A group of Australian researchers were looking for lobster larvae.
Instead, they found a huge underwater volcano range they estimate to be millions of years old.
The four are calderas, bowl-shaped craters that happen when the land around an erupting volcano collapses. The largest is just over half a mile wide and rises about 2300 feet above the ocean floor.
Professor Iain Suthers from the University of New South Wales told the London Guardian newspaper he was stunned by the discovery.
“My jaw just dropped,” Suthers told Guardian Australia. “I immediately said, ‘What are they doing there and why didn’t we know about them before?’ It really backs up the statement that we know more about the surface of the moon than our sea floor.”
Suthers called the trip “enormously successful.”
“The voyage was enormously successful. Not only did we discover a cluster of volcanoes on Sydney’s doorstep, we were amazed to find that an eddy off Sydney was a hotspot for lobster larvae at a time of the year when we were not expecting them,” Professor Suthers said.
Suthers said that their research vessel can scan the ocean’s floor past their previous limit of 3,000 meters, meaning they can find more new structures off the Australian coast.
Australian officials say that five teenagers were arrested Saturday accused of plotting a terrorist attack on a Veterans’ Day ceremony.
The aim of the attack was police officers.
Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters that two of the 18 year olds were plotting an attack on the ANZAC Day ceremony in Melbourne. Two other 18 year olds and a 19 year old were arrested. All of the arrests took place in Melbourne.
“At this stage, we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police,” Gaughan said. “Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS-inspired.”
ANZAC Day is April 25th, the anniversary of the first major military action by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.
Two of the teens had connections to Numan Haider, an 18 year old who stabbed two police officers before being shot and killed in September.
Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told reporters the teens had been “on the radar” for months.
“This is a new paradigm for police,” Phelan said. “These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple. … All you need these days is a knife, a flag and a camera and one can commit a terrorist act.”
A former model and DJ from Australia that no one knew was fighting for the terrorist group ISIS in Syria has been killed.
The parents of Sharky Jama were informed of their son’s death via text message on Monday according to the Somali Australian Council of Victoria.
Hussein Harakow of the SACV told CNN that Jama had disappeared in August of last year with a former business student named Yusuf Yusuf. He had been living in the city of Falluja. Despite making pro-ISIS comments on social media, his family had no idea he was fighting on the front lines with the terrorists.
“He never explained what’s happening over there or what he’s doing,” Harakow told CNN. “The family lived a simple life. They never discussed these sorts of things.”
The news of the young man’s death comes as Australian leaders are expressing concerns about radicalized residents returning from the Middle East. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott addressed the media after the reports of Jama’s death.
“I have a very simple message for those who might be thinking of going overseas to join these terrorist groups: Don’t,” he said. “They are death cults. … They are not about religion, they are just about death, and it’s just as likely to be your death as anyone else’s death.”
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that as many as 90 Australians were fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
An 11-year-old autistic child was found alive after four nights alone in an Australian forest.
Police Commander Rick Nugent said a police helicopter spotted Luke Shambrook about two miles from his family’s campsite in Fraser National Park in Victoria.
“I just out of the corner of my eye caught a little flash of something,” Sergeant Brad Pascoe of the police Air Wing said. “It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make me get the guys to turn the aircraft around and have a further look. As we got closer and were able to have a better look at him, we saw that it was a person on the ground and we were able to train the camera in and confirm that it was actually Luke.”
“All of us in the crew are parents ourselves and we can only imagine what the parents of Luke have been going through. It’s just such a reward for everybody’s efforts.”
Luke was unable to communicate with his rescuers, a common thing for children who have autism. However, he did drink water and ate an offered bread roll. Because of Luke’s limited communication ability, police say it’s likely they will never know all the boy faced during this ordeal.
Nugent told reporters the boy was suffering from hypothermia and dehydration but that overall is well. Temperatures in the region fell to 48 degrees in the evening.
“[Luke is] one courageous, strong, determined young man”, Nugent said. “Four days, four nights in this terrain, it really is a miracle that he’s alive and well.”
Cyclone Pam slowly churned over Vanuatu with violence so intense that it completely destroyed all buildings on some of the nation’s outer islands.
Relief workers are reporting entire towns flattened and widespread destruction. They say that it could be weeks before the number of dead can be counted. Radio and telephone communications have been down hampering rescue and relief efforts.
Survivors in outer islands have had to flash light using mirrors or have created giant letter “H”s from debris to get the attention of passing aircraft.
Australian foreign minster Julie Bishop said that flyovers of military aircraft make it appear that more than 80 percent of homes have been completely destroyed throughout the island nation.
“We understand that the reconnaissance imagery shows widespread devastation,” Bishop said. “Not only buildings flattened — palm plantations, trees. It’s quite a devastating sight.”
Officials in the nation’s capital of Port Vila say that 90 percent of the town has been destroyed and that the airport is so badly damaged planes cannot currently land. The city’s hospital survived but only one doctor survived the storm.
An Australian couple announced they aborted their healthy baby because doctors said that he would have a deformed hand.
The baby, who would have had no problem living a full life with good health, would have had a problem with a “cleft” left hand.
The couple, known as “Frank” and “Cindy”, said that they thought it might be possible the child would have a “difficult” life and that other children would be making fun of him.
“I grew up with many people who were disabled, and… there was discrimination,” “Cindy” said. “I didn’t want my child to be discriminated against. The problem is… obvious because it is the fingers, and I think the child would have a very hard life.”
The couple said that they feel relieved.
“We were being told that our only option was to give birth to a baby that we did not wish to give birth to at all. We felt we have been forgotten and abandoned through the political and judicial uncertainty of the abortion laws,” Frank said.
Doctors made a point to note there was nothing life threatening about the child’s condition.
In the wake of the Islamic terror attack on a Sydney café, local officials are confirming the acts of bravery committed by the two hostages killed during the assault.
The first victim was a 38-year-old mother of three who died protecting a pregnant co-worker. Katrina Dawson was a lawyer who worked in the central business district opposite the café. She had been drinking coffee with Julie Taylor, a fellow lawyer who is pregnant, and when terrorist Man Haron Monis began firing she used her body to shield her friend.
The other victim was Tori Johnson, the manager of the Lindt Café. Johnson jumped forward when the terrorist began to fire at the hostages in an attempt to wrestle the gun away from the attacker. He suffered fatal wounds during the fight with Monis.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott admitted to the press that the attacker was not on the terrorism watch list. He could not explain why the openly hostile jihadist was not on the list.
The London Daily Mail said that Monis was on bail related to charges that he had plotted to kill a woman at the time of his assault on the café.
A jihadist held a group of Sydney, Australia residents hostage for 16 hours before police stormed the building and freed them.
The raid took place just before 2:30 a.m. local time at the Lindt Chocolate Café. A terrorist named Man Haron Monis, an Iranian who had sent hate mail to the families of fallen soldiers, has been identified as the jihadist.
The terrorist and at least one other person are dead. Paramedics took four hostages from the café and sources say that three are in critical condition.
The gunman had forced the hostages to stand in front of the store’s windows with their hands pressed against them. A few hours into the incident he placed a jihadist flag in the café window.
Australia’s Network Ten reported that Monis was armed with a shotgun and a machete. He demanded to speak directly to Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Monis emigrated to Australia in 1996 and was known for his extremist views.
A group of Australians are calling for the Bible to be banned at retail outlets that are refusing to carry a sexually explicit, violent video game.
The anti-Bible group is claiming that the Bible is just as bad as the video game and therefore should be banned at any location that does not carry the game. They say that Christians are just trying to earn “God points” by obeying scripture that calls for violence against women.
Kmart and Target stores in the country announced they will not be carrying a new version of the video game Grand Theft Auto Five, which was released last month for two new game systems. The ban came after a petition of 50,000 asked for the game to not be carried because it is a “sickening game that encourages players to commit sexual violence and kill women.”
“Games like this are grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women. It is fueling the epidemic of violence experienced by so many girls and women in Australia—and globally,” reads the petition.
“We have firsthand experience of this kind of sexual violence. It haunts us, and we’ve been trying to rebuild our lives ever since,” the petition continues. “Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure—to see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm.”
A 30-year-old woman in Sydney, Australia is facing serious charges after police say they threw her newborn son in a roadside ditch and left him to die.
The week old child is listed in “serious but stable condition” at Westmead Children’s Hospital. Cyclists on the M7 Motorway heard the child’s crying from an 8 foot deep drain.
Saifale Nai did not appear in court on the attempted murder charge against her and the court denied bail.
“Police will allege the baby, believed to have been born on Monday (Nov. 17), was placed into the drain on Tuesday,” the police statement on the charges stated.
Nai faces 25 years in prison if convicted.
Police say that it took six men to lift the 440 pound concrete lid over the drain. The baby reportedly was stuffed through a narrow drain opening.
