Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (Feb. 28, 2014)

Storm Victims
The survival of some bird species around southern Britain could be at risk after weeks of nearly constant storms killed a record number of seabirds.  The Wildlife Trust said many of the birds died from starvation because they couldn't find enough food to survive during the storms.  Beyond the 60 seabirds found washed up in Wales, including razorbills and puffins, an additional 11,000 puffins perished during the storms in France.  "They would normally sit on the sea and dive under to catch fish, but if the top few meters are churned up, they find it diffcult to find food in this way," wildlife warden Ed Stubbings told the BBC.  The trust also warns that climate change is likely behind the recent declines in breeding success in many bird colonies.
Remedial Owls
Chilean officials are enlisting squadrons of owls to combat a rat-borne plague that has killed 15 of the 36 people infected since September.  This deadly and highly contagious strain of hantavirus, carried by long-tailed pygmy rice rats, has been brought into residential areas after recent wildfires destroyed the rodents' habitats.  So the forest service is stepping up efforts to breed and release Chilean white owls and Magellanic horned owls to hunt down the infected rats.  The owls feed almost exclusively on rodents, and neither the rats nor the owls become ill from the hantavirus.  But some Chilcans still hold traditional fears about owls, bringing resistance to the project.   "If an owl hooted near a house, it used to mean that someone would die in that house.  But in reality it is the opposite ---- the owls are actually protecting homes," Lagos Penuelas National Reserve administrator Aldo Valdivia Ahumada told The Santiago Times.
Earliest Earth
The oldest rock ever to be unearthed has been found in Western Australia.  Scientists say the zircon crystal has been accurately determined to be 4,374 billion years old by two independent methods.  Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, lead author John Valley of the University of Wisconsin says the crystal is 300 million years older than any other ancient rocks previously found.  He said the zircon crystalized only about 100 million years after the world was covered by a magma ocean, and came from the period of time when Earth was starting to make a crust.  There is evidence of water when the crystal took shape, leading scientists to believe that the liquid was present  long before asteroids and comets brought more of it when they bombarded the planet about 4 billion years ago.
Volanic Blast
One of Costa Rica's most popular tourist attractions exploded from within a crater lake heated by rising lava during the previous weeks.   The 8,884-foot Poas volcano has produced such "steam explosions" throughout its recorded history.  Earlier in February, scientists warned that the mountain's summit crater was glowing red-hot with molten lava that was emitting sulfur.
Earthquakes
Southwestern England and southern Wales were jolted for 10 seconds by the first quake to strike the area in more than a decade.  No damage was reported from the 4.1 magnitude jolt.
*      Earth movements were also felt in eastern Romania, Western Australia's Goldfields region, northern Taiwan, northeastern Montana and central Oklahoma.
Shadowy Smog
China's frequentoutbreaks of toxic air pollution have become so bad that a report by the Shanghai Academy of Social Science says Beijing is "barely suitable for life."  Other scientists warn that the smog's sun-dimming effects resemble those of a "nuclear winter".  LiGuixin, a resident of the capital of northeast China's Hebei province, has become the first person to sue the communist government for failing to rein in air pollution.  Despite late February's extremely hazardous pollution levels, officials still didn't feel the smog was bad enough to curb the use of cars and trucks.  But they did ban barbecues, fireworks and demolition work.  A few report by the China Agricultural University warns that the country's growers will suffer conditions "somewhat similar to a nuclear winter" if something isn't done to combat air pollution. It says the smog is impending photosynthesis.
Blooming Germs
New research suggests that flowering plants could be hubs for the transmission of plant and animal diseases in the same way schools and busy airports allow germs to circulate widely.  Pollinators, such as bees, are believed to be picking up and spreading pathogens as they go from flower to flower.  Writing in the journal Ecology Letters, researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst said: "As major hubs of plant-animal interactions throughout the world, flowers are ideal venues for the transmission of microbes among plants and animals."  They point out that little is known of the process, and the decline in pollinators, like honeybees, shows the urgent need for further research.