Se registra temblor en Colorado

VALDEZ, Colo. — The strongest earthquake to hit Colorado in more than four decades startled thousands of residents along the New Mexico border as it toppled chimneys, cracked walls and triggered minor rockslides in the arid, mountainous region. No injuries were reported Tuesday.

 

Monday night's magnitude-5.3 earthquake struck just hours before a magnitude-5.8 temblor in Virginia – also rare for that area – shook much of Washington, D.C., and the East Coast.

 

Small aftershocks rattled the region about 180 miles south of Denver but caused no further damage.

 

"This was the first time you could see the fear in people's eyes," said Dean Moltrer, 39, who with his brother Ray owns the Big 4 Country Store in Valdez, a former coal mining town of about 100 people in Colorado's Picketwire Valley.

 

"Your family looks to dad to figure out what to do," chimed in Ray Moltrer. "Dad didn't know what to do. Dad was scared for his life."

 

The quake hit at 11:46 p.m. MDT Monday about nine miles southwest of Trinidad, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden. It had an estimated depth of 2.5 miles and was felt in a relatively large area of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.

 

The earthquake was the largest in Colorado since a magnitude-5.3 temblor was recorded in Denver's northern suburbs in 1967, said Paul Earle of the USGS.

 

Las Animas County Sheriff Jim Casias said Colorado authorities were assessing damage that included a porch collapse and a partially collapsed roof.

 

In Segundo, a tiny town a mile west of Valdez, the brick facade of a historic building lay in a pile. Nearby, daylight peered through a crack in the wall of Ringo's Super Trading Post, where owner Gary Ringo said he lost thousands of dollars' worth of liquor and soda.

 

 

Dozens of residents in Trinidad, a town of 9,000 people, and in northern New Mexico called the USGS to report the shaking. Others called from Colorado Springs and as far away as southwestern Nebraska, said Gavin Hayes, a USGS research seismologist.

 

In New Mexico, the town of Raton – already hit this summer by fire and flooding – was abuzz about Monday's quakes, which included a smaller foreshock at about 5:30 p.m.

 

"It was shaking first, like you were in a vibrating bed. Then there was a rolling effect and then there was shaking again," said Barbara Riley, owner of the Heart's Desire Bed and Breakfast.

 

Riley, a teacher, said she'll likely have to fill in cracks at her 100-year-old home.

 

Minor rockslides were reported on Colorado Highway 12, which follows the Purgatoire River, and along Interstate 25, but both highways remained open. A road grader trolled the side of Highway 12 clearing out small rocks.

 

Ron Thompson, mine manager with New Elk Mine about 30 miles west of Trinidad, said coal miners 300 to 800 feet underground didn't feel anything. But he said crews above ground and at the company office in Trinidad, where he was at the time, did.

 

"Not real exciting, but it got your attention," Thompson said.

 

Small aftershocks continued in a region that the USGS says is not known for major quakes or active faults. About a dozen small temblors were recorded in the area in August and September 2001, said USGS geophysicist Jessica Sigala.

 

Hayes said the quake likely was a rare product of interaction between the Eastern Shield – ancient rock east of the Rocky Mountains – and the newer formations of the Rocky Mountain range. Such quakes can be felt at greater distances because the underlying bedrock doesn't absorb energy the way more seismically active areas such as California do, he said.

 

Colorado is no stranger to earthquakes, but most are small and go unnoticed.

 

According to the USGS, an 1882 earthquake near what is now Rocky Mountain National Park is believed to be the largest recorded in the state, with an estimated magnitude of 6.6.

 

Mas informacion aqui: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/largest-colorado-quake-si_n_933854.html?ir=Green

El numero de carros global llega a mas de 1 billon

The number of cars on the world's roads surpassed one billion last year, according to a study that has spurred debate on what the rapidly-growing car population will mean for the world's economy and environment.

 

According to a report from Ward's Auto released last week, the global number of cars exceeded 1.015 billion in 2010, jumping from from 980 million the year before.

 

Not surprisingly, China led the way in vehicle growth, with the number of cars on Chinese roads increasing by 27.5 per cent, amounting to half the entire global growth.

 

That gives China the world's second largest car population, with 78 million vehicles. But the United States still constitutes by far the largest vehicle population in the world, with 239.8 million cars, the Ward's study reported.

 

In fact, China would have to increase the number of cars on its roads nearly sixteen-fold to equal the number of cars in the U.S. on a per capita basis. Ward's reports that there are 1.3 people for every car in the U.S., while in China there are 6.75 people per vehicle.

 

If China were to have as many cars per capita as the U.S., its fleet alone would amount to approximately one billion cars.

 

But while China's car population has been exploding, the U.S. has seen a less than one per cent increase in its vehicle population, roughly in line with most developed economies.

 

 

Earlier this year, the OECD's International Transport Forum forecast that the number of cars worldwide would reach 2.5 billion by 2050.

 

According to a seminar from Daniel Sperling at UC Davis' Institute of Transportation, a vehicle population of 2 billion would require the world to produce at least 120 million barrels of oil per day, up from about 87 million today. Given the slow depletion of conventional oil sources and the gradual move towards more expensive alternative sources such as the Alberta oil sands, it's not clear the world could develop such a large capacity to produce oil.

 

Transportation "currently accounts for 23 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions," Brad Plumer writes at the Washington Post. "And most of that unconventional oil is significantly dirtier, from a CO2 perspective, than the traditional stuff. If people in the developing world keep buying vehicles ... then simple upgrades in fuel-efficiency alone aren't going to be enough to stop a steady uptick in global temperatures."

 

In an analysis published two years ago, Sperling noted that while "Beijing alone now adds nearly 1,500 cars to its roads every day," China's rapidly evolving economy makes the country ideally suited to lead the way in developing alternative energy vehicles.

 

Calling the country a "hotbed of innovation" that is "well positioned to respond to internal demands and international initiatives," Sperling pointed out that China is working on small electric cars; is imposing "aggressive" fuel efficiency standards; and is developing innovative public transit systems.

 

"What China can do, with its massive size and economy, is foster these ideas until they are fully developed and then launch them abroad," Sperling and co-author Deborah Gordon wrote.

 

Yet China, along with the rapidly growing economies of India and Brazil, are leading the world in increased demand for cars. And these countries often express resentment when they perceive efforts to curb unsustainable growth as being unfriendly to their development.

 

At this year's International Transport Forum, European speakers urged a renaissance in the use of bicycles as an alternative to cars. But representatives from China and India pointed out that their populations are currently in the process of shedding their bicycles in favour of more sophisticated transportation.

 

"The bike is better to get around in Beijing, but bicycle use is dropping fast due to poor air quality and the danger from car traffic," Tongji University professor Pan Haixiao said.

 

"Cycling is a miniscule thing," B.K. Chaturvedi of India's Planning Commission said. "That's not the future."

 

Mas informacion aqui: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-population_n_934291.html?ir=Green