In a new study, NASA and United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists found that retreating glaciers in southern Alaska may be opening the way for future earthquakes. The study examined the likelihood of increased earthquake activity in southern Alaska as a result of rapidly melting glaciers. As glaciers melt they lighten the load on the Earth’s crust. Tectonic plates, that are mobile pieces of the Earth’s crust, can then move more freely. The study appears in the July issue of the Journal of Global and Planetary Change.
In December 1999, as Israel and Syria seemed suddenly to be making real progress toward a peace agreement, President Bill Clinton called President Hafez al-Assad with a request. Israel, he said, had rock-solid information on the location in a Damascus cemetery of the remains of three Israeli soldiers who had gone missing in action during the Lebanon war of the 1980’s.
