VOLCANOES, EARTHQUAKES & TSUNAMIS

[Michael Grove]

  30 years passed already - BUT forever in my memory

   Rex Beddis was essentially a humanitarian - his Sense of Place

   series for Key Stage 3 Geography students - published by OUP in 1981  

   and 1982 - placed an emphasis on the understanding of ideas rather

   than the memorisation of facts - and was designed to open the MINDs

   of those that read his books such that they were awakened to the fact

   that we are but ONE family ever responsible for the ever changing

   future of this world - and in so doing the series helped to develop a

   wide range of skills and ideas amongst its readership. 

   [IT] was in[DEED] an honour to be invited by OUP to work with Rex and

   Rod Lord on the development of an IDEA to create an exemplar version  

   of an OUP Interactive Videodisc Project, which would introduce children    

   to the basics of plate tectonics and the geological reasons why Volcanoes,

   Earthquakes and Tsunamis happened.

    

   I am therefore quite certain that Rex would agree that this particular 

   most student-focused introduction to volcanoes, earthquakes and 

   tsunamis on the market, is a worthy successor to OUP's first attempt.

   Written by David Rothery, a volcanologist, geologist, planetary scientist    

   and Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University,  

   Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis  gives you all the knowledge

   and information you need to succeed in grasping the subject quickly

   and easily.

   

    The Pacific Ring of Fire, as illustrated above is a horseshoe pattern of

   plate tectonic boundaries. The most violent catastrophes occur at

   convergent boundaries along the ring. When plates collide together, 

   chains of volcanoes. are created. Almost all plate tectonics along the

   Ring of Fire collide and sink into the ocean floor as convergent plates.

   In fact, about 90% of the world’s earthquakes occur at these zones of

   subduction along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

 

   Hidden Volcanoes - Britain has a volcanic past to rival any of the world’s

   current hotspots, and the clues to this explosive pre-history lie beneath

   some of our most iconic landscapes. Starting out in Edinburgh, Tony

   Robinson treks, sails and flies around the British Isles in search of this

   fiery legacy to find the forgotten volcanoes that have not only shaped

   our land, but also forged our history.

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[Michael Grove]

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake hit the Kanto region around 6:22 p.m. on Saturday, recording a 4 on Japan’s quake intensity scale of 7 in southern Chiba Prefecture and 3 in the 23 wards of central Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said. The epicenter was located off Chiba Prefecture. No tsunami warning has been issued. 

When Japan’s earthquake-battered populace feels the ground shake, it looks to its TVs and Twitter feeds to check not only the magnitude, but the shindo, or shaking intensity.

On every TV channel, digital overlays report the region hit and show waves of numbers rippling away from the epicenter: one area might register as shindo level 3, defined as “felt by most people in that zone,” another as level 4 (“most people are startled”). The first magnitude estimates typically come later.

The quake came as Typhoon Hagibis, one of the most powerful storms to hit the area in years, was set to make landfall further west in the Kanto region. 

[Michael Grove]

Surprise undersea volcano could offer unique window into Earth’s interior by Akila Raghavan

[Michael Grove]

In 2015, a German research team sent a submersible to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. West of Peru, the camera-mounted robot explored a vast expanse of sea floor, 4 kilometers (more than 2 miles) deep, known for its extreme flatness. “It’s very dark,” recalls Antje Boetius, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. “Then you switch on the lights of the robot and see a new landscape that no one has ever seen before.”

One feature in particular took Boetius by surprise: a small mountain rising 300 meters from the seabed, its steep slopes covered in lava shaped like pillows, and anomalous dark veins that are likely to be magma deposits. The team had discovered an undersea volcano, or seamount, on an abyssal plain—a geologically inactive region that shouldn’t have any.

In a new study, the scientists suggest the seamount could represent a completely new type of seafloor volcanism, fueled by a hidden, shallow reservoir of magma. Evidence of isolated volcanism such as this could be a unique window into Earth’s interior, says Adam Soule, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay, and director of the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, who was not involved with the study.

[Michael Grove]

In 2015, a German research team sent a submersible to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. West of Peru, the camera-mounted robot explored a vast expanse of sea floor, 4 kilometers (more than 2 miles) deep, known for its extreme flatness. “It’s very dark,” recalls Antje Boetius, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute. “Then you switch on the lights of the robot and see a new landscape that no one has ever seen before.”

One feature in particular took Boetius by surprise: a small mountain rising 300 meters from the seabed, its steep slopes covered in lava shaped like pillows, and anomalous dark veins that are likely to be magma deposits. The team had discovered an undersea volcano, or seamount, on an abyssal plain—a geologically inactive region that shouldn’t have any.

In a new study, the scientists suggest the seamount could represent a completely new type of seafloor volcanism, fueled by a hidden, shallow reservoir of magma. Evidence of isolated volcanism such as this could be a unique window into Earth’s interior, says Adam Soule, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay, and director of the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute, who was not involved with the study.

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