China

  2010 AUG 24 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "Four successive storms with freezing rain and snow blanketed South China from 10 January-2 February 2008, when the precipitation increased more than 200%-300% above the average for the corresponding period. The unusual atmospheric circulation associated with these disasters was caused by many complex physical processes, one of which was the active southern branch of currents over low latitude ocean areas which provided plenty of water vapor for South China," scientists in the United States report ...read more

  2010 AUG 17 - (VerticalNews.com) -- "The chronicles of the Ryukyu Kingdom describe at least four coastal inundation events at Ishigaki Island during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries: the 1771 Meiwa earthquake tsunami, which killed 12,000 people; another earthquake tsunami (1687); and two events with unrecorded causes (1625 and 1714). We used a high-resolution U/Th method to date well-preserved surface parts of massive Porites spp. coral head boulders that had been cast ashore and found that the ages of two boulders correspond to the 1771 event," investigators in Kashiwa, Japan report ...read more

  2010 AUG 3 - (VerticalNews.com) -- According to recent research published in the journal Russian Geology and Geophysics, "The Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic location of volcanic zones in the Central Asian intraplate volcanic province has been reconstructed. The anomalous-mantle regions related to magmatism in the province changed in shape in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic."

  "In the early Early Cretaceous, the anomalous-mantle regions spanned from 42 degrees to 61 degrees N (about 2000 km in latitude), and their location might have remained unchanged throughout the Cretaceous. Magmatism in the province took place in the lithospheric regions of the Eurasian Plate with a thickness close to or smaller than that of the oceanic lithosphere. Late Mesozoic magmas originated mainly from hydrated mantle sources with isotopic compositions typical of PREMA or EM-II. In the Early Cenozoic (50 Ma), the anomalous mantle was considerably less active than in the Early Cretaceous. Magmatic melts were generated only in two mantle regions: the local South Hangay hotspot and, apparently, the fairly extensive (at least 800 km wide) mantle region north and northeast of it. The entire anomalous mantle spanned from 46 degrees to 59 degrees N (about 1300 km in latitude). Magmas of OIB type originated from slightly hydrated sources with isotopic compositions typical of PREMA or EM-I. In the Miocene, the mantle might have again ''ejected'' heated decompressed anomalous matter. The ejection led to an outburst of magmatism and expansion of the volcanic province up to 2000 km in latitude," wrote D.V. Kovalenko and colleagues, Russian Academy of Science ...read more