Volcanic Case Studies

Objectives

* To explore the types of volcanic hazard, magma and locations of volcanic activity for both volcanoes

* To understand the eruptions and effects of the eruption in each case

* To acquire a critical understanding of the risk, vulnerability, and monitoring of these volcanoes

* To gain an understanding of the ongoing hazards and effects on life in these environments

This is a structured research task: the resources have mostly been located for you and the questions are designed to help you to structure your notes. Not all the information required can be found in the textbooks so you will need internet access to complete this work (there is no information on the recent Nyiragongo eruption in the textbooks obviously!). I have found that www.google.com is the best search engine to use for this task and there are lots of images to look at on some of the sites listed there.

Pinatubo Resources

Bishop p 81-83 and 30-35

Nagle p 27-28

World map of country locations

* http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/pinatubo/ Do you want to know what a lahar looks like? Or what the eruption was like - this is a Pinatubo gallery

* http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/fact-sheet/fs113-97/ USGS report on 1991 eruption and continuing hazards

* http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/fact-sheet/fs115-97/ USGS on effects of monitoring and warning systems

* http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/fact-sheet/fs114-97/ USGS report on the lahars in the 1991 eruption, their cause, their effects and continuing hazards

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/contents.html This is an amazing site of a book contents, it is for students with further interests, see for example the information on people in the town of Luzon

* Denotes important information

June 12 1991 explosion of Pinatubo volcano.

Source: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/pinatubo/volcano/

Questions

? Describe the natural processes and tectonic situation that led to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

? Describe the type of eruption and volcanic hazards associated with the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

? Apart from pyroclastic surges lahars present the greatest threat to human life. How were lahars created in the Pinatubo eruption?

What effects did they have?

How are these effects being mitigated?

? Describe the ways in which scientists were able to monitor the mountain and the actions which were the results of this monitoring. Do you think that these were effective?

? Describe the long term effects of the volcanic hazards resulting from the 1991 eruption and continued vulnerability of populations.

Nyiragongo Volcano Resources

Map of the Nyiragongo area showing A-type (tectonic) earthquakes, November-December 1994. Events cluster along a NNW-SSE strike at depths of ~15 km. Crosses mark locations of telemetering seismic stations, and solid circles indicate major refugee camps. Modified from Hamaguchi and others (1995). (source: www.volcano.si.edu/gvp/volcano/region02)

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Africa/

http://volcano.si.edu/gvp/volcano/region02/

http://iris.washington.edu/NEWS/congo.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1773000/1773206.stm

http://hakone.eri.n-tokyo.ac.ip/vrc/report/VII-1.html

http://who.int/disasters/emergency.cfm?emergencyID=30&doctypeID=2

http://reliefweb.int

http://stone.cidi.org/disaster/drcongo/

Questions

? Describe the natural processes and tectonic situation that led to the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo.

? Describe the type of eruption and volcanic hazards associated with the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo.

* Nyiragongo erupts fairly regularly. How recent are the eruptions? Goma, on the shore of L. Kivu, is normally a town of 500,000 people. Why do so many people risk living in such a vulnerable area? Have there been any attempts to mitigate the effects of eruptions?

? Describe the ways in which scientists were able to monitor the mountain and the actions that were the results of this monitoring. Do you think that these were effective?

? Describe the long-term effects of the volcanic hazards resulting from the 2002 eruption and the continued vulnerability of the local populations.

For both volcanoes:

Lloyd Timberlake, who has written widely on environmental hazards asserts that, "Volcanic eruptions are not 'serious' disasters in terms of numbers of people killed or even affected."

Write an essay discussing this statement with reference to the impacts of the Pinatubo eruption and the eruption of Nyiragongo. You may support your conclusion by reference to other volcanic eruptions that you know about.

Later in the course you will be able to compare the impacts of other hazards. At this stage, your essay should concentrate on whether the eruptions were 'serious' for the communities and environments affected by these two volcanoes.