Environment

A powerful earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of M7.3 on the Richter scale, since reduced to M6.9  by the USGS, struck Japan 156 miles northeast of Tokyo at 5:59am local time.

The epicenter of the earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km, Japan's Meteorological Agency said, the same Fukushima that was site of the 2011 natural disaster and tsunami that resulted in the worst nuclear power plant disaster since Chernobyl.

Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

As much as up to 50 percent of the production of oil majors could be hit by carbon costs in the next ten years if legislators that currently price carbon extend the policy to the upstream sector, Wood Mackenzie said in a new report on how oil majors would respond to the global energy transition and rising pressure for low-carbon energy.

Scientists in Russia have announced the discovery of water from Noah’s Ark which they have dated back to the great flood. Scientists say the discovery proves that the Biblical account of Noah’s flood is real, and that the flood waters drained into a subterranean sinkhole known as the Kola Borehole. Express.co.uk reports: The Kola Borehole could only go down as deep as 12km before being blocked by a mystery force. A video exposing the so-called Kola conspiracy says the established view of the earth’s makeup – crust, mantle and core – was proved wrong by the geological dig.

The European Space Agency may team up with NASA to launch a 2020 mission against a dangerous asteroid headed for earth. Planetary scientists and experts have released an open letter urging support for the mission. The space agencies plan to crash a probe into a 160m wide asteroid and deflect it from its course. Actors Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis similarly tried stopping an asteroid that was threatening to collide with earth, in the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon. Daily Star reports: It comes after the Chelyabinsk meteor, which was just 20m wide, exploded over Russia in 2013.

The Arctic ice is not freezing over properly as winter approaches leaving the scientific community worried. Measurements show a big increase in water and air temperatures as the Jet Stream deviates from its normal path and transports warmth into the Arctic. The Arctic is in the grip of a catch-22 situation. As winter approaches, the Arctic ice wants to freeze over,  but it can’t form properly. There is not enough ice because the ocean is too warm. The Arctic Ocean remains too warm because there is not enough ice.