Earthbytes

Chill. Yellowstone's Volcano Isn't About to Destroy Us All | WIRED

via www.wired.com

From the article by Erik Klemetti: It seems like every year about now, the media decides it is time for yet another Yellowstone scare-mongering session. Over the past few weeks, a number of articles and interviews have made some outlandish claims about the chances of a massive Yellowstone eruption. Yet, all this kerfuffle has come with absolutely no change in the state of Yellowstone itself. Instead, this tempest is purely the product of media “churnalism” that turns very benign source material into panic, doom, and horror.

These Adorable Owls Will Not Kill You With Plague | WIRED

via www.wired.com

From the article: The animals that carry plague in the US are mostly rodents—rats, ground squirrels, and prairie dogs—and their fleas can pass plague bacteria to humans if they decide to bite us. Good news, though: The adorable little owls that live in burrows alongside those plaguey rodents seem to be immune. Although the owls have fleas capable of carrying plague, they are not infected—and their immunity could provide some interesting information to scientists studying the disease.

8 Stunning Maps That Changed Cartography | WIRED

via www.wired.com

I have loved maps just about as long as I can remember anything. I collected them. They showed up in my dreams. I spent significant chunks of time looking at them, reflecting on their meaning, appreciating their beauty, connecting with the hearts and minds of their makers.

I found this article today at WIRED that features the work of a team of contributors that included John Hessler, a Library of Congress cartographer, to publish a new book, Maps: Exploring the World. I would love to read it.

From the article:

Still, all maps serve as some alternate form of world history. Like art, they use visuals to reveal truths about a particular time and place. Maps can act like a memory frozen in time, as seen in John Auldjo’s map of Mount Vesuvius eruptions. They can highlight the issues of the day or chart the trajectory of human exploration and advancement.

You can also check out a great interview with Hessler at The Atlantic/City Lab.

Researchers think use of a common soil bacteria may protect bat colonies from white-nose syndrome

A little brown bat with White Nose Syndrome hangs in the Greeley Mine in Vermont. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service/Bloomberg

 

Maybe some good news for bats? Chris Cornelison, a wildlife researcher at Georgia State University wonders if Rhodococcus rhodochrous -- a common bacteria found in soil and known to inhibit mold growth on some fruits and crops -- can be used to limit the spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in bat communities.

So far, wildlife researchers have tried a lot of different interventions for WNS, but nothing has worked. Cornelison says that bat researchers and wildlife ecologists have been willing to "try anything" out of desperation.

Neel V. Patel writes about this in his recent article at Wired:

Some have used artificial heaters in caves to prevent the fungus from growing. Others tried closing caves off to humans to prevent people from introducing or spreading stowaway spores. They’ve even sprayed fungicides in caves or introduced other fungi that could outcompete P. destructans. The most prevalent intervention, says Indiana State University bat researcher Joy O’Keefe, has been decontamination—spraying anti-fungal solutions on spelunkers and cave tourists, as well as any equipment they are bringing in and out.

O’Keefe, who was not involved with the trials, thinks one of the biggest advantages to using R. rhodochrous is that it negates the need to physically handle bats to treat them. “A lot of bat deaths result from these kind of WNS experiments,” she says. “All that handling can be adverse to bat health by decreasing the energy and disrupting their hibernation even more.”

At this point, says the article, researchers don't necessarily see R. rhodochrous as a "cure" for WNS. The data that's been collected needs more analysis before wildlife researchers can accurately interpret and apply knowledge gained from results. As with treatment of any wildlife disease, researchers will also need to make sure that introduction of R. rhodochrous into bat habitats won’t harm other cave-dwelling plants and animals.

Read more at www.wired.com

I'll be following this research for sure. WNS has been documented in Tennessee bat populations, including (in 2012) the endangered Gray Bat species. I know the area I live in has both natural caves and man-made caves from the coal mining era.

This spring I've seen more bats than I have in the past five years or so. When I moved to Tennessee in 2000, I commonly saw two or three different species of bats clearing the air of insects on spring and summer evenings.

I hope R. rhodochrous proves to be useful for bats and safe for other species. I really need all the help I can get with the bugs up here!

Related articles

finally! - some good news

Bats Treated for Deadly White-Nose Syndrome Released by US Forest Service

Hope for bats with white-nose syndrome

Experimental treatment being used to help save bats in Missouri

US forest service research team releases bats treated for WNS

USGS: Dam Removal Study Reveals River Resiliency

Klamath Basin Tribes and allies from the commercial fishing and conservation organizations stage a rally at the bi-annual meeting of the international hydropower industry- Hydrovision 2006. [Photo credit: Patrick McCulley]

 

Good news for rivers: dam removal works pretty well. A paper published yesterday in Science reports findings that rivers recover relatively quickly from negative consequences of dams once they are removed:

Dam removal and the resulting river ecosystem restoration is being studied by scientists from several universities and government agencies, including the USGS and U.S. Forest Service, as part of a national effort to document the effects of removing dams. Studies show that most river channels stabilize within months or years, not decades, particularly when dams are removed rapidly.

“In many cases, fish and other biological aspects of river ecosystems also respond quickly to dam removal,” said co-author of the study Jeff Duda, an ecologist with USGS. “When given the chance, salmon and other migratory fish will move upstream and utilize newly opened habitat.”

via www.usgs.gov

 

Also see:

Interesting project undertaken by American Rivers: an interactive map inventory showing dam removals between 1936 and 2014.

Article on the Klamath dam removal project: Oregon’s Klamath River Basin One Step Closer to Historic Dam Removal (April 2014)

USGS: 30-Year Scientific Record Examines the Recovery of Mining-Damaged Idaho Stream

A Rainbow Trout Rests Among Cobble Substrate in Panther Creek. Photo credit: Christopher Mebane/USGS

Okay, here’s a pre-Earth Day success story from Idaho!

Panther Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River, “has mostly recovered” from severe damage caused by toxic runoff from the former Blackbird Mine, an inactive mine west of Salmon, Lemhi County, Idaho. The recovery was documented in a long term study recently published by USGS scientitsts in the journal Elementa.

Underground and open pit mining of cobalt, silver and copper caused contaminated discharges from the flow of storm water and snowmelt through soil, sediments and tailings at the mine. It was so bad that from the 1960s through the 1980s, scientists found no fish and very few aquatic insects in Panther Creek. Serious cleanup began at this mine in 1995 by collecting runoff and treating the water for copper and cobalt pollution. Waste-rock pile at the mine were also stabilized.

According to the study, full recovery of salmonid populations occurred within about 12 years. Panther Creek now supports diverse species including Chinook salmon, steelhead, rainbow trout and bull trout.

“I was involved in studies in the early 1990s that documented the extent of the environmental damage,” said USGS biologist Christopher Mebane. “So it’s gratifying to also document the speed and extent to which the ecosystem recovered after cleanup measures started taking hold.”

Mebane is lead author on the paper and collaborated with scientists from EcoMetrix, an environmental consulting group, and Rio Tinto, one of the companies participating in the Blackbird Mine Site Group, which cooperatively manages cleanup activities. 

“Among other things, this study demonstrates the value of long-term monitoring,” said Mebane. “A tremendous amount of money is spent each year on river restoration, but it’s rare to find examples where data were systematically collected, year after year, to learn if cleanup activities really translated into tangible improvements in fish populations and other parts of an ecosystem.”

The complete study, “Recovery of a Mining-Damaged Stream Ecosystem” is available to read or download free from the online journal issue of Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.

USGS : Polar Bears Unlikely to Thrive on Land-based Foods

via www.usgs.gov

From the article: ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A team of scientists led by the U.S. Geological Survey found that polar bears, increasingly forced on shore due to sea ice loss, may be eating terrestrial foods including berries, birds and eggs, but any nutritional gains are limited to a few individuals and likely cannot compensate for lost opportunities to consume their traditional, lipid-rich prey—ice seals.

The Rocky Mountain Trench : Image of the Day

via earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Such an awesome view of the Rocky Mountain Trench, one of my favorite regions of North America.

From the article:

While geologists still debate the circumstances that created the trench, the section seen here likely formed due to underlying normal faults that emerged in the aftermath of tectonic collisions that pushed up the mountains. Normal faults are ruptures in the rocky outer part of Earth—the lithosphere—that generally emerge when land surfaces get stretched out. In a normal fault, one piece of lithosphere drops down relative to another.

In this case, the normal faults that underlie the southern half of the Rocky Mountain Trench likely formed as the lithosphere stretched after a period of mountain building that occurred between 185 million and 55 million years ago. At least three chains of islands plowed into the western coast of North America, forming mountains by bulldozing rock layers onto North America. In this part of western Canada, mountain building progressed from southwest to northeast, so the Columbia Mountains are older than the Canadian Rockies. With the normal faults in place, rivers and glaciers have since worked to widen and deepen the trench through erosion.

Read the whole story at NASA...

Below the Bend in the Appalachians : Image of the Day

via earthobservatory.nasa.gov

From the article:

For decades, geologists have debated the origins of an unmistakable curve in the Appalachian Mountains. Known to experts as the “Pennsylvania salient,” the bend begins in southern New York and northeastern Pennsylvania and extends across Pennsylvania to the border of Maryland. In this area, the ridges of the Appalachians turn from a roughly north-south orientation to an east-west orientation and then north-south again.

A Campaign Primer: Native American Voters Count

via www.truth-out.org

From the article: Back in session and gearing up for campaigns before the November midterm elections, the political coverage will likely focus on two aspects of a Congressional race: who will win and who will vote.