New evidence for regular magnitude 8 earthquakes, study of New Zealand fault shows

ScienceDaily (July 25, 2012) ? A new study published in the journal Science, co-authored by University of Nevada, Reno's Glenn Biasi and colleagues at GNS Science in New Zealand, finds that very large earthquakes have been occurring relatively regularly on the Alpine Fault along the southwest coastline of New Zealand for at least 8,000 years.

The Alpine Fault is the most hazardous fault on the South Island of New Zealand, and about 80 miles northwest of the South Island's main city of Christchurch.

The team developed evidence for 22 earthquakes at the Hokuri Creek site, which, with two additional from nearby, led to the longest continuous earthquake record in the world for a major plate boundary fault. The team established that the Alpine Fault causes, on average, earthquakes of around a magnitude 8 every 330 years. Previous data put the intervals at about 485 years.

Relative motion of Australian and Pacific plates across the Alpine Fault averages almost an inch per year. This motion builds up, and then is released suddenly in large earthquakes. The 530-mile-long fault is among the longest, straightest and fastest moving plate boundary faults in the world. More than 23 feet of potential slip has accumulated in the 295 years since the most recent event in A.D. 1717.

Biasi, working with the GNS Science team led by Kelvin Berryman, used paleoseismology to extend the known seismic record from 1000 years ago to 8,000 years ago. They estimated earthquake dates by combining radiocarbon dating leaves, small twigs and marsh plants with geologic and other field techniques.

"Our study sheds new light on the frequency and size of earthquakes on the Alpine Fault. Earthquakes have been relatively periodic, suggesting that this may be a more general property of simple plate boundary faults worldwide," Biasi, of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory said. "By comparison, large earthquakes on California's San Andreas Fault have been less regular in size and timing."

"Knowing the average rate of earthquakes is useful, but is only part of the seismic hazard equation," he said. "If they are random in time, then the hazard does not depend on how long it has been since the most recent event. Alpine Fault earthquakes are more regular in their timing, allowing us to use the time since the last earthquake to adjust the hazard estimate. We estimate the 50-year probability of a large Alpine fault earthquake to be about 27 percent."

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake centered near Christchurch, the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, caused extensive damage to buildings on Sept. 2, 2010, and no deaths. On Feb. 22, 2011, a triggered aftershock measuring magnitude 6.3, with one of the strongest ground motions ever recorded worldwide in an urban area, struck the city killing 185 people.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nevada, Reno, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. K. R. Berryman, U. A. Cochran, K. J. Clark, G. P. Biasi, R. M. Langridge, P. Villamor. Major Earthquakes Occur Regularly on an Isolated Plate Boundary Fault. Science, 2012; 336 (6089): 1690 DOI: 10.1126/science.1218959

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/ftlt8n2f1PQ/120725162446.htm

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Small study: Drug may help stabilize Alzheimer's

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US official: Up to $8 billion wasted rebuilding Iraq

AP file

The Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility, about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad, is seen with unused building materials nearby. The site is a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million.

By Zach ToombsCenter for Public Integrity

The official in charge of monitoring America?s $51 billion effort to reconstruct Iraq has estimated that $6 billion to $8 billion of that amount was lost to waste, fraud and abuse.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR) for the past eight years, gave that estimate in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity on Monday, shortly after releasing a new summary of his office?s many grim discoveries since it began work in in 2004.

In Friday?s report, Bowen said the exact funds lost to fraud and waste ?can never be known,? largely because of poor record-keeping by the U.S. agencies involved in the effort. These include the Departments of State and Defense, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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According to the report, auditors repeatedly found that the State Department and Defense Department failed to properly review invoices from government contractors, often approving billions of dollars in services without checking if costs were accurate or efficient. ?I think the consistent theme throughout our eight years of oversight work has been the inconsistent availability of records and information on contracts and costs,? said Bowen, a former Texas lawyer.

Bowen said his efforts were hampered from the outset by the ineffectiveness of a clearinghouse created in Iraq for government departments to submit reconstruction bills and contracts for review and oversight. Known as the Iraq Reconstruction Management System, the system was often ignored, with the result that nearly a third of all the contracts could not be monitored adequately.?

"Agencies often inconsistently used it -- such as USAID. Sometimes projects were put in there, sometimes they weren?t,? said Bowen. Aides said his $6 billion to $8 billion figure is based on his review of audits and reconstruction costs, as well of estimates of waste in programs where key data is missing.

Bowen?s deputy inspector general, Glenn Furbish, said separately in the interview that the cost of many contracts was steadily increased due to frequent modifications. ?Once U.S. agencies started down this road, they rarely stopped and said, ?This is getting out of hand,?? Furbish said.

He also noted that many agencies sometimes skipped appropriate review of their bills in an effort to spend money within a deadline, so they did not have to return it to the Treasury.

Since its founding in 2004, SIGIR has investigated $635 million in spending, resulting in $176 million in ?fines, forfeitures, and other monetary results.? In total, the agency estimates it has saved around $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds.

Friday?s report mostly detailed the persistent poor handling of government contracts. ?In some instances, invoices were reviewed months after they were paid,? according to the report. ?Poor and/or delayed invoice reviews add risk that the government may overpay, or pay unallowable and unreasonable costs.?

The report lays much of the blame on a lack of manpower dedicated to reviewing and overseeing government contracts. The State Department enlisted a single contracting officer to handle a $2.5 billion deal with DynCorp International to train Iraqi police forces, for example. Auditors called this decision ?especially disturbing" because of problems in earlier DynCorp contracts. According to Furbish, after SIGIR singled out the contract, the State Department reviewed its original agreement with DynCorp and recovered more than $60 million from the company.

DynCorp spokeswoman Ashley Burke confirmed that her company returned funds to the government but said it had not engaged in misconduct.

SIGIR?s investigation also uncovered instances of bid-rigging and bribe-taking by State and Pentagon officials.

Fraudulent activities uncovered by the special inspector general resulted in 87 indictments, according to the report. Of those cases, 61 involved contract kickbacks, 11 involved contract fraud and nine were related to embezzlement. Both military officers and defense contractors were frequently implicated.

The report details one such case, involving U.S. Army Major Roderick Sanchez, who served from 2004 to 2007 as a contracting officer in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. Sanchez used his authority to solicit cash payments, Rolex watches and other expensive gifts in exchange for steering Pentagon contracts to foreign companies, reaping benefits worth more than $200,000, according to the report. He was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $15,000.

A Navy lieutenant commander named Frankie Hand, stationed at Camp Taji in Iraq as a contracting officer, entered into a secret agreement with two U.S. contractors ? Michelle Adams and Peter Dunn ? agreeing to rig government contracts to their benefit in exchange for a cut of the profits, the report said. The two contractors paid Hand $757,525 after obtaining two contracts improperly. An Air Force master sergeant received $50,000 in bribe money for ?assistance? in the deal, the report said.

Hand received three years in prison and forfeited his share of contract profits, while Adams and Dunn received 15 and 14 months in prison, respectively.

Friday?s report, titled ?Final Forensic Audit Report of Iraq Reconstruction Funds?, was wider in scope than most of SIGIR?s work, covering not just a specific project, but a broader picture of Iraq?s reconstruction. SIGIR spokesman Chris Griffith said, however, that Bowen' has one more major report to publish in January.

Many of the challenges described in the Iraq report mirror those depicted in similar reports by its cousin, the office of the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. In a May report to Congress, for example, that office concluded that ?corruption remains a major threat to the reconstruction effort? and said contractors were taking advantage of lax oversight in Afghanistan.

Source: http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/17/12795510-iraq-war-reconstruction-6-billion-to-8-billion-wasted-us-official-says?lite

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Airtime Aims To Win The Mainstream With Over-The-Top, Star-Studded Promo Video

Are you ready for your close-up? In early June, the dynamic, disrupting duo of Sean Parker and Sean Fanning launched their new video chat and sharing network, called Airtime. As a matter of course, the founders built Airtime on top of Facebook, with a cool $33.5 million in funding to get the operation off the ground -- and more. Today, the startup released a polished new video that aims to demonstrate the power of the service and attract those elusive mainstream consumers. The entertaining spot naturally leverages a little star power to grab your attention, with cameos from the likes of MC Hammer, Kurt Russell, Ronnie Lott and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/oMLuOmt2B-0/

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Alexander Skarsgard Had 'A Lot Of Fun' With 'True Blood' Bromance

After Comic-Con panel, actor tells MTV News about exploring Bill and Eric's relationship with his good friend and co-star Stephen Moyer.
By Kara Warner

Alexander Skarsgard
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1689656/skarsgard-moyer-true-blood-comic-con.jhtml

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'Ninja Turtles' Creator Deems New Movie 'Easily The Best'

'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' writer and artist Kevin Eastman tells MTV at Comic-Con that he fully supports Michael Bay's reboot.
By Terri Schwartz, with reporting by Steven Smith

Kevin Eastman
Photo: MTV Geek

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1689635/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2012-san-diego-comic-con.jhtml

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Now TV launches in the UK, brings pay-as-you-go streaming to Mac, PC and Android

Sky is going online and ditching the contracts... sort of. The UK TV provider is launching a new service called Now TV that will take on more established properties like Lovefilm and Netflix. The streaming video service will initially be available on OS X, Windows and Android with iOS to follow shortly. By the end of the year it will also be available on Xbox, PS3, Roku and Youview. Initially Sky Movies will form the backbone of the service, with titles costing anywhere from £0.99 to £3.49 for playback, or you can purchase unlimited monthly access for £15. Eventually Now TV will expand to include Sky Sports, Sky 1 and plenty of other BSkyB owned properties. For more, check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading Now TV launches in the UK, brings pay-as-you-go streaming to Mac, PC and Android

Filed under: Software

Now TV launches in the UK, brings pay-as-you-go streaming to Mac, PC and Android originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/16/now-tv-launches-in-the-uk/

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