MANCHESTER, England (AP) -Manchester City scored two goals in each half to cruise to a 4-0 win over Newcastle in the Premier League on Saturday and maintain its slim hopes of catching rival Manchester United for the title.
Carlos Tevez and David Silva both netted late in the first half to put City firmly in control and Vincent Kompany marked his return from an eight-game absence by netting the third in the 56th.
James Perch's own goal in the 69th capped the scoring for a dominant City, which strengthened its grip on second place but remained 15 points behind United with eight games to play.
Tevez slid in to turn Gael Clichy's cross at the far post in the 41st minute for his seventh goal in six games and 17th overall this season. Newcastle never had a chance to recover, as Clichy and Edin Dzeko both forced saves from Rob Elliott over the next few minutes before Yaya Toure and Samir Nasri combined to set Silva up for the second.
Kompany then scored his first goal for City in nearly a year, flicking home Gareth Barry's off-target shot to put the result beyond doubt. Kompany missed the previouse eight games with a calf injury, but played for Belgium during the international break.
The fourth came after Toure strode through Newcastle's defense and beat Elliot at his near post with a shot that deflected off Perch.
City will face United in a Manchester derby at Old Trafford next weekend, when it can further delay its rivals title celebrations.
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Pope Francis holds a San Lorenzo's soccer team jersey after celebrating his first Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans and bedecked by spring flowers.Wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis strode onto the esplanade in front of St. Peter's Basilica and took his place at an altar set up under a white canopy. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis holds a San Lorenzo's soccer team jersey after celebrating his first Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans and bedecked by spring flowers.Wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis strode onto the esplanade in front of St. Peter's Basilica and took his place at an altar set up under a white canopy. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis hugs a child after celebrating his first Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pope Francis celebrated his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff in St. Peter's Square, packed by joyous pilgrims, tourists and Romans and bedecked by spring flowers.Wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis strode onto the esplanade in front of St. Peter's Basilica and took his place at an altar set up under a white canopy. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Francis, holding the pastoral staff, celebrates the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. "Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness, and that is where death is," he said. "Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!" said Pope Francis during the Easter vigil. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Francis, holding the pastoral staff, walks past the closed icon of Jesus as he celebrates the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. "Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness, and that is where death is," he said. "Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!" said Pope Francis during the Easter vigil. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Francis, holding the pastoral staff, celebrates the Easter mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 31, 2013. "Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness, and that is where death is," he said. "Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!" said Pope Francis during the Easter vigil.(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Pope Francis delivered a plea for peace in his first Easter Sunday message to the world, decrying the seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula after celebrating Mass at an outdoor altar before more than 250,000 people in flower-bedecked St. Peter's Square.
Francis shared in his flock's exuberance as they celebrated Christianity's core belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead following crucifixion. After Mass, he stepped aboard an open-topped white popemobile for a cheerful spin through the joyous crowd, kissing babies and patting children on the head.
One admirer of both the pope and of the pope's favorite soccer team, Argentina's Saints of San Lorenzo, insisted that Francis take a team jersey he was waving at the pontiff. A delighted Francis obliged, briefly holding up the shirt, and the crowd roared in approval.
Francis has repeatedly put concern for the poor and suffering at the center of his messages, and he pursued his promotion of the causes of peace and social justice in the Easter speech he delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, the same vantage point above the square where he was introduced to the world as the first Latin American pope on March 13.
The Roman Catholic leader aimed his Easter greetings at "every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons." Francis prayed that Jesus would inspire people to "change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace."
As popes before him have, he urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks and end a conflict that "has lasted all too long." And, in reflecting on the two-year-old Syrian crisis, Francis asked, "How much suffering must there still be before a political solution" can be found?
The pope also expressed desire for a "spirit of reconciliation" on the Korean peninsula, where North Korea says it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea. He also decried warfare and terrorism in Africa, as well as what he called the 21st century's most extensive form of slavery: human trafficking.
The first pontiff to come from the Jesuits, an order with special concern for the poor, and the first pope to name himself after St. Francis, a medieval figure who renounced wealth to preach to the down-and-out, Francis lamented that the world is "still divided by greed looking for easy gain."
Earlier, wearing cream-colored vestments, Francis celebrated Mass on the esplanade in front of the basilica at an altar set up under a white canopy. He frequently bowed his head as if in silent reflection.
The sun competed with clouds in the sky Sunday, but the square was a riot of floral color in Rome, where chilly winter has postponed the blossoming of many flowers. Yellow forsythia and white lilies shone, along with bursts of lavender and pink, from potted azalea, rhododendron, wisteria and other plants.
Francis thanked florists from the Netherlands for donating the flowers. He also advised people to let love transform their lives, or as he put it, "let those desert places in our hearts bloom."
The Vatican had prepared a list of brief Easter greetings in 65 languages, but Francis didn't read them. The Vatican didn't say why not, but has said that the new pope, at least for now, feels at ease using Italian, the everyday language of the Holy See. Francis also has stressed his role as a pastor to his flock, and, as Bishop of Rome, Italian would be his language.
The pontiff improvised his parting words to the crowd. He repeated his Easter greeting to those "who have come from all over the world to this square at the heart of Christianity" as well as to those "linked by modern technology," a reference to TV and radio coverage as well as social media.
Francis added that he was especially remembering "the weakest and the neediest" and praying that all of humanity be guided along "the paths of justice, love and peace."
In another departure from Easter tradition, Francis won't be heading for some post-holiday relaxation at the Vatican's summer palace in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills southeast of Rome. That retreat is already occupied by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who went there in the last hours of his papacy on Feb. 28. Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign from the position, and eventually is to move back to the Vatican, after a convent there is readied for him.
Francis so far has declined to move into Benedict's former apartment in the Apostolic Palace, into the rooms whose studio overlooks St. Peter's Square. He is still in the Vatican hotel where earlier this month he was staying along with other cardinals participating in the secret conclave to choose Benedict's successor.
While Francis has just begun to make his mark on the church, it is plain he has little desire to embrace much of the pomp customarily associated with the office.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The death toll from the collapse of a building in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam has climbed to 17, a senior government official said on Saturday.
The building of more than 12 storeys, which had been under construction, collapsed on Friday morning near a mosque in the Kariakoo district around the city centre. Several cars were crushed by falling masonry.
Tanzania's buoyant economy has fuelled a building boom, especially in Kariakoo and the city centre. But the speed of construction has raised concerns about standards.
"I can confirm that so far 17 people have been killed and their bodies have already been recovered," Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Said Meck Sadick told Reuters.
State television carried the same figure after conflicting reports on Friday about the death toll.
"Eighteen people survived the collapse of the building, but the search for more survivors continues," Sadick said, adding that the rescue operation had run through the night and would continue until everyone was accounted for.
"There is still a lot of work to be done," he said. "There is a lot of rubble that still has to be removed."
Witnesses said they believed construction workers were inside the building when it collapsed, and up to four boys who had been playing soccer at the nearby mosque were missing.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who visited the scene on Friday, ordered authorities to take action against responsible parties. Police officials said four suspects had been arrested, including the building owner and contractor.
(Reporting by Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala; Editing by Edmund Blair and Andrew Roche)
A visitor looks at North Korean territory at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A visitor looks at North Korean territory at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors look at a giant relief map of Korean Peninsular at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors use binoculars to watch North Korean territory at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors take pictures North Korean territory at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A man uses binocular to watch North Korean territory at the unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 30, 2013. North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered "a state of war" with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea warned Seoul on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war" and threatened to shut down a border factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
Analysts say a full-scale conflict is extremely unlikely, noting that the Korean Peninsula has remained in a technical state of war for 60 years. But the North's continued threats toward Seoul and Washington, including a vow to launch a nuclear strike, have raised worries that a misjudgment between the sides could lead to a clash.
In Washington, the White House said Saturday that the United States is taking seriously the new threats by North Korea but also noted Pyongyang's history of "bellicose rhetoric."
North Korea's threats are seen as efforts to provoke the new government in Seoul, led by President Park Geun-hye, to change its policies toward Pyongyang, and to win diplomatic talks with Washington that could get it more aid. North Korea's moves are also seen as ways to build domestic unity as young leader Kim Jong Un strengthens his military credentials.
On Thursday, U.S. military officials revealed that two B-2 stealth bombers dropped dummy munitions on an uninhabited South Korean island as part of annual defense drills that Pyongyang sees as rehearsals for invasion. Hours later, Kim ordered his generals to put rockets on standby and threatened to strike American targets if provoked.
North Korea said in a statement Saturday that it would deal with South Korea according to "wartime regulations" and would retaliate against any provocations by the United States and South Korea without notice.
"Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war," said the statement, which was carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, referring to the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Provocations "will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war," the statement said.
Hours after the statement, Pyongyang threatened to shut down the jointly run Kaesong industrial park, expressing anger over media reports suggesting the complex remained open because it was a source of hard currency for the impoverished North.
"If the puppet group seeks to tarnish the image of the DPRK even a bit, while speaking of the zone whose operation has been barely maintained, we will shut down the zone without mercy," an identified spokesman for the North's office controlling Kaesong said in comments carried by KCNA.
South Korea's Unification Ministry responded by calling the North Korean threat "unhelpful" to the countries' already frayed relations and vowed to ensure the safety of hundreds of South Korean managers who cross the border to their jobs in Kaesong. It did not elaborate.
South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the country's military remains mindful of the possibility that increasing North Korean drills near the border could lead to an actual provocation.
"The series of North Korean threats ? announcing all-out war, scrapping the cease-fire agreement and the non-aggression agreement between the South and the North, cutting the military hotline, entering into combat posture No. 1 and entering a 'state of war' ? are unacceptable and harm the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula," Kim said.
"We are maintaining full military readiness in order to protect our people's lives and security," he told reporters Saturday.
In Washington, Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, noted the "reports of a new and unconstructive statement from North Korea."
"We take these threats seriously and remain in close contact with our South Korean allies," Hayden said. "But, we would also note that North Korea has a long history of bellicose rhetoric and threats, and today's announcement follows that familiar pattern."
The White House has stressed the U.S. government's capability and willingness to defend itself and its allies and interests in the region, if necessary.
"We remain fully prepared and capable of defending and protecting the United States and our allies," Hayden said.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Naval skirmishes in the disputed waters off the Korean coast have led to bloody battles several times over the years.
But on the streets of Seoul on Saturday, South Koreans said they were not worried about an attack from North Korea.
"From other countries' point of view, it may seem like an extremely urgent situation," said Kang Tae-hwan, a private tutor. "But South Koreans don't seem to be that nervous because we've heard these threats from the North before."
The Kaesong industrial park, which is run with North Korean labor and South Korean know-how, has been operating normally, despite Pyongyang shutting down a communications channel typically used to coordinate travel by South Korean workers to and from the park just across the border in North Korea. The rivals are now coordinating the travel indirectly, through an office at Kaesong that has outside lines to South Korea.
North Korea has previously made such threats about Kaesong without acting on them, and recent weeks have seen a torrent of bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang. North Korea is angry about the South Korea-U.S. military drills and new U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test last month.
Dozens of South Korean firms run factories in the border town of Kaesong. Using North Korea's cheap, efficient labor, the Kaesong complex produced $470 million worth of goods last year.
___
Associated Press White House reporter Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Back at Expand, the folks at Lenovo unveiled the ThinkPad T431s, a unit that embodies an overhaul of the outfit's iconic laptop. The latest issue of our weekly magazine goes inside the process of balancing customer preference, perception and tradition with forward-facing design in order to construct the final model. As far as reviews go, Ableton Push, Sonos Playbar and Dell Latitude 10 all get put through their respective paces to tally up some final grades on each. Moog occupies both Eyes-On and the Q&A, Hands-On speed tests T-Mobile's LTE network and IRL has three more items that we've used on the daily. All of that and much more is a download away on your go-to e-reading gadget.
A British archaeologist, back in Iraq for the first time since the 1980s, has unearthed a palace or temple near the ancient city of Ur that is 'breathtaking' in size.
By Jane Arraf,?Correspondent / March 27, 2013
British archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown palace or temple near the ancient city of Ur in the first foreign excavation at the site in southern Iraq since the 1930s.
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A small team of archaeologists working from satellite images hinting at a buried structure have uncovered the corner of a monumental complex with rows of rooms around a large courtyard, believed to be about 4,000 years old.
?The size is breathtaking,? says Jane Moon, a University of Manchester archaeologist who heads the expedition. Ms. Moon says the walls of the structure are almost nine feet thick, indicating that the building was of great importance or indicated great wealth.
The discovery is even more significant because of its location more than 10 miles from Ur, on what would then have been the banks of the Euphrates River ? the first major archaeological find that far from the city.
Ur, the last capital of the Sumerian empire, was invaded and collapsed in about 2000 BC before being rebuilt. The city was dedicated to the moon god and is famous for its ziggurat (a stepped temple). Many believe it is the birthplace of the prophet Abraham, known as the father of monotheistic religion.
Modern methods
The last major excavation at Ur was performed by a British-American team led by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley?in the 1920s and the 1930s. After the 1950s revolution, which toppled Iraq?s monarchy, a nearby military air base put the area off limits to foreign archaeologists for the next half century.
?What Wooley found were these tremendous monumental buildings, but it?s difficult to tell a coherent story about them because they were restored again and again and again, and what you see is neo-Babylonian, 7th century BC ? very much later,? says Moon. ?He wasn?t able to see what they were really used for and that?s where I?m hoping our modern methods might be able to say something.?
At Ur, Wooley also discovered a spectacular treasure trove that rivals King Tut?s tomb. At least 16 members of royalty were buried at Ur with elaborate gold jewelry, including a queen?s headdress made of gold leaves and studded with lapis lazuli. Other objects included a gold and lapis lyre, one of the first known musical instruments.
In the 1930s, the treasures were split between the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, which funded Wooley?s work, and the newly created Iraq museum.
Moon says it?s impossible to tell whether the new site might contain similar finds.
?Ultimately we?re not looking for objects we?re looking for information.? I guess it?s always a possibility. In archaeology you can always be surprised.??
A learning opportunity
She says modern methods, such as examining very thin slices of soil hardened with resin?under a microscope,?can shed light on details like whether there were carpets on the floor or whether a surface was used for cutting.?Putting samples of earth through a wet sieving machine can provide information about climate and agriculture by revealing bone fragments from rodents or lizards.
?You can really look at the ancient economy and that?s the kind of thing they couldn?t do when they last found big buildings like this,? says Moon, who last worked in Iraq in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, documenting archaeological sites in the north before they were submerged by Saddam Hussein?s dam-building projects.
Her team, which has struggled for both funding and visas, consists of six British archaeologists, an Iraqi?archaeologist, and two Iraqi trainees. It is funded mostly by a Swiss benefactor, with participation by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the successor to an organization founded in 1932 in honor of Gertrude Bell. ?Miss Bell,? as she is still known in Iraq, was the British administrator of Iraq after World War II and the founder of the Iraq Museum.
A law passed in 1932 bars archaeologists from removing antiquities from the country, but Moon believes making the knowledge about the antiquities available is as important as the objects themselves.?"There?s always been a sense of taking the intellectual property away,? she says, adding that all the information, including drawings, was being done electronically to make it easier to compile and to share.
?We want to make this as public as possible so we can give this information to anyone who wants it. We have no reason to hang on to it and we have the means to spread it around, so that?s what we?re doing,? she says.
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - An Iraqi war veteran who suffered permanent brain damage in a 2008 motor vehicle accident in Florida has won a $26 million jury verdict, his lawyer said on Thursday.
"He's got a huge hole in his right frontal and temporal lobes," said Alexander Clem of the law firm Morgan & Morgan in Orlando.
Dustin Brink, 31, hit his head on the asphalt pavement in Kissimmee, Florida, after his motorcycle was clipped by a car driven by Juan Pereles, said Clem. Pereles and his father, Juan de Los Santos, who owned the car, were named in a lawsuit filed in 2010.
Brink, who was not wearing a helmet, lost all brain functions such as the ability to plan, organize and sequence activities, and filter his thoughts, Clem said.
Clem said the jury, which delivered its verdict late on Wednesday, held Pereles and Brink each 50 percent responsible for the damages.
Pereles' attorney Michael LeRoy of the Fulmer, LeRoy, Albee, Baumann firm could not be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Kevin Gray)
Mar. 27, 2013 ? Scientists who famously discovered the lobe-finned fish fossil Tiktaalik roseae, a species with some of the clearest evidence of the evolutionary transition from fish to limbed animals, have described another new species of predatory fossil lobe-finned fish fish from the same time and place. By describing more Devonian species, they're gaining a greater understanding of the "fish-eat-fish world" that drove the evolution of limbed vertebrates.
"We call it a 'fish-eat-fish world,' an ecosystem where you really needed to escape predation," said Dr. Ted Daeschler, describing life in the Devonian period in what is now far-northern Canada.
This was the environment where the famous fossil fish species Tiktaalik roseaelived 375 million years ago. This lobe-finned fish, co-discovered by Daeschler, an associate professor at Drexel University in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science, and associate curator and vice president of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, and his colleagues Dr. Neil Shubin and Dr. Farish A. Jenkins, Jr., was first described in Nature in 2006.This species received scientific and popular acclaim for providing some of the clearest evidence of the evolutionary transition from lobe-finned fish to limbed animals, or tetrapods.
Daeschler and his colleagues from the Tiktaalik research, including Academy research associate Dr. Jason Downs, have now described another new lobe-finned fish species from the same time and place in the Canadian Arctic. They describe the new species, Holoptychius bergmanni, in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
"We're fleshing out our knowledge of the community of vertebrates that lived at this important location," said Downs, who was lead author of the paper. He said describing species from this important time and place will help the scientific community understand the transition from finned vertebrates to limbed vertebrates that occurred in this ecosystem.
"It was a tough world back there in the Devonian. There were a lot of big predatory fish with big teeth and heavy armor of interlocking scales on their bodies," said Daeschler.
Daeschler said Holoptychius and Tiktaalik were both large predatory fishes adapted to life in stream environments. The two species may have competed with one another for similar prey, although it is possible they specialized in slightly different niches; Tiktaalik's tetrapod-like skeletal features made it especially well suited to living in the shallowest waters.
The fossil specimens of Holoptychis bergmanni that researchers used to characterize this new species come from multiple individuals and include lower jaws with teeth, skull pieces including the skull roof and braincase, and parts of the shoulder girdles. The complete fish would have been 2 to 3 feet long when it was alive.
"The three-dimensional preservation of this material is spectacular," Daeschler said. "For something as old as this, we'll really be able to collect some good information about the anatomy of these animals."
The research on Holoptychius bergmanni was led by Downs, a former post-doctoral fellow working with Daeschler who also teaches at Swarthmore College. Other co-authors of the paper with Downs and Daeschler are Dr. Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago, and the late Dr. Farish Jenkins, Jr. of Harvard University, who passed away in 2012.
Honoring a Modern Arctic Explorer and Supporter of Science
The researchers named the new fossil fish species Holoptychius bergmanni in honor of the late Martin Bergmann, former director of the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP), Natural Resources Canada, the organization that provided logistical support during the team's Arctic research expeditions spanning more than a decade. Bergmann was killed in a plane crash in 2011 shortly after the team's most recent field season in Nunavut.
"We decided to choose Martin Bergmann to honor him, not ever having met him, but with the understanding that his work with PCSP made great strides in opening the Arctic to researchers," said Downs. "It's an invaluable project happening in the Canadian Arctic that's enabling this type of work to happen."
Bergmann's organization assisted the research team with many aspects of expedition logistics including difficult flight operations to carry supplies and research personnel to remote research sites on Ellesemere Island. Daeschler described the pilots as capable of landing a Twin Otter aircraft almost anywhere, as long as the ground was solid -- a condition they tested by briefly touching down the airplane and circling back to see if the tires left a deep mark in the mud.
Daeschler and colleagues intend to return to Ellesemere Island for another field expedition in the summer of 2013 to search for fossils in older rocks at a more northerly field site than the one where they discovered T. roseae and H. bergmanni.
A Deeper Look at the Devonian
Daeschler and a different co-author described another new species of Devonian fish in addition to H. bergmanni, in the same issue of the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences. More information about this new placoderm from Pennsylvania is available at the Drexel News Blog.
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Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Race fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season. There are a few more details and quotes in the press release, which is included after the break.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korean President Park Geun-hye's honeymoon was over before it even began.
Only a month on the job, Park has stumbled repeatedly in the face of bitter opposition to policy proposals and her choices for top government posts.
Half a dozen Cabinet appointees have quit under clouds. The latest is Han Man-soo, who withdrew his nomination for antitrust chief Monday amid allegations he stashed millions of dollars overseas to avoid taxes. Other claims that have brought down Park appointees include real estate speculation, a sex-for-influence scandal, bribery and links to an arms broker.
"A couple of flops would've been acceptable, but having a total of six failures in the first few months means that the problem lies with her style," said Lee Cheol-hee, head of the Dumon Political Strategy Institute think tank. "She seems to think she can just hand down a list of people she prefers, without thinking hard about whether those people's credentials and ethical records fit the jobs they will be handling."
Critics also complain that she's still short on specifics about how to deal with pressing issues including an increasingly belligerent North Korea and serious domestic anxiety about fewer stable jobs, heavy household debt and a wide income gap. Compounding her trouble was a long deadlock that ended just last week over her ambitious proposal to overhaul government structure.
"Because the launch of the new government has been delayed by one month, we should work harder to fulfill our vision," Park said Monday.
Presidential spokeswoman Lee Mi-yeon defended Park's candidates as fresh and different choices, highlighting nominee Jeong H. Kim, a Korean American who was the former head of Bell Labs in the United States, for head of a new science and technology ministry.
Kim resigned earlier this month, citing political wrangling over the responsibilities of the science and technology ministry. Opponents questioned Kim's links to the Central Intelligence Agency as an external advisory board member for four years until 2011.
"The president has chosen people based on their expertise and competence, and she has acquainted herself with them through various activities," Park's spokeswoman said. Lee said the failed appointments have to do with each nominee's credentials rather than with Park's style. Lee also said many key appointments have now been made and the government believes it has turned a corner.
The troubles of the country's first female president have a lot to do with the fiercely divided political and social landscape in this still relatively young and rambunctious democracy. She also carries the heavy historical baggage of being the daughter of a dictator whose legacy still divides South Koreans.
The 61-year-old president, who was elected in December and inaugurated Feb. 25, has long faced claims of being aloof and an "imperial" decision-maker. The genesis of this criticism comes from her upbringing.
She is the eldest child of late President Park Chung-hee, who led South Korea for 18 years in the 1960s and '70s and is both denounced for human rights abuses and praised as a strong leader. She grew up in the Blue House and served as her father's first lady for the last five years of his rule, after her mother was killed in 1974 by an assassin who said he was sent by North Korea.
"When her father ruled, no one questioned the president's picks," Lee, the analyst, said. "But things have changed since. ... It's like Park is driving a car with a navigator system that has only decades-old maps."
Even Park's own ruling Saenuri Party has been critical. A spokesman called for a better system of screening appointees, and said whoever vetted the failed candidates should be held responsible.
Park spent much of her first month in office negotiating with opposition lawmakers over an ambitious government reorganization plan that aims to focus on science and economic growth. An agreement was reached only last week, more than 50 days after Park's party floated the proposal.
Her economic team met for the first time since her inauguration only on Monday, and critics said there was little other than promises of major policy goals and specific plans in coming days and weeks. Her economic policies include buzzwords like "economic democratization" and "creative economy."
"These are slogans more rhetorical than real, and few seem to know exactly what they mean, let alone how to realize them," the Korea Times said in an editorial Wednesday.
Park has made some progress, including an announcement this week of the start of a $1.35 billion fund to provide debt relief for more than half a million people unable to repay loans. The fund, however, is less than one-tenth the size of the one she promised during her campaign.
Despite North Korean threats that have followed new U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's recent nuclear test, Park has pressed forward with a vow to create trust and renew dialogue after five years of tension and animosity under her hard-line predecessor. She approved a shipment of anti-tuberculosis medicine to North Korea last week.
Things, however, may get worse if political gridlock and bickering continues.
Park faces an opposition with a strengthened veto power, and the possibility of organized resistance to her foreign policy initiatives by prominent liberal groups, Park Ihn-hwi, a professor at Ewha Womans University in South Korea, wrote on the Council on Foreign Relations' website.
Some also see growing cynicism with Park among young South Koreans, many of whom voted for her liberal opponent.
"If a political issue emerges to turn apathy into opposition, there is a real possibility that street demonstrations similar to those that occurred in the early days of the Lee Myung-bak administration could further hamper Park's ability to get things done," Scott Snyder, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a blog posting Wednesday.
Lee, Park's conservative predecessor, saw tens of thousands take to the streets in 2008 to protest what opponents called a hasty government decision to allow U.S. beef imports to resume.
After a couple years of gestation, Basis's B1—watch-like activity tracker—has finally arrived. But unlike the FuelBands and Fitbits and UPs of the world, Basis offers a unique look into one's health, however cursory as it might seem. Tracking steps and analyzing sleep isn't new, but the B1's analysis of both is rooted in biometrics and not some arbitrary process or made-up algorithm. More »
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany has become so dependent on Deutsche Bank to grease the wheels of its export driven economy that it looks willing to gloss over scandals involving its largest bank.
Deutsche is one of several European banks under investigation by regulators in Europe and the United States for its suspected role in rigging benchmark interest rates. It is cooperating with German authorities in a separate inquiry into alleged tax fraud. Deutsche has denied allegations it misvalued derivatives and mis-sold mortgage-backed securities.
Such an array of inquiries could be expected to damage any bank's reputation. But back-up from business leaders and key members of the bank's supervisory board appear to be helping Deutsche's new co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen put the scandals behind them. The two men, with more than 40 years experience at Deutsche between them, took over as co-CEOs on June 1.
This bedrock of support is crucial for Deutsche, especially in a German election year when banks' perceived excesses and misdemeanors could become a campaign issue.
The newest revelations for Deutsche will come in the next few days when the German regulator issues a report on the bank's alleged involvement in the manipulation of Libor, a global interest rate benchmark.
The report will test Germany's commitment to keeping Deutsche strong for the sake of its export led economy. That commitment is a common theme to surface in interviews Reuters has conducted with current and former Deutsche staff, business leaders, sources at the regulator and bank directors.
Several sources familiar with the regulator's report have said it will focus on "organizational flaws" rather than placing blame on Jain or Fitschen, making it less likely the Berlin political establishment will call for them to go.
THE INDUSTRIAL HEARTLAND
A web of support for Deutsche has emerged among German blue-chip and mid-sized companies, which have grown more dependent on the country's largest bank since rivals including IKB, WestLB, LBBW, Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank shut down or slashed international investment banking and lending.
Burkhard Lohr, Chief Financial Officer at K+S Group, a supplier of specialty fertilizers and salt, with activities in Canada, Chile and Brazil said a strong Deutsche was vital. "We need banks with a global network, because our markets are also global," Lohr said.
That view was echoed by Stefan Sturm, Chief Financial Officer of German healthcare group Fresenius SE. "What's crucial is intellectual and financial capital. Particularly in the case of large complex projects which need to be completed seamlessly and in a short period of time," he said.
Thomson Reuters data show how Deutsche's role as lender to German companies has grown since the financial crisis.
In 2008, it ranked only fifth among the biggest lenders to German companies, behind HVB, Dresdner Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Commerzbank. Deutsche loaned 4.52 billion euros to German firms, giving it a market share of 7.23 percent.
Four years later, Deutsche Bank is the second-biggest provider of large loans in Germany behind Commerzbank, with a lending volume of 10.82 billion euros, or 15.9 percent, the data show.
The need for a global German bank is even more acute for small and medium sized companies, the backbone of the economy. These small highly specialized manufacturers export goods around the world, but don't have the capacity to maintain multiple relationships with banks to sort out their foreign exchange, interest rate hedging and export finance.
Anshu Jain, who once cultivated trading superstars like Boaz Weinstein and Greg Lippmann, is using his new role to expand support in the "real economy" and in political circles.
Since taking office, the Indian-born banker has met with approximately 50 German chief executives and visited Berlin around 10 times to meet high-ranking politicians.
On one trip, he knocked on the doors of Vorwerk, a maker of vacuum cleaners and kitchen appliances which exports to more than 70 markets from its base in Wuppertal, Germany.
"Anshu Jain came to us well-prepared. He was exceptionally interested in our business," said spokesman Michael Weber. "As an internationally operating company, it is important for us to have as our bank a global partner who is present in many different markets."
WINNING MARKET SHARE
Meanwhile, senior Deutsche staff see a huge opportunity to win market share in an environment which has seen Barclays disrupted by the departure of its CEO and UBS pull out of segments like fixed income.
Crucially for Jain and Fitschen, Deutsche's supervisory board chairman, Paul Achleitner, supports their strategy.
A former Goldman Sachs executive who helped Deutsche make one of its biggest expansions into investment banking in 1998, when he advised it on a deal to buy Bankers Trust, Achleitner is a firm believer in a strong German investment bank.
"What we need as a society is to come to an agreement over what we want. Do we want Germany to be home to a major bank of global importance? There aren't that many companies left in the financial sector capable of competing with U.S. firms," Achleitner said in a written statement in response to questions.
But Deutsche is still paying the price for its more free-wheeling past.
Last week, it was forced to restate its 2012 earnings because of new litigation provisions of 600 million euros related to mortgage-related lawsuits and other regulatory issues including Libor. Seven employees have been suspended or dismissed for suspected involvement in manipulating inter-bank lending rates.
To ensure they retain the support of corporate Germany, Jain and Fitschen need to prove that 'Project Pharos,' a plan to become a more client focused lender really means a change in style. The restructuring efforts, set to be completed by 2015, has already seen about 1,400 jobs axed out of the investment bank, which had 9,094 staff at the end of 2012.
The proprietary trading division, which used the bank's own money to make bets with a notional value of up to $128 billion on mortgage-backed securities, has been shut.
Deutsche has pared back risk taking, reducing the value at risk at its main trading units to 57.1 at the end December, from 95.6 at the end of 2010. A lower number for value-at-risk indicates a reduced likelihood of potential losses.
Internal rivalry once promoted at the bank has been toned down in favor of a greater emphasis on teamwork, insiders say. Sales teams, who once regarded one another as competitors, now coordinate client visits. On the trading floor, the climate is more collegiate.
Traders now get a 'red flag' for breaching rules, including for things previously regarded as trivial - such as failing to attend a compliance course within a five day deadline. Red flags mean lower bonuses and hinder promotion.
The bank has beefed up a ?risk and reputation' committee, which now includes four members of the Group Executive Committee, the bank's 18-member senior management panel. Potentially controversial business is discussed by the head of compliance, the chief risk officer and legal counsel.
Traders are no longer given the kind of leeway they once enjoyed and need to take "MTA" or mandatory time away, surrendering their trading positions to a colleague who can check whether they make sense and conform to risk limits.
Deutsche's problem is that the changes, underway since 2009, take time to filter through to the outside world, insiders say.
"There is a lag between perception and practice," a senior Deutsche Bank executive said.
RESURGENT INVESTMENT BANKERS
Jain's past as a former head of the investment banking division and the expanding influence of that unit, implicated in several of the bank scandals, are part of the reason why 'Project Pharos' has so far struggled to win over critics.
While Barclays signaled a return to its high street roots when it appointed Antony Jenkins, the head of its retail division, to replace former Wall Street trader Bob Diamond as CEO, Deutsche has chosen to promote veterans from the investment bank. Henry Ritchotte, a former chief operating officer (COO) of the investment bank and of the global markets division, is now COO of the entire bank. Michele Faissola, a former global head of rates and commodities, was made head of asset and wealth management.
While trading for years generated the lion's share of profits for Deutsche, it is also the division that is under investigation for alleged interest rate manipulation and the alleged mis-sale of mortgage-backed securities.
Senior Deutsche Bank staff say the reform process is credible.
"Anybody who was involved in anything illegal is no longer with the bank, so it's unfair to keep drawing parallels between now and then," a second senior bank executive said.
But critics says the investment bank's DNA still bears the legacy of Edson Mitchell, the American banker who helped lay the foundations of its global investment banking franchise by introducing a more Anglo-Saxon management style and Wall Street sized paychecks.
"The vast majority at the bank doesn't need a cultural change. It's just the traders," said a Deutsche investment banker specializing in merger and acquisitions. "They have shown over and over again that they care more about themselves than about the bank's reputation."
One of the star bankers Mitchell hired was Jain. Mitchell died in a plane crash in 2000. Today Jain emphasizes greater teamwork between the bank's different divisions.
APPEASING THE GODS
Deutsche Bank has a sometimes uneasy relationship with politicians. The lender angered lawmakers last year when it declined to send Jain to appear before a parliamentary hearing into the Libor scandal. The head of compliance, Stephan Leithner, went instead.
Deutsche also infuriated the German Agriculture Minister and anti-poverty campaigners this year when it decided to lift a self-imposed moratorium on dealing in financial derivatives linked to commodities.
Late last year of bank's Frankfurt headquarters were raided as part of an investigation into tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice over a trading scam involving carbon permits. Fitschen and Stefan Krause, the bank's chief financial officer, are among 25 employees being investigated.
But even if Germany's establishment loses patience with the bank's new leadership, many within Deutsche remain convinced it will be difficult for them to replace Jain and Fitschen.
"Show me the banker who in 2008 did not have some issue. If you want a CEO who is unblemished you need somebody with less than four years experience. You end up with a 25-year-old graduate," a senior Deutsche Banker said, before asking, "Do you have to eliminate investment banking altogether to appease the sacrificial gods."
(Additional reporting by Andreas Kroener and Matthias Sobolewski in Berlin; Editing by Alexander Smith, Carmel Crimmins, Janet McBride)
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
2011 Oklahoma temblor came amid increased manmade seismicity
A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of wastewater deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to wastewater injection. Felt as far off as Milwaukee, more than 800 miles away, the quakethe biggest ever recorded in Oklahoma--destroyed 14 homes, buckled a federal highway and left two people injured. Small earthquakes continue to be recorded in the area. The study appeared today in the journal's early online edition.
The recent boom in U.S. energy production has produced massive amounts of wastewater. The water is used both in hydrofracking, which cracks open rocks to release natural gas, and in coaxing petroleum out of conventional oil wells. In both cases, the brine and chemical-laced water has to be disposed of, often by injecting it back underground elsewhere, where it has the potential to trigger earthquakes. The water linked to the Prague quakes was a byproduct of oil extraction at one set of oil wells, and was pumped into another set of depleted oil wells targeted for waste storage.
Scientists have linked a rising number of quakes in normally calm parts of Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Colorado to below-ground injection. In the last four years, the number of quakes in the middle of the United States jumped 11-fold from the three decades prior, the authors of the Geology study estimate. Last year, a group at the U.S. Geological Survey also attributed a remarkable rise in small- to mid-size quakes in the region to humans. The risk is serious enough that the National Academy of Sciences, in a report last year called for further research to "understand, limit and respond" to induced seismic events. Despite these studies, wastewater injection continues near the Oklahoma earthquakes.
The magnitude 5.7 quake near Prague was preceded by a 5.0 shock and followed by thousands of aftershocks. What made the swarm unusual is that wastewater had been pumped into abandoned oil wells nearby for 17 years without incident. In the study, researchers hypothesize that as wastewater replenished compartments once filled with oil, the pressure to keep the fluid going down had to be ratcheted up. As pressure built up, a known faultknown to geologists as the Wilzetta fault--jumped. "When you overpressure the fault, you reduce the stress that's pinning the fault into place and that's when earthquakes happen," said study coauthor Heather Savage, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The amount of wastewater injected into the well was relatively small, yet it triggered a cascading series of tremors that led to the main shock, said study co-author Geoffrey Abers, also a seismologist at Lamont-Doherty. "There's something important about getting unexpectedly large earthquakes out of small systems that we have discovered here," he said. The observations mean that "the risk of humans inducing large earthquakes from even small injection activities is probably higher" than previously thought, he said.
Hours after the first magnitude 5.0 quake on Nov. 5, 2011, University of Oklahoma seismologist Katie Keranen rushed to install the first three of several dozen seismographs to record aftershocks. That night, on Nov. 6, the magnitude 5.7 main shock hit and Keranen watched as her house began to shake for what she said felt like 20 seconds. "It was clearly a significant event," said Keranen, the Geology study's lead author. "I gathered more equipment, more students, and headed to the field the next morning to deploy more stations."
Keranen's recordings of the magnitude 5.7 quake, and the aftershocks that followed, showed that the first Wilzetta fault rupture was no more than 650 feet from active injection wells and perhaps much closer, in the same sedimentary rocks, the study says. Further, wellhead records showed that after 13 years of pumping at zero to low pressure, injection pressure rose more than 10-fold from 2001 to 2006, the study says.
The Oklahoma Geological Survey has yet to issue an official account of the sequence, and wastewater injection at the site continues. In a statement responding to the paper, Survey seismologist Austin Holland said the study showed the earthquake sequence could have been triggered by the injections. But, he said, "it is still the opinion of those at the Oklahoma Geological Survey that these earthquakes could be naturally occurring. There remain many open questions, and more scientific investigations are underway on this sequence of earthquakes and many others within the state of Oklahoma."
The risk of setting off earthquakes by injecting fluid underground has been known since at least the 1960s, when injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver was suspended after a quake estimated at magnitude 4.8 or greater struck nearbythe largest tied to wastewater disposal until the one near Prague, Okla. A series of similar incidents have emerged recently. University of Memphis seismologist Stephen Horton in a study last year linked a rise in earthquakes in north-central Arkansas to nearby injection wells. University of Texas, Austin, seismologist Cliff Frohlich in a 2011 study tied earthquake swarms at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to a brine disposal well a third of a mile away. In Ohio, Lamont-Doherty seismologists Won-Young Kim and John Armbruster traced a series of 2011 earthquakes near Youngstown to a nearby disposal well. That well has since been shut down, and Ohio has tightened its waste-injection rules.
Wastewater injection is not the only way that people can touch off quakes. Evidence suggests that geothermal drilling, impoundment of water behind dams, enhanced oil recovery, solution salt mining and rock quarrying also can trigger seismic events. (Hydrofracking itself is not implicated in significant earthquakes; the amount of water used is usually not enough to produce substantial shaking.) The largest known earthquakes attributed to humans may be the two magnitude 7.0 events that shook the Gazli gas fields of Soviet Uzbekistan in 1976, followed by a third magnitude 7.0 quake eight years later. In a 1985 study in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Lamont-Doherty researchers David Simpson and William Leith hypothesized that the quakes were human-induced but noted that a lack of information prevented them from linking the events to gas production or other triggers. In 2009, a geothermal energy project in Basel, Switzerland, was canceled after development activities apparently led to a series of quakes of up to magnitude 3.4 that caused some $8 million in damage to surrounding properties.
In many of the wastewater injection cases documented so far, earthquakes followed within days or months of fluid injection starting. In contrast, the Oklahoma swarm happened years after injection began, similar to swarms at the Cogdell oil field in West Texas and the Fort St. John area of British Columbia.
The Wilzetta fault system remains under stress, the study's authors say, yet regulators continue to allow injection into nearby wells. Ideally, injection should be kept away from known faults and companies should be required to provide detailed records of how much fluid they are pumping underground and at what pressure, said Keranen. The study authors also recommend sub-surface monitoring of fluid pressure for earthquake warning signs. Further research is needed but at a minimum, "there should be careful monitoring in regions where you have injection wells and protocols for stopping pumping even when small earthquakes are detected," said Abers. In a recent op-ed in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, Abers argued that New York should consider the risk of induced earthquakes from fluid injection in weighing whether to allow hydraulic fracturing to extract the state's shale gas reserves.
###
The study was also coauthored by Elizabeth Cochran of the U.S. Geological Survey.
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
Receive our Press Releases via RSS Feed
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The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory seeks fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world. Its scientists study the planet from its deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
2011 Oklahoma temblor came amid increased manmade seismicity
A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of wastewater deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to wastewater injection. Felt as far off as Milwaukee, more than 800 miles away, the quakethe biggest ever recorded in Oklahoma--destroyed 14 homes, buckled a federal highway and left two people injured. Small earthquakes continue to be recorded in the area. The study appeared today in the journal's early online edition.
The recent boom in U.S. energy production has produced massive amounts of wastewater. The water is used both in hydrofracking, which cracks open rocks to release natural gas, and in coaxing petroleum out of conventional oil wells. In both cases, the brine and chemical-laced water has to be disposed of, often by injecting it back underground elsewhere, where it has the potential to trigger earthquakes. The water linked to the Prague quakes was a byproduct of oil extraction at one set of oil wells, and was pumped into another set of depleted oil wells targeted for waste storage.
Scientists have linked a rising number of quakes in normally calm parts of Arkansas, Texas, Ohio and Colorado to below-ground injection. In the last four years, the number of quakes in the middle of the United States jumped 11-fold from the three decades prior, the authors of the Geology study estimate. Last year, a group at the U.S. Geological Survey also attributed a remarkable rise in small- to mid-size quakes in the region to humans. The risk is serious enough that the National Academy of Sciences, in a report last year called for further research to "understand, limit and respond" to induced seismic events. Despite these studies, wastewater injection continues near the Oklahoma earthquakes.
The magnitude 5.7 quake near Prague was preceded by a 5.0 shock and followed by thousands of aftershocks. What made the swarm unusual is that wastewater had been pumped into abandoned oil wells nearby for 17 years without incident. In the study, researchers hypothesize that as wastewater replenished compartments once filled with oil, the pressure to keep the fluid going down had to be ratcheted up. As pressure built up, a known faultknown to geologists as the Wilzetta fault--jumped. "When you overpressure the fault, you reduce the stress that's pinning the fault into place and that's when earthquakes happen," said study coauthor Heather Savage, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The amount of wastewater injected into the well was relatively small, yet it triggered a cascading series of tremors that led to the main shock, said study co-author Geoffrey Abers, also a seismologist at Lamont-Doherty. "There's something important about getting unexpectedly large earthquakes out of small systems that we have discovered here," he said. The observations mean that "the risk of humans inducing large earthquakes from even small injection activities is probably higher" than previously thought, he said.
Hours after the first magnitude 5.0 quake on Nov. 5, 2011, University of Oklahoma seismologist Katie Keranen rushed to install the first three of several dozen seismographs to record aftershocks. That night, on Nov. 6, the magnitude 5.7 main shock hit and Keranen watched as her house began to shake for what she said felt like 20 seconds. "It was clearly a significant event," said Keranen, the Geology study's lead author. "I gathered more equipment, more students, and headed to the field the next morning to deploy more stations."
Keranen's recordings of the magnitude 5.7 quake, and the aftershocks that followed, showed that the first Wilzetta fault rupture was no more than 650 feet from active injection wells and perhaps much closer, in the same sedimentary rocks, the study says. Further, wellhead records showed that after 13 years of pumping at zero to low pressure, injection pressure rose more than 10-fold from 2001 to 2006, the study says.
The Oklahoma Geological Survey has yet to issue an official account of the sequence, and wastewater injection at the site continues. In a statement responding to the paper, Survey seismologist Austin Holland said the study showed the earthquake sequence could have been triggered by the injections. But, he said, "it is still the opinion of those at the Oklahoma Geological Survey that these earthquakes could be naturally occurring. There remain many open questions, and more scientific investigations are underway on this sequence of earthquakes and many others within the state of Oklahoma."
The risk of setting off earthquakes by injecting fluid underground has been known since at least the 1960s, when injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver was suspended after a quake estimated at magnitude 4.8 or greater struck nearbythe largest tied to wastewater disposal until the one near Prague, Okla. A series of similar incidents have emerged recently. University of Memphis seismologist Stephen Horton in a study last year linked a rise in earthquakes in north-central Arkansas to nearby injection wells. University of Texas, Austin, seismologist Cliff Frohlich in a 2011 study tied earthquake swarms at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to a brine disposal well a third of a mile away. In Ohio, Lamont-Doherty seismologists Won-Young Kim and John Armbruster traced a series of 2011 earthquakes near Youngstown to a nearby disposal well. That well has since been shut down, and Ohio has tightened its waste-injection rules.
Wastewater injection is not the only way that people can touch off quakes. Evidence suggests that geothermal drilling, impoundment of water behind dams, enhanced oil recovery, solution salt mining and rock quarrying also can trigger seismic events. (Hydrofracking itself is not implicated in significant earthquakes; the amount of water used is usually not enough to produce substantial shaking.) The largest known earthquakes attributed to humans may be the two magnitude 7.0 events that shook the Gazli gas fields of Soviet Uzbekistan in 1976, followed by a third magnitude 7.0 quake eight years later. In a 1985 study in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Lamont-Doherty researchers David Simpson and William Leith hypothesized that the quakes were human-induced but noted that a lack of information prevented them from linking the events to gas production or other triggers. In 2009, a geothermal energy project in Basel, Switzerland, was canceled after development activities apparently led to a series of quakes of up to magnitude 3.4 that caused some $8 million in damage to surrounding properties.
In many of the wastewater injection cases documented so far, earthquakes followed within days or months of fluid injection starting. In contrast, the Oklahoma swarm happened years after injection began, similar to swarms at the Cogdell oil field in West Texas and the Fort St. John area of British Columbia.
The Wilzetta fault system remains under stress, the study's authors say, yet regulators continue to allow injection into nearby wells. Ideally, injection should be kept away from known faults and companies should be required to provide detailed records of how much fluid they are pumping underground and at what pressure, said Keranen. The study authors also recommend sub-surface monitoring of fluid pressure for earthquake warning signs. Further research is needed but at a minimum, "there should be careful monitoring in regions where you have injection wells and protocols for stopping pumping even when small earthquakes are detected," said Abers. In a recent op-ed in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, Abers argued that New York should consider the risk of induced earthquakes from fluid injection in weighing whether to allow hydraulic fracturing to extract the state's shale gas reserves.
###
The study was also coauthored by Elizabeth Cochran of the U.S. Geological Survey.
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
Receive our Press Releases via RSS Feed
Receive our State of the Planet blog via RSS
Follow us on Twitter
The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory seeks fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world. Its scientists study the planet from its deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
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