There have already been about 3,000 Alaska earthquakes this month

Author: Chris Klint

Updated: 10 hours ago

Published 1 day ago

A series of significant May earthquakes and their aftershocks are being examined by seismologists, who say Alaska is markedly above its usual rate of earthquakes for the month.

Alaska Earthquake Center seismologist Natalia Ruppert said Alaska typically experiences a "background level" of 35,000 earthquakes each year, plus any significant quakes and their aftershocks.

The center typically documents about 3,000 quakes statewide in a month — but May has been well ahead of that pace, Ruppert said.

"Right now, with the aftershocks, we recorded close to the monthly average in just the first 10 days," Ruppert said.

The catalog of May temblors as of Wednesday included at least three larger than a 6 on the Richter scale; seven larger than a 5 and 50 larger than a 4, according to an overview compiled by the center's Ian Dickson.

Dirt rolls down the clay cliffs across from Canadian Tire during a May 1, 2017 earthquake in Whitehorse. (Angie Dickson / via Yukon News)

The month began with a 6.2 quake and a 6.3 aftershock on May 1 under the Haines Highway in Canada that rattled much of Southcentral Alaska, causing significant damage in the Canadian city of Whitehorse.

State seismologist Michael West said the quake struck along the Denali fault line, which extends from Southeast through Canada into the Alaska Range.

More than 800 aftershocks had been detected from the Southeast quake by Wednesday, Dickson wrote. The state also saw a 5.2 quake 10 miles north of Ninilchik on May 6 that was felt in Valdez and Palmer, as well as a 3.8 shaker the following day northeast of the Fort Knox Gold Mine that was felt in Fairbanks.

A 6.2 earthquake struck about 90 miles west of Adak at a depth of 1 mile on Monday, May 8, 2017. (From Alaska Earthquake Center)

On Monday, a pair of 5.5 temblors off Adak in the Aleutian Islands built to a 6.2 quake, downgraded from a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, although no damage reports were received.

Ruppert said some quakes strike along fault lines known to be more active. Others, however, occur after buildups of seismic tension that can take centuries.

"We know some large-scale tectonic features in the state," Ruppert said. "We know that almost all significant earthquakes are related to the subduction zone, and there are also some Interior faults that are capable of producing large-scale earthquakes — but we don't know everything."

The Aleutian Islands quakes were products of a known earthquake zone near Tanaga Island and its associated volcano 62 miles west of Adak, Ruppert said, where high rates of tectonic plate movement generate high levels of activity.

"We've seen it before — we've seen it in 2008, the last time was a little before in 2004," Ruppert said. "Once we saw this strong earthquake, we knew we could expect some strong aftershocks because we've seen it before."

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can sometimes occur together, Ruppert said, so the Alaska Volcano Observatory monitored the volcano for any subsequent activity — but it "didn't find any" at Tanaga or other nearby volcanoes.

The Southeast quakes, however, were the strongest to occur along the section of their fault since Canadian seismologists set up sensors there in the late 1960s — suggesting they were the result of a long-building seismic release.

"The magnitude 6.2 and 6.3, they are pretty much the largest earthquakes along that part of the Denali Fault in a long time," Ruppert said. "This is the first time in the 40- to 50-year period that we recorded that strong earthquake activity in the region."

Activity levels near the Southeast and Adak quakes were both still above background levels Friday, Ruppert said, but declining from their previous peaks.

Seismologists are still tracking those aftershocks but Ruppert said the highest number of quakes recorded statewide to date came in 2014, when more than 40,000 were detected.

"2014 was — really, the word 'crazy' comes to mind," Ruppert said.

(adn.com)

RANSOMWARE ATTACK HITS 200,000 IN AT LEAST 150 COUNTRIES: EUROPOL

BY REUTERS ON 5/14/17 AT 7:28 AM

Technical staff scrambled on Sunday to patch computers and restore infected ones, amid fears that the ransomware worm that stopped car factories, hospitals, shops and schools could wreak fresh havoc on Monday when employees log back on.

Cybersecurity experts said the spread of the virus dubbed WannaCry—"ransomware" which locked up more than 100,000 computers—had slowed, but the respite might only be brief.

New versions of the worm are expected, they said, and the extent of the damage from Friday's attack remains unclear.

Marin Ivezic, cybersecurity partner at PwC, said that some clients had been "working around the clock since the story broke" to restore systems and install software updates, or patches, or restore systems from backups.

Microsoft released patches last month and on Friday to fix a vulnerability that allowed the worm to spread across networks, a rare and powerful feature that caused infections to surge on Friday.

Code for exploiting that bug, which is known as "Eternal Blue," was released on the internet in March by a hacking group known as the Shadow Brokers. The group claimed it was stolen from a repository of National Security Agency hacking tools. The agency has not responded to requests for comment.

Hong Kong-based Ivezic said that the ransomware was forcing some more "mature" clients affected by the worm to abandon their usual cautious testing of patches "to do unscheduled downtime and urgent patching, which is causing some inconvenience."

He declined to identify which clients had been affected.

The head of the European Union police agency said on Sunday the cyber assault hit 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries and that number will grow when people return to work on Monday.

"The global reach is unprecedented ... and those victims, many of those will be businesses, including large corporations," Europol Director Rob Wainwright told Britain's ITV.

"At the moment, we are in the face of an escalating threat. The numbers are going up, I am worried about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn (on) their machines on Monday morning."

Monday was expected to be a busy day, especially in Asia which may not have seen the worst of the impact yet, as companies and organizations turned on their computers.

"Expect to hear a lot more about this tomorrow morning when users are back in their offices and might fall for phishing emails" or other as yet unconfirmed ways the worm may propagate, said Christian Karam, a Singapore-based security researcher.

Targets both large and small have been hit.

Renault said on Saturday it had halted manufacturing at plants in Sandouville, France, and Romania to prevent the spread of ransomware in its systems.

Among the other victims is a Nissan manufacturing plant in Sunderland, northeast England.

Hundreds of hospitals and clinics in the British National Health Service were infected on Friday, forcing them to send patients to other facilities.

German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said some electronic signs at stations announcing arrivals and departures were infected.

In Asia, some hospitals, schools, universities and other institutions were affected. International shipper FedEx Corp said some of its Windows computers were also breached.

Telecommunications company Telefonica was among the targets in Spain. Portugal Telecom and Telefonica Argentina both said they were also targeted.

A Jakarta hospital said on Sunday that the cyber virus had infected 400 computers, disrupting the registration of patients and finding records. The hospital said it expected big queues on Monday when about 500 people were due to register.

In Singapore, a company that supplies digital signage, MediaOnline, was rushing to fix its systems after a technician's error had led to 12 kiosks being infected in two of the island's malls. Director Dennis So said the systems were not connected to the malls' or tenants' networks.

Symantec, a cybersecurity company, forecast infections so far would cost tens of millions of dollars, mostly from cleaning corporate networks. Ransoms paid amount to tens of thousands of dollars, one analyst said, but he predicted they would rise.

Governments and private security firms said on Saturday that they expected hackers to tweak the malicious code used in Friday's attack, restoring the ability to self-replicate.

"This particular attack was relatively easy to shut down," said Bryce Boland, Asia Pacific chief technology officer for FireEye, a cybersecurity company.

But he said it would be straightforward for the existing attackers to launch new releases or for other ransomware authors to start copying the way the malware replicated.

The U.S. government on Saturday issued a technical alert with advice on how to protect against the attacks, asking victims to report any to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Department of Homeland Security.

(Newsweek)

North Korea launches a new unidentified missile as tensions with US fester

Sue-Lin Wong | Reuters

Missiles are driven past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other high-ranking officials during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017.

North Korea fired on Sunday an unidentified projectile from a region near its west coast, South Korea's military said, a development that was confirmed by U.S. officials.

The nature of the projectile is not immediately clear, a South Korean military official said by telephone.

Yonhap news agency reported the projectile launched appeared to be a ballistic missile. Three U.S. officials also confirmed to NBC News the country launched a projectile.

The launch took place at a region named Kusong located northwest of the capital, Pyongyang, where the North previously test-launched its intermediate-range missile it is believed to be developing.

The launch, if it is confirmed to be test-firing of a ballistic missile, is the first in two weeks since the last attempt to fire a missile ended in a failure just minutes into flight.

The North attempted but failed to test-launch ballistic missiles four consecutive times in the past two months but has conducted a variety of missile testing since the beginning of last year at an unprecedented pace.

Weapons experts and government officials believe the North has accomplished some technical progress with those tests.

President Donald Trump warned in an interview with Reuters in late April that a "major, major conflict" with the North was possible, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to
the dispute over its nuclear and missile programs.

The launch is the first since a new liberal president took office in South Korea on Wednesday saying dialogue as well as pressure must be used to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula
and stop the North's weapons pursuit.

--NBC News contributed to this article.

(cnbc.com)

Undercover inspectors have determined that a building registered as a church was being operated as a sex club.

WTVF-TV reports that the city of Nashville has filed a complaint against the owners for "maintaining a public nuisance by permitting acts of lewd conduct" and violating a state law banning sex clubs from operating within 1,000 feet of a school.

The longtime downtown swingers club underwent a conversion in 2015 when it relocated to a run-down office park in the community of Madison, calling itself a church because the new location is near the back of the private Goodpasture Christian School.

Two codes inspectors paid $40 to enter the facility in March and filed affidavits detailing sex acts they witnessed within.

The city is seeking to close the club.