RIVER ON FIRE - FRACKING FILLS AUSTRALIAN RIVER WITH METHANE - GREENS politician sets it on fire to raise awareness on the devastating consequences of FRACKING on the environment

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Politician sets a river on FIRE as he tries to show how methane from nearby coal seam gas mining is seeping into the water

• A Greens MP lit the a river on fire to show the effects of a coal seam gas
• Jeremy Buckingham recorded the fire at the Condamine River in QLD
• Methane gas was first noted in the river in 2012
• Locals and MP Buckingham are calling on the government to stop fracking 
• The energy company involved says methane originates naturally from ancient geological faults, and not from fracking.
• But researcher with the gas company agrees that gas bubbling in the river has intensified lately 
• Locals are concerned about contamination of the water and dropping levels in ground water.

Footage shows huge flames erupting from methane gas bubbling to the surface of the Condamine River, a result of ongoing coal seam gas mining in the region, some locals say.

 

Large bubbles of the gas gurgle along the surface of the river before Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham waves a kitchen lighter over the side of a tinny boat.  Without warning the river explodes in flames, forcing Buckingham to retreat to the opposite side of the boat. 

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LEGENDARY RIVER OF BOILING WATER FOUND IN THE AMAZON FOREST - It boils because of fault-fed hot springs - Animals who fall into it are boiled alive

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A legendary river that BOILS its victims alive is discovered deep in the heart of the Amazon 

The river in Mayantuyacu was found by Andrés Ruzo after his granddad recalled a legendary tale

Academic experts told him that it couldn't exist because the Amazon basin is far from volcanic activity 

Ruzo has since published a book that reveals how fault-fed hot springs cause the river to boil

A mysterious, four-mile long river, deep in the heart of the Amazon, is so hot that it boils.

The river has long been a legend in Peru, but when geoscientist Andrés Ruzo's heard about it, he thought such a phenomenon couldn't possibly exist. 

 

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THE MYSTERIOUS SLIME TAKING OVER RIVERS ALL OVER THE WORLD - It is a type of algae also known as DIDYMO and GREEN SNOT - It spreads through human activity in rivers and streams

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It began with a few small strange patches of slime, clinging to the rocks of the Heber River in Canada.

Close-up photograph of a stalked
Didymosphenia geminata frustule 

 

Within a year, the patches had become thick, blooming mats. Within a few years the mats had grown into a giant brownish-yellow snot.

 

And within a few decades this snot had spread around the world, clogging up rivers as far away as South America, Europe and Australasia.

This snot, which is still flourishing today, is caused by a microscopic alga, a diatom that goes by its scientific name Didymosphenia geminata.

 

It has become so notorious it has its own moniker, Didymo. People have been blamed for the sudden, global explosion of this tiny organism, unwittingly carrying the algae from river to river on fishing gear, boats and kayaks.

 

The huge snots it forms have wreaked havoc in waterways, forcing governments and environmental organisations to initiate huge and costly clean-up operations.

A strange story


 Didymosphenia mats forming in
 the Stamp River, Vancouver Island

But underlying the snots’ strange appearance is an even stranger story. About Didymo itself, about what it is, and how it behaves.

 

Scientists are now discovering that the sudden appearance of Didymo may not have been so sudden after all.

Its blooms aren’t really blooms – instead they are more of an elixir-induced metamorphosis. And Didymo seems to ignore the usual rules followed by invasive species.

 

It even appears likely that this little diatom may not even be a significant problem itself; instead the brownish-yellow snot it forms may be a symptom of greater changes underway in freshwater systems around the world.

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THE REBIRTH OF THE RIVER ZIN IN ISRAEL - A WONDER RIGHT OUT OF THE BIBLE happens in modern times in the Negev Desert

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A Biblical wonder  -  Dramatic moment the River Zin is reborn as flash flood sweeps across arid landscape during the spring of 2014, in Israel's Negev Desert

Thrilled spectators gathered to watch the powerful display of nature

It is believed that the flood occurs when heavy rain falls in mountainous regions several miles away from the massive riverbed made of chalk.

The river’s source is upon the slopes of the Ramon Crater, one of three Negev craters famed for its geological formations.

The natural wonder is described in the Jewish Bible 

 

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HOW RIVERS ARE BORN - New study reveals patterns of river formation

By Emily Underwood

Wired Magazine - Look outside after a heavy rain and you may find a miniature Grand Canyon in your backyard, complete with a complex network of tributaries. The precise conditions that cause rivers of all sizes to form branches have long been a mystery; now, a new study pinpoints two opposing physical forces that work together to produce the intricate patterns.

 

The discovery could help scientists better understand rivers at all scales and even on other worlds; for example, the icebound methane rivers on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.

 

When rain hits a tilted surface, like the side of a mountain or a hill, it tends to flow toward existing depressions. The flow of water erodes the rock or soil, widening and deepening the depressions.  

 

Called incision, the process is competitive and even somewhat cannibalistic. As individual rills grow from incision, they capture smaller neighbors, forming tributaries

 

Scientists have known for more than 100 years that these processes shape rivers, but they hadn’t been able to quantify their relative importance, or figure out how they work together to create river basins that are finely branched in some landscapes but not others, says Taylor Perron, a geomorphologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and lead author of the new study. “We saw the form, but didn’t understand the mechanism that leads to the development of this branching shape.”

Look outside after a heavy rain and you may find a miniature Grand Canyon in your backyard, complete with a complex network of tributaries.

 

Branching river networks in the Allegheny Plateau in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Image: Taylor Perron/MIT

 

The precise conditions that cause rivers of all sizes to form branches have long been a mystery; now, a new study pinpoints two opposing physical forces that work together to produce the intricate patterns.

 

The discovery could help scientists better understand rivers at all scales and even on other worlds; for example, the icebound methane rivers on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.