The Structure of the Earth-
Planet Earth The Structure of the Earth- The Crust: This region is thin compared to the other layers in the Earth. It varies in thickness from 10km deep to 65km deep. The crust is made up of lighter rocks that "float" on top of the mantle. This layer includes the continents as well as the rock under the oceans. The thickness of the crust might be a little deceiving... to put it into perspective, we have built many deep mines but NONE have yet reached the mantle! The Mantle: This region lies under the crust and is approximately 2900km thick. The mantle is much denser than the crust (which is why the crust floats on top) and has a texture much like tar. The rock in this region is rich in compounds made from iron, magnesium, and silicon, which accounts for why it is denser than the crust. The Core: This region is divided into two parts. The outer part is called the Outer Core. It is about 2100km thick and made of liquid nickel and iron. The inner part is called the Inner Core and it is the real centre of the Earth. This part is about 2800km in diameter and is made of solid iron and nickel. Plate tectonics Plate tectonics are a reasonably new theory that has revolutionized the way geologists thinks about the Earth. According to the theory, the surface of the Earth is broken into large plates. The size and position of these plates change over time. The
Mount St. Helens - Natural disasters.
All the below text is my own and has not been copied in bulk, except from page 15 onwards, and text in italic which is a definition. MOUNT ST HELENS Where is Mount St. Helens? Mount St Helens was 9,667 feet high volcano located at 46.20 N by 122.18 W in southwest Washington State, approximately a 3-hour drive from Seattle, 90 miles away and a 2.5 hour drive from Portland, Oregon 65 miles away. The volcano is in The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. On the North American plate, located near a convergent plate boundary. In an area called the cascades. I saw the volcano in the year 2000 when I went on a holiday around America. Formed from an earlier volcano that existed 25,000 years ago, but St. Helens is relatively new. In fact, younger than the pyramids of Egypt that are 4,000 years old Mount St Helens was a stratovolcano, made of layers of lava, pyroclastic deposits also known as tephras, and mudflow deposits. To the natives- The Sanpoil Indians the volcano was sacred; they had seen its previous eruptions. They had different names for the volcano, Some of the names given to the mountain were Lawelatla ("One From Whom Smoke Comes"), Louwala-Clough ("Smoking Mountain"), Tah-one-lat-clah ("Fire Mountain") and the most commonly used name today Loo-wit ("Keeper of the Fire"). The local tribes would not fish in Spirit Lake, believing
Discuss the view that poverty is the real killer in earthquake disasters
Discuss the view that poverty is the real killer in earthquake disasters. (40 marks) Seismic events prove that it is a problematic for the world's population and produce devastating effects on the lives of everyone involved. However it is often said that LEDCs suffer much more from the effects of earthquakes than MEDCs. Whilst this is a generalisation it is probably true, at least in terms of the human cost. Poverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. There are several levels of poverty from an individual to national level and earthquake disasters impact at all levels. The 2010 Haiti earthquake struck in the most densely populated area of the country, As More than 78% per cent of Haitian residents live in poverty and Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere the buildings in Port-Au-Prince and other areas of Haiti were in very poor condition in general and were not designed or constructed to be earthquake resistant. The primary earthquake hazard directly responsible for mortality is surface seismic waves which cause ground shaking. This poses a huge hazard as buildings and other structures collapse, killing or injuring their occupants. This was the case in Sichuan, China in 2008 where severe ground shaking was the direct cause of death, injury
Earthquakes - the diverse variety of physical (geological and geographic) and human (economic, political and historical) factors that influence how significant an earthquake can be
Earthquake Show how the impact of earthquakes varies with the scale of the hazard & other factors. There are a diverse variety of both physical (geological and geographic) and human (economic, political and historical) factors that influence how significant an earthquake can be. The magnitude of the earthquake can be measured by seismographs using a logarithmic Richter scale, measuring the earthquake strength. However this often bears little resemblance to the actual impact of the earthquake, (which can be measured using the descriptive / qualitative Modified Mercalli scale which measures the physical effect of the earthquake) for the following reasons... One of the ideas that must be considered is how the magnitude of the earthquake is not directly proportional to the intensity of the earthquake as there is a considerable distance between the focus (point of fracture) and epicentre (point on surface vertically above focus on earth surface). If the focal point is 'shallow' (under 70km deep) then the impact of the earthquake is greatest, but if the point is e.g. 500km deep then potential impact is reduced. However it is usually accepted as a generalisation that a more powerful earthquake can potentially cause greater damage. Evidence clearly shows how this is not an accurate generalisation - whilst a 1989 Loma Prieta, USA earthquake of Richter Scale magnitude 7.1 caused 67
Why did so many people die in the 1995 Kobe Earthquake?
Why did so many people die in the 1995 Kobe Earthquake? The Kobe Earthquake disaster took many innocent lives from the Japanese people in 1995. The main life loss was due to primary and secondary, physical and human factors. So throughout I will state some of the factors which contributed to the very high death toll. Kobe was very close to the epicentre of the earthquake, meaning that they took the heaviest part of the shock and the earth's crust split. This brought down buildings in the centre of the town, the main port of Kobe was also destroyed, as the plates sub ducted some of the ground liquefied and part of the area fell into the sea. The size of the earthquake caused buildings to collapse which meant the people within them perished, many of the older buildings were built with concrete roofs and the majority which were built before 1960 collapsed along with the wooden framed buildings. As the earthquake hit, gas pipes underneath the ground were hit by the tremors, this set off fires throughout the city. Due to all the buildings that had collapsed, emergency services could not reach the victims with ease, they either could not reach some of the survivors or had to take a long diversion to get to them another way. People who were trapped under rubble therefore could not be saved so many lives were lost due to the vehicles being blocked off by the primary human factor of
How Can Natural Disasters Be Avoided, or
HOW CAN NATURAL DISASTERS BE AVOIDED, OR THEIR EFFECTS AT LEAST REDUCED? Natural disasters kill more people on a global scale than wars. According to the United Nations, in the last decade alone, natural disasters have caused the deaths of more than a million people, affected 1.8 billion people in terms of loss of health, homes and livelihoods, and cost $685 billion in economic and structural damage. It is virtually impossible to prevent natural disasters such as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Such events are caused by climatic and geological occurrences that are inevitable and cannot be avoided. Hence, our focus should be placed on lessening the severity of the impact they have on every aspect of our lives. We can successfully reduce their damaging effects by implementing effective monitoring and warning systems, building codes, flood defences, comprehensive disaster management plans and educating citizens on disaster preparedness. The best way to minimise the effects of a natural disaster is to establish early detection systems that allow for advance warning to be given to national and global communities. Sophisticated seismic monitoring networks can identify significant movements of the earth's crust, therefore providing early notification of an imminent volcanic eruption. Close examination of the boundaries between tectonic
The occurence of the earthquake
The occurrence of the earthquake hazard and the highest level of vulnerability is centred upon the economically developing nations. Discuss the truth of this statement and make recommendations concerning how LEDC's might manage the earthquake hazards. Earthquake hazards are one of the three geological hazards that occur. Earthquakes have lots of energy that cause destruction on the planet. There are up to 3000 earthquakes per year and about 30 cause serious damage. Most of the damage occurs in LEDC's because poor infrastructure and housing is not earthquake proof. The way forward is to manage earthquakes hazards in LEDC's so when they do strike the area is not likely to suffer lots of damage and loss of life. The earth is made up of many different plate tectonics, some large like the Pacific plate and some small like the Nazca plate. Most activity happens are plate boundaries and there are three types of boundaries. Destructive plate boundaries are where one plate the less dense Nazca (sima) is sub ducting under another more dense plate, South American (sial). Conservative plate boundaries merely slide place each other and are quite inactive. Earthquakes are very rare here compared to destructive plate boundaries. There is also constructive plate boundaries, where plates are pulling apart and sea trenches and ridges appear. When friction builds up between the two
comparing shrewsbury an old town an telfrd a purpose build new town
I have collected the results for my three hypotheses by using a questionnaire, audit, land use map, pedestrian count and the yellow pages/yell.com. I did all of these in both Shrewsbury and Telford. The question that I am answering is "What are the similarities and differences in landuse and service provision between a 'new town' Telford and a traditional 'organic' town Shrewsbury?" . My first hypothesis is: Telford will have better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury because it is a new town. 2. My second hypothesis is: People will travel further to Shrewsbury than Telford because it has a better range of shopping facilities. 3. My third hypothesis is: Telford offers a better service provision than Shrewsbury because it is a purpose built new town. To answer my first hypothesis "Telford will have better leisure facilities than Shrewsbury because it is a new town." I have produced a questionnaire to survey 11 people; I created an audit, researched leisure facilities on yell.com and the yellow pages. I then used these results to make tables and graphs (these are on pages.....) My first question "How did you travel here today?" will help me to see what methods of travel people use. In Shrewsbury no-one travelled by bike, train or other. One person walked, three people travelled by bus and eight people travelled by car. In Telford no-one travelled by bike or other. One person
With Relation to different natural disasters, discuss their impacts and how they may vary between LEDC's and MEDC's.
With Relation to different natural disasters, discuss their impacts and how they may vary between LEDC's and MEDC's. The risk from natural is increasing all the time, more hurricanes, and floods are predicted to result from global climate change. At the moment, on average, each year natural disasters leave around 4 million people homeless and kill 128,000 people world wide, this is not even taking into consideration the damage that they perform in the process, and the cost that this causes the worlds economy. Each year the developing countries accept $35 billion dollars in damages caused by natural disasters from the rest of the world. There is little doubt that natural disasters have a significant impact on the world, whether developing or already developed. The extent to of this effect will always depend on several things, where about in the world that the hazard occurs is the main factor i.e. a developed or developing country. This can determine how prepared the area that it occurs is, and so how bad the impact on the country is, because obviously almost always the more prepared a country is for an event, then the less drastic it will be when it finally hit, as they can take adequate precautions to try and prevent it causing complete devastation. Not only will this differ in the two countries, but also the knowledge of the public will change, again disadvantaging the less
Why does Japan have a strong economy?
) Why does Japan have a strong economy? From around the middle of the 1970's, Japan began to develop extra trades as exports exceeded imports. Japan is split up into 4 islands- Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu and Hokkaido. Most of the trade occurs in the island of Honshu, Kobe is in this island. Kobe is one of Japan's biggest steel makers and handles more than 12% of Japan's exports. Japan spends around $2900 on imports from a variety of different countries, for example they would import cars like the BMW and Volkswagen from Germany. Japan gain around $2700 from exported goods, these include playstations and mobiles. Japanese manufacturers of such products as electrical equipment and cars are moving production facilities overseas, moreover, to make up for the costs of the stronger yen--which is a result of Japan's large trade leftover to begin with. In April 1996 to March 1997 investment in overseas factories topped ¥ 5.4 trillion ($45 billion). 99.7% of Japan's oil comes from oversea. The big companies in Japan such as Sony and Panasonic import goods to over 200 different countries across the globe, Japan make a lot of money through this. In 1992 Japan: - Produced more cars than any other country in the world - Produced 15% of the world's steel - Launched more ships than anyone else - Produced more televisions and radios than the whole of Europe - Produced more watches
