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The death toll from the recent earthquake doublet in Venezuela remains to be seen. As so often happens, early estimates were very low., just 100 or so. As of today, July 2nd 2026, the count has exceeded 2,000 and doesn't look like setting out any time soon. Speculation has it that it could reach 10,000. That would not be surprising. Obtaining an accurate death toll is a difficult undertaking, more difficult than you might think. At first, people can only see what's going on a

Surprising to many, including myself at one time although I am a marine geophysicist, the deep seafloor in many parts of the world's oceans is strewn with fist-sized nodules chock full of what have come to be called critical metals (or minerals). They are known as polymetal nodules, or maganese nodules. A typical example is shown below. They contain manganese and a lot more metals including copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, silver, gold and Rare Earth elements. That’s what’s mean

The 7.8 Mw earthquake just south of the Philippines island of Mindanao was not exactly unexpected. The region is tectonically active and has seen many historic large earthquakes. An earthquake with magnitude Mw 7.8 is not huge and doesn't qualify for the terminology in the science to be described as a Great earthquake. But it's alrge enough to cause a lot of destruction and death. In the the map below, the recent earthquake is shown with a yellow star embedded in a backgrou

Why did so many die in Kerr County Texas? The death toll estimate now significantly exceeds 100, by how much will not be certain for a few days yet. That is the amount of time it will take to find those still missing. Searchers will keep searching, parents will keep hoping, but with every passing hour hope of finding missing people alive diminishes. For more than 100 people to die from a rainfall event in a sparcely populated area of a wealthy country is very. The Kerr County

We now know that the death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar exceeds 10,000. Any number with four zeros after it is suspicious and it...

That sounds rediculous. And in the short term it is rediculous. People die in disasters. That can never be good. In Myanmar we will not...