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Tag Archives: dries
Dinosaur tracks revealed in Texas as severe drought dries up river | Dinosaurs
Severe drought conditions in Texas have revealed ancient dinosaur footprints that date back more than 100m years.
Multiple dinosaur tracks belonging to the Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur were discovered recently at Dinosaur Valley state park in north-west Texas as widespread droughts have caused a river running through central Texas to dry up almost entirely.
Prints from the Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur were uncovered in the almost entirely dried-up Paluxy River. The 15ft, seven-ton creature once inhabited the area over 113m years ago, confirmed the state park in an email to NBC News.
Drought conditions have revealed about 60 prints from the Acrocanthosaurus, with an estimated 140 tracks from the dinosaur in total, the BBC reported.
“Most tracks that have recently been uncovered and discovered at different parts of the river in the park belong to Acrocanthosaurus,” said a park spokesperson, Stephanie Salinas Garcia, in an email to CNN.
Tracks from the Acrocanthosaurus had not been seen since 2000, with the prints hidden under layers of water and sediment, though visitors can sometimes see other dinosaur tracks at the state park depending on weather conditions, according to the park’s website.
Prints from the Sauroposeidon, a 66ft creature that once weighed about 48 tons when fully matured, were also discovered. Experts believe that the Acrocanthosaurus preyed on Sauroposeidon, explaining why their prints were discovered together.
Several states across the US are dealing with extreme drought, an escalating consequence of climate change.
Dips in water levels across key water reservoirs have caused the federal government to intervene, issuing cuts in water use that will affect Arizona, Nevada and Mexico.
In Texas, almost all areas in the Lone Star state are experiencing severe drought conditions, causing water sources to dry up.
Depleting water levels have uncovered other discoveries besides dinosaur prints. In Lake Mead, human remains and a ship dating back to the second world war were discovered as water levels fell during the longstanding drought.
U.S. grocery shortages deepen as pandemic dries supplies
Jan 14 (Reuters) – High demand for groceries combined with soaring freight costs and Omicron-related labor shortages are creating a new round of backlogs at processed food and fresh produce companies, leading to empty supermarket shelves at major retailers across the United States.
Growers of perishable produce across the West Coast are paying nearly triple pre-pandemic trucking rates to ship things like lettuce and berries before they spoil. Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, which grows onions, watermelons and asparagus along the border of Idaho and Oregon, said he has been holding off shipping onions to retail distributors until freight costs go down.
Myers said transportation disruptions in the last three weeks, caused by a lack of truck drivers and recent highway-blocking storms, have led to a doubling of freight costs for fruit and vegetable producers, on top of already-elevated pandemic prices. “We typically will ship, East Coast to West Coast – we used to do it for about $7,000,” he said. “Today it’s somewhere between $18,000 and $22,000.”
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Birds Eye frozen vegetables maker Conagra Brands’ (CAG.N) CEO Sean Connolly told investors last week that supplies from its U.S. plants could be constrained for at least the next month due to Omicron-related absences.
Earlier this week, Albertsons (ACI.N) CEO Vivek Sankaran said he expects the supermarket chain to confront more supply chain challenges over the next four to six weeks as Omicron has put a dent in its efforts to plug supply chain gaps.
Shoppers on social media complained of empty pasta and meat aisles at some Walmart (WMT.N) stores; a Meijer store in Indianapolis was swept bare of chicken; a Publix in Palm Beach, Florida was out of bath tissue and home hygiene products while Costco (COST.O) reinstated purchase limits on toilet paper at some stores in Washington state.
The situation is not expected to abate for at least a few more weeks, Katie Denis, vice president of communications and research at the Consumer Brands Association said, blaming the shortages on a scarcity of labor.
The consumer-packaged goods industry is missing around 120,000 workers out of which only 1,500 jobs were added last month, she said, while the National Grocer’s Association said that many of its grocery store members were operating with less than 50% of their workforce capacity.
U.S. retailers are now facing roughly 12% out of stock levels on food, beverages, household cleaning and personal hygiene products compared to 7-10% in regular times.
The problem is more acute with food products where out of stock levels are running at 15%, the Consumer Brands Association said.
SpartanNash, a U.S. grocery distributor, last week said it has become harder to get supplies from food manufacturers, especially processed items like cereal and soup.
Consumers have continued to stock up on groceries as they hunker down at home to curb the spread of the Omicron-variant. Denis said demand over the last five months has been as high or higher than it had been in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.
Similar issues are being seen in other parts of the world.
In Australia, grocery chain operator Woolworths Group , said last week that more than 20% of employees at its distribution centers are off work because of COVID-19. In the stores, the virus has put at least 10% of staff out of action.
The company, on Thursday, reinstated a limit of two packs per customer across toilet paper and painkillers nationwide both in-store and online to deal with the staffing shortage.
In the U.S., recent snow and ice storms that snared traffic for hours along the East Coast also hampered food deliveries bound for grocery stores and distribution hubs. Those delays rippled across the country, delaying shipment on fruit and vegetables with a limited shelf life.
While growers with perishable produce are forced to pay inflated shipping rates to attract limited trucking supplies, producers like Myers are choosing to wait for backlogs to ease.
“The canned goods, the sodas, the chips – those things sat, because they weren’t willing to pay double, triple the freight, and their stuff doesn’t go bad in four days,” he said.
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Additional reporting by Praveen Paramasivam; Editing by Vanessa O’Connell and Diane Craft
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Bolivia’s lake Poopo dries up and scientists fear refill unlikely
Bolivia’s Lake Poopo was once a fountain of life for local inhabitants, who fished from its teeming waters and farmed along its banks. Now it is a desert.
Scientists say the one-time lake, which sprawls across Bolivia’s sun-drenched, high-altitude altiplano, has fallen victim to decades of water diversion for regional irrigation needs. And a warmer, drier climate has made its recovery increasingly unlikely.
“It’s like a perfect storm,” says Jorge Molina, a researcher with the Universidad Mayor de San Andres. “Every year that passes the situation gets worse.”
The lake, Bolivia’s second largest, is very shallow, and has traditionally ebbed and flowed, according to both scientists and the lake’s long-time Aymara inhabitants.
Valerio Rojas, who once made a living from fishing the lake, says village elders tell of the lake recharging every 50 years. But looking out across the parched, white-rimmed salt flat that remains, he has his doubts.
“Will the lake fill again? With this climate change and pollution, it seems to me that the weather can no longer be predicted,” Rojas said. “In our Aymara language it is said that: ‘Our mother earth is tired’.”
Scientists are also growing skeptical. Molina says the Andes are outpacing the global average temperature rise, especially during the day, which means evaporation has ramped up, making it especially hard for a shallow lake — and its flora and fauna — to survive.
“It is no longer a functional lake. A lake that dries up too often is no longer functional for fauna, flora and biodiversity,” Molina told Reuters.
The drought is also driving away the communities that once lived along its banks, says Benedicta Uguera, an indigenous woman from Untavi who once raised livestock on an island in the lake.
“The families decided to leave the island, because we cannot survive without water and there is no more life,” she said.