Could Iceland be next? Stranded Pilot Whales, Relation between LIPs & Mass Extinctions

Sorry. This post is supposed to be in the fragile earth section. Mods can you move it please?

I think its safe to say that animals can predict earthquakes or other natural disasters days before they happen. Apparently Toads can predict earthquakes 5-6 days before they even strike. How they manage to do that is still unknown but it is believed that they can sense changes in seismic activity/i.e. gravity waves.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes. The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their breeding colony three days before an earthquake that struck L'Aquila in Italy in 2009.

I just came across this news today about 100s of stranded pilot whales on the shores of South Uist (North West of the british Isles, far North from Ireland):

www.bbc.co.uk...

Marine animal experts are trying to prevent a mass stranding by up to 100 pilot whales in South Uist in the Western Isles. The whales were spotted in Loch Carnan on Thursday afternoon and about 20 were said to have had cuts to their heads. It is thought the injuries may have been caused by attempts to strand themselves on the rocky foreshore of the sea loch. Rescuers said inflatable pontoons for refloating whales were on the way. The pod has been moving back and forth from the shore and rescuers said the animals were "very vocal", which may be a sign of distress. Members of the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) fear the whales could die in a massive beaching - which could be Scotland's largest stranding.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0de59832eec7.jpg[/atsimg]

After reading this, I was like, hang on a minute - Didn't like 100s of Pilot whales strand themselves on the shores of New Zealand before a devastating earthquake hit Christchurch just this February 2011?

www.treehugger.com...

Earthquakes, like the one that struck in Christchurch, New Zealand yesterday, rank among the most devastating natural disasters, capable of leveling cities and causing extensive loss of life -- largely because they are so unpredictable. On Sunday, however, less than 48 hours before the quake, 107 pilot whales beached themselves and died along the nation's shores, a phenomenon that biologists have yet to fully understand. The proximity of the two events, in both time and location, have sent the Web in a frenzy over whether they are related -- and whether strandings can provide precious foresight before disaster strikes.

You might immediately come to the conclusion that the somewhere in teh British Isles we could expect an earthquake soon.
But the thing is, the British Isles do not lie on any fault lines - even if they may have had a few earthquakes in the past they have barely been noticeable or did not cause much damage.

Iceland on the other hand could well be a suspect - It lies on a fault line, is a volcanic island and hey, its quiet near to the British Isles. It also seems that seismic activities have been slowly increasing there and just last year one of its volcanoes caused Havoc to the Airline Industry by stranding all flights:

www.guardian.co.uk...

Due to curiosity I started looking up on Super volcanoes and recent Earthquakes in Iceland - I didn't find any super volcanoes and the Earthquakes have been barely devastating since 2008 when a 6.3 hit, luckily not killing anyone.
Then I came across something called "Large Igneous Province" - which are extremely large accumulations of igneous rocks—either intrusive, extrusive, or both—which are found in the earth's crust.
But how are they related to anything?
Now this might shock you:

en.wikipedia.org...

Relationship of LIP's to extinction events:

Eruptions or emplacements of LIP's appear to have, in some cases, occurred simultaneously with oceanic anoxic events and extinction events. The most important examples are the Deccan Traps (Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event), the Karoo-Ferrar (Pliensbachian-Toarcian extinction), the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (Triassic-Jurassic extinction event), and the Siberian traps (Permian-Triassic extinction event). Several mechanisms are proposed to explain the association of LIP's with extinction events. The eruption of basaltic LIP's onto the earth's surface releases large volumes of sulfate gas, which forms sulfuric acid in the atmosphere; this absorbs heat and causes substantial cooling (e.g., the Laki eruption in Iceland, 1783).

Oceanic LIP's can reduce oxygen in seawater by either direct oxidation reactions with metals in hydrothermal fluids or by causing algal blooms that consume large amounts of oxygen.

I don't mean to spread any mass fear mongering - but could this stranding of Pilot whales be related to something bad cooking up underneath Iceland?

wait, isnt this post supposed to be in the fragile earth section? Mods can you move it please?

The fault line that runs through Iceland has been active since the creation of the island. It experiences earthquakes on a regular basis since the fault line is a major one becauce it divides the Atlantic Ocean the long way in half. The Volcanic activity has also been around since it's creation and discovery as the 'land of fire and ice.' It's no surpise to me, besides the Icelandians probably experience large quakes on a regular basis and are probably well equiped to experience a large one if it's not already the norm.

reply to post by TheMessenger1


I know. I'm just trying to see whether this mass stranding of Pilot Whales is related in any way. Ofcourse, predictions based on this haven't really been proven and is still left to speculation and criticism.

reply to post by CasiusIgnoranze


I don't know about whales, but deepsea fish usually beach themselves in the advent of a coming quake. The Ribbon fish, inparticular, has been coined the 'earthquake fish' since there have been many reports of this fish beaching itself a few days before the quake hits.

Nice find OP
I'll be watching closely over the next couple of days to see if there is some sort of correlation between the whale beaching and seismic activity.

reply to post by CasiusIgnoranze


Good post.

I live in the West Coast of Scotland and will follow this with interest.

I know whale beachings are not too uncommon in Scotland, I even came across one myself, but never heard of anything on this scale.

Definately something to note for future reference.

Originally posted by CasiusIgnoranze
..>snipsnip

reply to post by abecedarian


But why the mass beachings?

I accept that the correlation between animal behaviour and earthquakes is very tenuous (at this time) but the OP has brought to our attention something that may well have passed under the radar of anyone trying to correlate data and information that may prove to be significant in the future.

I live not too far from this event, I watch the BBC news and others and I did not know about this.

Still say good post and may be relevant in the weeks or months ahead.

reply to post by petethespark


The OP mentioned no faults in the British Isles and I posted some information to the contrary. Whether or not these faults and this beaching incident are related remains to be seen.

reply to post by abecedarian


"Whether or not these faults and this beaching incident are related remains to be seen. "

Exactly!

That's why this post has value. It is flagging up an event, which may have gone unnoticed by the many people all over the world looking for any indicators that 'may' precede an earthquake.

It may not come to anything but that in itself has value as this event can be matched against others where earthquakes happen shortly after beachings.

Originally posted by petethespark
reply to post by abecedarian

 

But why the mass beachings?

I accept that the correlation between animal behaviour and earthquakes is very tenuous (at this time) but the OP has brought to our attention something that may well have passed under the radar of anyone trying to correlate data and information that may prove to be significant in the future.

I live not too far from this event, I watch the BBC news and others and I did not know about this.

Still say good post and may be relevant in the weeks or months ahead.

I have often thought about this, having read the report it does seem the whales are determined to go in a particular direction, determined to beech they say in the report. I am no marine biologist so I don't really know how pilot whales navigate, but I am presuming it is magnetic like birds, if so could increased stress on the tectonic plates create shifts in the magnetic field and throw their navigation off?

It would explain why these events happen quite often in a near time frame to an earthquake happening

Originally posted by petethespark
reply to post by abecedarian

 

"Whether or not these faults and this beaching incident are related remains to be seen. "

Exactly!

That's why this post has value. It is flagging up an event, which may have gone unnoticed by the many people all over the world looking for any indicators that 'may' precede an earthquake.

It may not come to anything but that in itself has value as this event can be matched against others where earthquakes happen shortly after beachings.

Maybe you'd care to visit the other thread on this topic, but alluding towards EQ activity in the British Isles, Chile, Argentina, the Carolinas (USA), South Africa and even undersea: here?

Originally posted by PrinceDreamer
I have often thought about this, having read the report it does seem the whales are determined to go in a particular direction, determined to beech they say in the report. I am no marine biologist so I don't really know how pilot whales navigate, but I am presuming it is magnetic like birds, if so could increased stress on the tectonic plates create shifts in the magnetic field and throw their navigation off?

It would explain why these events happen quite often in a near time frame to an earthquake happening

Considering Pilot Whales utilize echolocation, a.k.a. "sonar", unless the "ground" around them moves thus changing their "landscape" and changing their "memory" of the sub-oceanic terrain, I don't see how magnetic anomalies would affect them. Think about all the hoopla that's been raised over sonar testing by various navies and how that affects dolphins and such aquatic mammals and their "beaching". Did whales and such beach themselves before we invented sonar? What other anecdotal evidence is there to support whales and such beaching themselves prior to a catastrophic earthquake? What does the "scientific method" say about correlating cause and effect before taking a postulate to theorem and subsequently to fact?

reply to post by abecedarian


Point taken on that but I didn't know that thread existed.

In fact if the OP hadn't posted this thread I would never have known about it. Even though it 'may' pose a potential threat to me and my family at some point in the near future.

It would be nice if people with knowledge of an existing thread on a subject would politely point the less knowlegable to the appropriate post without creating the impression that new OP's haven't tried to find out if it has been posted already.

By the way, I invite you to start a thread on how to use the ATS search facility to find the thread you posted as I can't find it.

If you do, please post it here as I probably wouldn't be able to find it!

Back to the OP, stand by what I said, good post!

Thumbs up
The predicted volcano

Make sure to post if you see any other patterns like this, ill try and keep a look out as well, so far ive been looking at different monitoring systems (from the internet) to try and find a way to predict earthquakes (also including astronomical events) and although it is possible to see when earthquakes seam to be more likely, i have not found a significant way to predict them. Though this although i knew about it (in frog and birds and other land animals) then, thinking about it, then big sea mammals that use sound to communicate (whale, dolphins, etc) should be super sensitive to changes in the waves passing through the sea. Ill keep an out out for this.

Well done......either you got lucky or you're onto something!

Breaking news Iceland airspace has just been closed due to the eruption of Grimsvotn . news.sky.com... ome_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15996978_Iceland_Airspace_Is_Closed_After_Grimsvoetn_Volcano_Erupts

A volcanic eruption believed to be more powerful than last year's flight-halting blast has closed airspace across Iceland.

But experts say the latest rupture should not affect international flights.

The North Atlantic island's most active volcano, Grimsvoetn, located at the heart of its biggest glacier Vatnajoekull, started to spew smoke and lava late Saturday.

Within an hour, the plume of smoke had rose to an altitude of 11km (6.8 miles).

The eruption comes just over a year after the nearby Eyjafjoell erupted - the first volanco blast at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier since 1823, and Iceland's first since 2004.

It briefly forced 600 people from their homes in the area but shut down large swathes of European airspace for almost a month amid fears the volcanic ash floating across the skies would wreak havoc on aircraft engines.

Icelandic Meteorological Office geophysicist Gunnar Gudmundsson said the Grismvoetn burst would not be of the same scale but could interfere with domestic flights.

"I don't expect this will have the same effect as Eyjafjo

This is the best thread I've ever read.

The volcano just blew up.

Very well done, Star & Flag.

Hope to read more of your writing.

S&F OP

You will have religions based upon you in the future... lol

stay at it OP!