been caught in the Choctawhatchee River in Florida.

The melanistic longnose gar was found by the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute while biologists were on a routine long-term monitoring trip.

Photographs posted by the institute show the bizarre creature being held up to the camera. It appears to have black eyes and a long row of black teeth.

"What's black as tar, has armored scales and a mouth full of teeth? A melanistic longnose gar!" the institute said on Facebook." Melanism is an abnormal extent of dark coloration in the skin, scales, fur, or feathers of animals and is characterized by excessive deposits of melanin. It's relatively rare in animals and is not seen often by biologists."

The gar that was caught in Florida. It is completely black, with a long row of teeth.

FWC FISH AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

In comments to the Facebook post, the Institute said the gar was released back into the water after it was caught.

The longnose gar has swum through North American waters for over 100 million years. They are usually olive brown in color, making this one a rare exception.

Gars are known for being large fish. Longnose gar usually reach about 3 feet, however some species such as the alligator gar, can grow up to 8 feet long. They usually live in slow moving water, such as estuaries.

Often, the species are mistaken for logs, as they like to bask on the surface of the water. They usually feed on smaller fish.

Although rare, melanistic animals are occasionally spotted by fishermen.

In May, Texas anglers Justin Jordan and Terrell Maguire were out fishing on a marsh in southeast Texas when they came across a "very rare" melanistic alligator gar.

Jordan estimated it was about 5 feet long—however the species can reach enormous lengths.

Alligator gars are the biggest of the gar fish species. The fish only live in North and Central America and are known for their size.

Two gar species are found in Florida, including the longnose gar and the Florida gar. They are sometimes mistaken for smaller alligator gars, which are not as abundant in the state.

It's legal to catch and harvest gars, however it's strictly prohibited to catch the alligator gar, as it's an endangered species. Any that are caught have to be released back into the water, unless a permit is obtained.

Not much is known about melanistic gars, and how many live in North America's waters, as they are so rarely seen.

It's unclear how big the gar caught by the Institute was, however the biggest longnose ever caught in the state weighed 41 pounds.

A picture shows the gar being held by a biologist. The creature was a rare find.

FWC FISH AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

FOSSIL FISH=FRESH LAKE MONSTER

Huge 100-year-old Sturgeon Caught by Newbie Fishermen, Thrown Back in River

Jessica Thomson - Yesterday 

© Steve Ecklund / River Monster Adventures

The fishermen with the huge fish (left), and the fish jumping out of the water as they fought to reel it in (right).

A gargantuan white sturgeon that is over ten feet long and estimated to be at least 100-years-old has been caught by fishermen in British Columbia.

Novice fishermen Steve Ecklund and Mark Boise went on a fishing trip near Lillooet, B.C., with guides from River Monster Adventures, Nick McCabe and Tyler Speed, on Father's Day, when they caught the enormous fish.

The sturgeon put up a big fight: it took two hours to wrestle it into the boat, with videos showing the beast leaping out of the water, revealing its true size.

White sturgeon are the largest freshwater fish in North America, growing up to 14 ft long, and weighing up to 1,500 lbs. According to the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society, white sturgeons can also live for over 150 years.

This sturgeon had not been previously tagged, leading River Monster Adventures to suspect that this may have been the first time it had been caught, which considering its age, is surprising.

Ecklund said that the sturgeon measured 10 feet and one inch long, and had a girth of 57 inches.

"Our last fish of the day ends up being the largest sturgeon caught in the company's history!" he said in a Facebook post. "This beast would definitely push 700lbs and be north of 100 years old."

Commenting on the post, River Monster Adventures wrote: "We are lost for words what a true dinosaur."

The guides scoured the river using sonar equipment to help the fishermen find the biggest catch they could. Once caught and photographed, the behemoth fish was released back into the river, as has been the rule in British Columbia for the past 25 years. Violation of this law can result in hefty fines.

Despite being able to release up to three million eggs per spawn, sturgeons only spawn every few years, meaning that they cannot easily recover their populations in the face of threats.

Sturgeon populations are in decline in parts of British Columbia, and in other habitats within its range, like California. California has occasionally seen over five consecutive years of very low population growth from spawns. The population decline may be due to destruction of habitats important to spawning, and impacts of reduced food supply.

Poaching of the sturgeons is also a problem, as the eggs of sturgeons are in fact caviar, which can sell on the black market for between $100 and $150 per lb.

In 2003, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada classified all populations of white sturgeon in Canada "endangered," with the exception of the Lower Fraser river population, which is now instead considered threatened.

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Oceans saved us, now we can return the favour

AFP - 

© Luis ACOSTA On current trends, pollution and overfishing could 

see as much plastic in the oceans as fish by mid-century

Humanity must heal oceans made sick by climate change, pollution and overfishing in order to rescue marine life and save ourselves, experts warned ahead of a major UN conference opening Monday in Lisbon.

By absorbing -- decade after decade -- a quarter of CO2 pollution and more than 90 percent of excess heat from global warming, oceans have kept Earth's terrestrial surface liveable.

Our species has returned the favour by dumping mountains of plastic waste into the sea, emptying the deep blue of big fish, and poisoning coastlines with toxic chemicals and agricultural runoff that create dead zones bereft of oxygen.


© CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN

The new watchword is 'blue food' -- sustenance from the sea that is both sustainable and equitable

"At least one-third of wild fish stocks are overfished and less than 10 percent of the ocean is protected," Kathryn Matthews, chief scientist for US-based NGO Oceana, told AFP.

"Destructive and illegal fishing vessels operate with impunity in many coastal waters and on the high seas."

Nearly $35 billion in subsidies that aggravate overfishing will fall under a harsh spotlight in Lisbon, despite first steps towards a partial ban put in place by the World Trade Organization (WTO) last week.


© John SAEKI

Nearly 100 nations support a provision that would see 30 percent of the planet's land and ocean designated as protected areas

At the same time, ocean water made acidic by CO2 along with vast marine heatwaves lasting months or longer are killing coral reefs that support a quarter of marine life and provide livelihoods for a quarter of a billion people.

"We have only begun to understand the extent to which climate change is going to wreak havoc on ocean health," said Charlotte de Fontaubert, the World Bank's global lead for the blue economy.

- 'It's scary' -

Jointly hosted by Portugal and Kenya, the five-day UN Ocean Conference -- delayed from April 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic -- brings together thousands of government officials, businesses, scientists and NGOs in search of solutions.

Related video: OceanX Is Exploring And Protecting Our Oceans

While they do not all see eye-to-eye on what needs to be done, they largely agree on what is at stake.

"If we don't do the right thing, we might end up with a dead ocean," Rashid Sumaila, a fisheries expert and professor at the University of British Columbia, told AFP.

"Think about that -- Oh man, it's scary."

Pollution that could, on current trends, see as much plastic in the seas as fish by mid-century is also on the agenda, with proposals ranging from recycling to outright banning of plastic bags.

From East Asian factory ships prowling the high seas to artisanal fishing boats hugging tropical coastlines, how to make wild fisheries sustainable will be high on the Lisbon agenda.

The new watchword is "blue food" -- sustenance from the sea that is both sustainable and equitable.

"Wild ocean fish can provide a climate-friendly, micro-nutrient protein source that can feed one billion people a healthy seafood meal every day -- forever," said Matthews.

Also under the microscope is the booming aquaculture industry, where issues range from the destruction of precious mangrove forests to rampant antibiotic use.

- Year-end summits -

The conference may report trend lines for wild fisheries -- which peaked in the 1990s -- and seafood farming for the first time, with each producing about 100 million tons per year.

The Lisbon meet will see ministers and even a few heads of state, including French President Emmanuel Macron, but is not a formal negotiating session.

That won't stop participants, however, from pushing for a strong oceans agenda at two critical summits later this year: the COP27 UN climate talks in November, hosted by Egypt, followed by the long-delayed COP15 biodiversity negotiations, recently moved from China to Montreal.

Oceans are already at the heart of a draft biodiversity treaty tasked with halting what many scientists fear is the first "mass extinction" since a meteor wiped out terrestrial dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago.

A coalition of nearly 100 nations supports a cornerstone provision that would designate 30 percent of the planet's land and ocean as protected areas.

For climate change, not so much.

Despite global warming's dire impact and the key role oceans play in soaking up atmospheric CO2, the seven seas have barely rated a mention within ongoing UN climate talks until recently.

But science has made it clear they need each other: oceans will continue to suffer unless greenhouse gas concentrations stabilise, and the fight against global warming will be doomed if oceans lose their capacity to draw down CO2 and soak up heat.

mh/imm