In Rin Nadeshico’s computer graphic illustrations, Mt. Fuji looms in the distance as high school girls lounge around with various oversized creatures.
Lots more at Rin Nadeshico’s website.
Fuji Sabo Works, an organization established by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) to fight erosion on Mt. Fuji, has released video of a powerful slush avalanche that occurred on Fuji’s western side at 8:09 AM on March 25.
Slush avalanches happen when cold, dry snow suddenly becomes saturated with water. About 90 millimeters (3.5 inches) of rain had fallen before the avalanche occurred.
The avalanche took place in an area on Mt. Fuji called the Osawa Collapse (Osawa Kuzure), a 2.1-kilometer (1.3-mile) long gully that begins near the summit and runs down the western side. The gully is up to 500 meters (1,640 feet) wide and 150 meters (490 feet) deep in some places, and according to this Fuji Sabo Works project outline (PDF), a total of 75 million cubic meters (2.6 billion cubic feet) — equivalent to 60 Tokyo Domes — of soil has been displaced. An estimated 150,000 cubic meters (5.3 million cubic feet) of soil washes out through the Osawa Collapse each year.
Check out video of the avalanche on Youtube (with smashing soundtrack by Caspar Brotzmann) or on the Fuji Sabo Works website (no audio).
[Via Slashdot Japan]
On February 15, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) exhibited the first photographic images captured by the Daichi advanced land observing satellite launched in January. Daichi is equipped with the three types of sensors, including the world’s first Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument of Stereo Mapping (PRISM), which simultaneously captures images from three directions to create 3D images of the Earth’s surface.
The PRISM images, taken on the morning of the February 14, show the area around Mt. Fuji and Shimizu Port in Shizuoka Prefecture. Objects as small as 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) across are visible.
Daichi’s 3D images of the area around Mt. Fuji show Kofu City’s urban sprawl, the Fuji Five Lakes (Fujigoko), and the detailed terrain of the snow-capped peak of Mt. Fuji. Small buildings and roads are visible in the images, which were taken from an altitude of 700 kilometers (435 miles).
Daichi uses PRISM to create maps on the scale of 1:25,000. The satellite is expected to play a key role in disaster relief by quickly gathering image data of areas hit by large-scale disasters.
[Source: Mainichi Shimbun via Yahoo! News Japan]
UPDATE: Check out the 3D video compiled from the images (MPEG: 3.6M)
