Environment

Authored by Jessica Marmor Shaw, originally posted at MarketWatch.com,

For decades, California has been portrayed as the epicenter of earthquake country. Last year’s disaster movie “San Andreas,” in which a magnitude-9.0 quake lays waste to the state, was just the latest and most spectacular example.

Yet the Golden State has never been the No. 1 state for seismic activity. That title goes to Alaska, which sits atop two tectonic plates that bump into each other and produce an average of 1,000 tremors every month.

A climate change scientist has been arrested in Australia on charges of defrauding taxpayers out of $556,000 in false expenses since 2008.  Daniel Alongi has admitted to creating false invoices, credit card statements and emails, and his arrest has raised serious concerns over the validity of his climate research. Heartland.org reports: During the period of Alongi’s alleged fraud, his research focusing on the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, coastal mangroves, and coastal ecosystems was published in numerous national and international journals.

Survivors of the 2011 Japanese tsunami continue to report sightings of what they have dubbed ‘tsunami ghosts’ five years after the devastating earthquake that killed over 20,000 people in Japan.  NPR’s Rachel Martin interviews Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times of London about this phenomena: Npr.org reports: RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It’s been a little more than three years since the biggest earthquake in Japan’s history, a quake that caused an unforgettable tsunami that killed some 20,000 people. But the earthquake also had quieter consequences that didn’t make headlines.

The European Space Agency in collaboration with Roscosmos have launched a joint mission to explore the atmosphere of Mars and hunt for signs of life. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) took off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on Monday and is due to reach the red planet in October. The Scotsman reports: The probe will investigate whether methane in the Martian atmosphere is coming from a geological source or is being produced by microbes. If all goes well, the two space powers expect to follow up this venture with a rover, to be assembled in the UK, which will drill into the surface.

A researcher has found a Stonehenge style megalithic site at the bottom of Lake Michigan, alongside a boulder with a prehistoric carving of a mastodon.  Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered the megalithic site as he travelled across the lake in a ship equipped with sonar technology to examine old shipwrecks. Americanintelligencereport.com reports: While combing Grand Traverse Bay they observed unique rock formations resembling Stonehenge, and rocks with strange engravings, one which Holley believes to be a Mastodon.