Possible Atlantis-destroying volcano swelling with magna

Santorini Volcano in the Aegean Sea, seen in this NASA satellite image, was the site of one of the largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years. The explosion of the volcano removed so much magma from below the Earth that the volcano collapsed, producing a large crater, or caldera.

The Island of Santorini has risen 5.5 inches in the last year and a half according to an article published September 9th in the journal Nature Geoscience leading to speculation that the volcano on Santorini may be getting ready to erupt again. On average, the Santorini volcano has a major eruption about every 10,000 years. The last major eruption, 3,600 years ago, created 40-foot high tsunamis and led to the destruction of the Minoan civilization. Some believe this historical eruption led to the legend of Atlantis since Plato said Atlantis went down in the ocean.

In the past 1.5 years, the magma chamber beneath the volcano island has ballooned by as much as 350 million cubic feet (20 million cubic meters), or up to 15 times the size of London’s Olympic Stadium.

Santorini volcano: Magma pooling below Atlantis-myth volcano

The ancient Maya considered 13 to be a sacred number

Today I learned from the Decipherment blog of  Dr. David Stuart who is at the University of Texas at Austin that, for the Maya, the number 13 was a sacred number. Dr. Stuart is an epigrapher (specialist in ancient inscriptions) who has translated the December 21 2012 Maya prophecy.

2012: Signs of Pole Reversal affecting navigation and migration for wildlife

The magnetic poles are moving at a rate of 40 miles per year, much faster than ever before in human history. Presently, the direction of north changes by one degree every five years. In the last decade, the rate of the movement of the poles has increased by a third, which is throwing off the direction of compasses.

Ever since the magnetic north pole was first discovered in 1831, the magnetic north pole has been at or near Canada’s Ellesmere Island. At the rate the magnetic north pole is shifting, it may soon be in northern Russia.

Could this have anything to do with the Mayan prophecy for December 21, 2012?

 A Mother Nature Network article says that:

The changes are beginning to cause major problems for aviation, navigation and migratory animals that use the Earth’s magnetic field to orient themselves. Some airports have had to change the names of their runways to better correspond to their current direction relative to magnetic north. 

Magnetic North shifting by 40 miles a year, might signal pole reversal

More good advice in the case of a power outage–carry cash

Some more good advice in the case of a power outage, especially if you’re without power for a number of days, as we were due to the recent mid-Atlantic storm that resulted in 1.5 million homes without power.

How did I get on this power-outage, blackout kick? I guess that working on the End of the World 2012 Movie, and going without power in 100 F heat for three days, has got me looking at end of the world as we know it scenarios.

Here’s more good suggestions for when the world stops as a result of not having electricity:

* According to FEMA’s ready.gov website, preparing for a blackout requires preparing an emergency kit and a plan for family communication and how family members should meet up if they are separated. When planning for a power outage, be sure to include extra flashlights and batteries in your emergency kit as well as a battery-operated or hand crank radio to listen for instructions. One important tip for planning ahead for a power outage is to always have cash on hand and a half tank of gas in your car. Gas pumps and ATMs require electricity. Most store cash registers are electricity- and computer-driven so the need for cash is especially necessary to procure goods during a blackout.

 

2012: Is a shift in the magnetic poles imminent?

Some scientists believe a magnetic pole shift may be imminent–give or take 1000 to 10,000 years. In their opinion, that’s how long it takes for the magnetic poles to shift.

The last time the poles shifted, it was 780,000 years ago. Normally, they shift every 300,000 to 400,000 years. We are well-overdue.

In preparing the End of the World 2012 Movie, I am researching magnetic pole shift. Since, here in the mid-Atlantic, we’re well into hurricane season and we just experienced the worst storm other than hurricanes a few weeks ago, I appreciate the following suggestions for being prepared for a disaster from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):

 * Emergency preparation and disaster planning should be a regular part of daily life. Whether the magnetic poles reverse or not, there will continue to be earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters. Being prepared with a plan, emergency supplies and the knowledge of how to handle whatever comes is the best practice. Check out fema.gov for tips on disaster planning. Even though FEMA doesn’t offer specific tips for pole shift preparation, emergency preparedness can be adapted for any disaster.

Magnetic Pole Reversal and Disaster Planning

2012: Preparing for a Blackout in the case of a natural disaster–unprepared for the power outage a few weeks ago

With the End of the World 2012 Mayan prophecy on my mind, I must admit that, although we have a make-shift emergency kit, as suggested in the following list posted by www.ready.gov/blackout, we haven’t yet made a family communication plan, which includes deciding on a meet up place if and when the electricity is out and you can’t recharge your cell phone.

I guess, it’s a good idea to have a car charger for your cell phone, that is, assuming there will still be gas available.

Apart from any 2012 end of the world Maya prophecy, the thought of a major blackout is pretty darn scary.

In our mid-Atlantic blackout a few weeks ago, a number of gas stations did have power. However, I was disappointed when I drove past the long lines at the gas stations with power to my favorite one–the one whose computer is familiar with my credit card–because it was without electricity. There were hand-printed signs stuck on the gas tanks with tape saying, “No Power.”

I wish I had filled the gas tank the day before, but the storm and subsequent power outage was a big surprise. The weather prediction had only been for 10 m.p.h. winds but we received gusts up to 80 m.p.h. It was the largest storm, other than a hurricane, in our area.

I ended up driving to another town where I knew the whole city had power. I knew because a family member lives there and I had contacted them by cell phone.

What if the whole area had been without power? Fortunately, I had a place to go to where there was air conditioning. Many people I knew, however, had to suffer through the 100+ F temperatures.

BEFORE A BLACKOUT

To prepare for a blackout you should do the following:

• To begin preparing, you should build an emergency kit and make a family communications plan.
• Follow energy conservation measures to keep the use of electricity as low as possible, which can help power companies avoid imposing rolling blackouts.
• Fill plastic containers with water and place them in the refrigerator and freezer if there’s room. Leave about an inch of space inside each one, because water expands as it freezes. This chilled or frozen water will help keep food cold during a temporary power outage, by displacing air that can warm up quickly with water or ice that keeps cold for several hours without additional refrigeration.
• Be aware that most medication that requires refrigeration can be kept in a closed refrigerator for several hours without a problem. If unsure, check with your physician or pharmacist.
• Keep your car tank at least half full because gas stations rely on electricity to power their pumps.
• Know where the manual release lever of your electric garage door opener is located and how to operate it. Garage doors can be heavy, so know that you may need help to lift it.
• Keep a key to your house with you if you regularly use the garage as the primary means of entering your home, in case the garage door will not open. 

BEFORE A BLACKOUT

Piri Reis Map could point to an ice-free Antarctica in antiquity

Map of the world by Ottoman admiral Piri Reis, drawn in 1513.Only half of the original map survives and is held at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.The map synthesizes information from twenty maps, including one drawn by Christopher Columbus of the New World. This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. It is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

The oldest known map of the world was compiled by Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. He used 10 Arabian sources, 4 maps of India from the Portuguese, and a map of the New World made by Christopher Columbus to compile his map. The map is drawn on gazelle skin.

Only the Western third of the map has survived. It lay undisturbed in the Topkapi Sarayi Library until German theologian Gustav Adolf Deissman discovered it in 1929. According to an online Wikipedia article, Piri Reis Map: 

Amateur historian Gavin Menzies claims in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered America that the southern landmass is indeed the Antarctic coastline and was based on earlier Chinese maps. According to Menzies, Admiral Hong Bao charted the coast over 70 years before Columbus as part of a larger expedition under the famous Chinese explorer and admiral Zheng He to bring the world under China’s tribute system.

I became interested in the Piri Reis map while researching background information for my End of the World 2012 Movie. I thought that if the Piri Reis map showed the Antarctica coastline, it meant that one of the sources used in compiling the map had to have been made during the time Antarctica was free of the mile thickness of ice covering it now. If so, it would show evidence of the world undergoing previous cataclysmic events. Perhaps, a pole shift?

2012 end of the world in history: dinosaur extinction and Chicxulub Yucatan comet

Badlands near Drumheller, Alberta, where erosion has exposed the KT boundary. From Wikipedia Commons: This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Glenlarson at the english wikipedia project. This applies worldwide.

In editing the End of the World 2012 movie, I’m at the place where I’m looking at previous end of the world scenarios, specifically where I intereview physicist Dr. William Petrachenko on the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Dr. Petrachenko works in the field of geophysics.

It turns out that the dinosaur extinction is associated with a worldwide characteristic in rock strata called the Cretaceous Tertiary Layer or Boundary or K – T Boundary. (This has recently been amended to the K-Pg or Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary.) Coincidentally, the K-T Boundary occurs at about 65 million years ago.

As Dr. Petrachenko explains in the movie, at the K-T Layer, scientists have found a higher concentration than is usually found on earth of Iridium. Since comets and asteroids have high concentrations of iridium, the scientists theorized that a huge extraterrestrial object must have hit the earth about 65 million years ago and that the debris or ejecta from the impact would have been carried in the atmosphere all around the earth and fell to the surface creating the K-T Boundary.

Since the extinction of the dinosaurs and this comet/asteroid impact occurred at about the same time–65 million years ago–scientists hypothesized that the comet/asteroid impact led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In the photo, above right, rocks above the K-T Boundary are much darker than the lighter-colored rocks below the K-T Boundary. The iridium is found in a narrow band, not visible in this long distance photo, between the two layers.

In the End of the World 2012 Movie, we visit Chicxulub, Yucatan, where the comet exploded 65 million years ago. For more information on the K-T Boundary/K-Pg Boundary, Iridium and the Chicxulub Impact, please see the Wikipedia article, Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

Mercury Retrograde in Leo is about to begin!

Amazingly, this appears to be a Mercury Retrograde I’m going to love. Usually Merc Retro periods can be amazingly frustrating as far as communication goes, which includes means of communications such as computers, software, and cell phones.

OK, already my desktop computer has gone south. Also, I spent one extremely frustrating day in which I never did figure out why one line among many lines in a PhotoShop image would not show up when I placed the photo into my End of the World 2012 Movie. In the end, I figured out how to show what I wanted to show in another way. Finally, (old wives’ tale: bad luck comes in threes), the third thing: my cell phone modem that connects me to the internet not only would not connect, but it turned out that the cell phone tower needed to be repaired which kept me www-less for a day.

So, I must admit, I have had some Mercury Retrograde-type problems already and Mercury was only in pre-retrograde. The closest planet to the sun has almost stopped moving today and is supposed to begin retrograde motion in a couple of days.

July 15th to August 8th, 2012 Mercury in Leo (retrograde) remind us what we truly love. This respite cycles you back to your own unique story. It’s time to journal, and reflect on your ambitions, how you shine, and what you long to create.

Some serendipity happens that puts you in the spotlight. You reconfirm your talent for leading and encouraging others. You help someone see their own uniqueness. Children, or another kind of pride and joy — like your artistic creation — becomes a preoccupation. This could be time to revive a creative idea, give yourself a pep talk, and make plans to bring it to fruition.

Mercury Retrograde 2012

140 million people worldwide strongly agree that the Mayan prophecy means the world will end this year

I’ve been thinking about that poll, the one done by IPSOS for Reuters News. They surveyed 16,262 people in 21 countries and found out that:

One in ten (10%) respondents in 21 countries agree ‘the Mayan calendar, which some say ‘ends’ in 2012, marks the end of the world’ – 2% strongly agree, 8% somewhat agree. 

One in seven (14%) global citizens believe end of the world is coming in their lifetime

So, today I looked up the population of the earth and it was 6,840,507,003  in 2010 (and steadily rising so it’s more now) according to the World Bank.

That means that 10% of approximately 7 billion people or 700 million people worldwide believe that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 and therefore the world will end. 

Even if you just take the 2% that, according to the IPSOS survey, “strongly agree,” you’re still talking about 140 million people.

That’s a lot of people believing the world is going to end this year!

A whole lot of people.