Category Archives: Lithosphere

These sites are primarily relevant to our understanding of the Earth’s crust, rock, and soil systems.

Diking: A New Source for Earthquake Activity

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Researchers from Penn. State University have discovered a new geological source for strong earthquakes known as “diking”. Diking can be found all over the globe, but it is a phenomenon that is primarily focused along divergent plate boundaries (e.g. East Africa’s Great Rift Valley). This phenomenon occurs when magma rises from diverging plate boundaries in order to fill empty spaces. The magma then proceeds to cool and form vertical intrusions known as dikes. Although diking is a known phenomenon, “it has not been observed by geophysical techniques…”.

Penn State researchers led a study that explored the connection between two natural disasters that occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002. Chrsitelle Wauthier, the assistant professor of Geosciences at Penn. State, led the study in East Africa. The research team studied the eruption of the Nyiragongo Volcano on January 17th, killing over 100 and leaving around 100,000 homeless, and 6.2 magnitude earthquake which hit the town of Kalehe 8 months later.

Although the research team understood that the entrance of magma to the Earth’s crust creates stress and generates seismicity, they were still perplexed by the magnitude of the earthquake that hit Kalehe after the eruption of Nyiragongo. Earthquakes created by the entrance of magma to the Earth’s crust are usually small in magnitude, but the earthquake that hit Kalehe was quite high.

The research team therefore concluded that the rising magma that created dikes were putting pressure on adjacent rocks in the Earth’s crust. The increased pressure of these adjacent rocks accumulated stress upon rocks found on a fault in Kalehe. Therefore, the research team discovered  that dikes have the potential to trigger much larger earthquakes than previously believed.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160208124248.htm

 

East Africa’s Great Rift Valley: A Complex Rift System

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My website came from: http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml

In East Africa there is an area where Earth’s tectonic forces are currently trying to create new plates by splitting apart old ones. This rift area is defined by a fracture in the earth’s surface that widens over time and thus becomes a new plate. The two main plates at play are the Nubian Plate, which makes up most of Africa and the Somalian Plate, which is the plate pulling away. Contained within the area of these splitting plates includes Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

There is an ongoing debate among scientists about how the rift has formed. The most popular model assumes that the elevated heat flow coming from the earth’s mantle is causing a pair of thermal bulges in central Kenya and areas north of Kenya. This heating process causes heats up the overlaying crust causing it to expand and fracture. The expansion further stretches the land and leads to the formation of oceanic crust, which creates the birth of a new ocean basin.

This area is represents a unique geological setting that may also provide some insight into the process of human evolution. Many early hominid fossils have been found within and around the East African Rift System. Since the structure and evolution of the rift may have created climate changes, early hominids would have needed to adapt to such changes. The alterations in climate structure may have driven humans to become bipedal and more brainy as they tried to adapt the changing environment.

ScienceDaily: Your resource for the latest research news

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ScienceDaily is one of the most popular scientific websites. About 5,000,000 people visit this website monthly. One of the reasons that people prefer this website for their scientific research is that it is well organized and easy to search for topics that they want. The site has five big categories on the top: Health, Physical/Tech, Environment, Society/Education, and Quirky. There are more specified categories below these five categories like Space and Matters, Animals and Plants.

For example, if you are looking for a resource about Mars, you will go to Physical/Tech, Space and Matters, and click Mars. There is a research about Marsh might has a salty water. It provides summary of the news and information about the laboratory where the research was done. You will see the recent researches about Mars and the related stories additionally on the right side. In addition, “Related stories” section that recommends further research is shown based on your search topic. It helps you to gather more related information about the topic and to develop your study once you search, so that you do not have to search several times.

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The website is designed well for the young people who are interested in scientific issues. It has a Facebook page, Twitter, and Google+ so that you can get the latest news through them. And the website allows you to share the news on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ simply clicking “Share this”.

The website is useful for our course, Geography 250 because it has great amount of resources about physical geography including Atmospheric, Biospheric, Hydrospheric, and Lithospheric news. In Space & Time section, there are detailed resources about space that can be linked with what we learned in chapter 3, the atmospheric composition. The earthquake news of the website announces a recent issue about the earthquake like Japan Quake and Tsunami Spurred Global Warming which can be associated with Chapter 12.

BiosphereSmart

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The website that I chose is an interactive tour of the world. The purpose of the website is to visually show how climate change has affected or will affect the Earth and its systems.  It’s also provides a good visual summary of how much humans have impacted these systems. It offers 4 categories to choose from: Changing World, Climate Change, Biosphere reserves, and Help greening. In changing world, users can choose from one of Earth’s 4 systems: Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere, and Biosphere as well as a 5th one, Antroposphere. Within each system, users can choose a variety of topics that are associated with each system and can visually see the distribution or levels of each topic around the world. Climate change category is of course all about climate change and it’s causes. Users can visually see all the changes that occur with climate change and where on the planet will be most affected. Biosphere reserves category shows the many reserves and world heritage sites on the planet today and their boundaries. Finally the last category, Help greening, talks about how humans can help to slow down climate change and make a contribution to the healthiness of the Earth.

 

This is a really good website in which it isn’t just about giving facts and information but provide visually appealing graphs/data/pictures, allowing users to quickly determine where on the Earth each topic is occurring. It provides a sense of scale. I really liked the website because instead of actually reading about what’s going on in the planet, I get to actually see how much damage is occurring to the world and where. And so this website relates to everything that we have been learning in class.

http://www.biospheresmart.org/#

 

Ocean Observatories Initiative

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In the well-known television and film series, Star Trek, space is often referred to as the “final frontier.” However, much closer to home, the earth’s oceans remain relatively un-explored and a major mystery for scientists, geographers and oceanographers today. The website I reviewed is dedicated to a project aimed at answering the unanswered questions of the deep seas.

 

The website, http://www.interactiveoceans.washington.edu is designed to inform the public about the National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative. According to the website, a greater knowledge of the ocean’s interrelated systems is vital for increased understanding of effects on biodiversity, global warming, ocean and coastal ecosystems, environmental health and climate. Furthermore, the website stresses the need for more real time data, over extended periods of time, so that we can be better prepared for future catastrophic oceanic events. 

 

In order to accomplish these tasks, the National Science Foundation has created the mission of designing and constructing a U.S. regional cabled ocean observatory in the Northeast Pacific Ocean that will serve researchers, students, educators, policymakers, and the public. These cable networks will provide significant electrical power and high telecommunications bandwidth in real time to an array of sensors located on the sea floor and throughout the water column. The hope is that these cable systems will enable scientists to understand more fully the major ocean currents, active earthquake zones, creation of new seafloor, and marine plant and animal environments. 

 

The first cable ocean observatory to be implemented will be launched with nearly 900 kilometers of cable across the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, running from a shore station in Pacific City, Oregon, out to the Juan de Fuca Ridge and south along the Cascadia subduction zone to Hydrate Ridge.

The website includes links to pages discussing what the project is, the technology and instruments involved, maps of where the sites will be, the research that the cable systems will provide, how it can be used as an educational too, data already collected, and a gallery of photos and maps. The picture below shows the essentials for the cable system.

This website was very interesting, and I highly recommend it if you are at all wondering how we are going to be monitoring oceans and oceanic events in the future (like ocean crust earthquakes and tsunamis).

 

Combining Geography and Art

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In science, findings and knowledge are usually spread through papers and reports that are usually contained within the scientific community. Terrain.org is an online journal that helps ordinary people, environment enthusiasts, and experts spread their thoughts and findings through a very different channel: art.

On Terrain you can find literary art like poems and prose; you can find visual art like photographs and videos; or you can read informational pieces through nonfiction work, columns, interviews, and articles about urban centers. Terrain tries to connect the physical and natural environment to the built and human environment. Readers and viewers can really gain insight on issues involving these two contrasting realms. Terrain says that “the works contained within Terrain.org ultimately examine the physical realm around us, and how those environments influence us and each other physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.”

Although the works are more personal pieces and not based on experimental findings, all topics pertain to either environmental/geographical issues or an individuals personal feelings on the topic. It’s a unique space and translator for the natural environment and gives a different perspective to physical geography than what we usually encounter in class.

Suggested Pieces:

BioMap2: Conservation Roadmap for Massachusetts

Antarctica: A Year in Photos by Ben Adkinson

Interview with Andres Duany ( Founder of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company: the architectural firm in charge of the East End Transformation Project in Richmond)

 

“How Stuff Works:” Volcanoes

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The Website that I reviewed was from the Science portion of the website “How Stuff Works.” Specifically it is an interactive model and game called ‘Volcano Explorer.’ It is both extremely informative and interesting. They have a rotative model of the Earth that describes the structure of tectonic plates and global distribution of volcanoes worldwide. Additionally, they have interactive tabs that discuss the different types of volcanoes and how they work by using animations, as well as tabs to describe what the inside of a volcano looks like, in addition to an interactive description of the interior of the Earth. Each of these tabs has a bunch of sub-tabs which describe and visually animate the creation process and eruption process of these volcanoes. These are really cool learning aids. Finally, the game is probably the best part. You can actually create your own volcano. You set the viscosity and gas content of the volcano, and the animation responds by visually showing what the volcano itself would look like, what type of volcano you just created, where a comparable example can be found on Earth, and shows an animation of this style of volcano erupting.

I think that this website was both very fun and very informative. Although the interactive volcano game was just a section of the website, there were many other Earth system animations and interactive diagrams that were very cool as well. Even though it was the science tab on the “How Stuff Works” website, the vast majority of the content related to Earth Science or Physical Geography. The beauty of this website is that it combines education on a very detailed level with a fun game. Being able to visually see all of these processes, while still maintaining great detail can be a great study aid.

Here is the link to the interactive animation and game:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/volcano-explorer-game.htm

The Climate Wizard

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The Climate Wizard is an interactive map that allows users to view the future predictions for temperature and rainfall as well as historic records for any area in the world; available at http://www.climatewizard.org/ The Climate Wizard allows users to specify analysis area, time period, climate model, average temperature or precipitation, and average or change. Analysis area allows users to select either global or specific regions, such as a state, although increased zoom is available.  Climate model can also be changed to see different prediction levels; low, medium, high.

The interactive map allows users to visualize what a particular region of the world will look like in 2050 or 2080, hopefully educating users on the changes that can be expected. The Climate Wizard also allows users to look back over the past 50 years to see changes that may have already occurred. Modeling precipitation and average temperature may also help local governments and policy makers take climate into account in decision making.

The Climate Wizard was developed in a collaborative effort by The Nature Conservancy, University of Washington, and the University of Southern Mississippi in 2009. The data for creating the predictions for specific regions of the world was gathered from Oregon State University and a variety of other contributors that model changes in precipitation and temperature.  The Wizard uses data and predictions from the IPCC fourth report. Hopefully the Climate Wizard will be updated with the predictions from the IPCC fifth report.

BBC – Climate Challenge

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With scientists around the world gathering data in support of climate change accelerated by human factors, the BBC created a game to introduce some of the dilemmas this may present to governments around the world.  The goals of the interactive atmosphere is to give players awareness of what causes climate change, describe policy options available to governments, and give a sense of the challenges facing international climate change negotiators.

In this interactive game, you play as the president of the European United Nations, and you represent part of the Intergovernmental panel for climate change.  The game consists of ten turns, with each turn representing a decade.  In each turn, you choose up to six policies to enact during the decade, which impact the economic standing of the European nations, as well as energy, food, and water factors.  Some policies also have a positive or negative environmental impact, to reduce or cause more emissions linked to climate change.  Linked with these policies are popularity meters, based on how the public likes or dislikes the proposed policies – as the President of the European United Nations your job is to establish a strong policy on climate change while keeping the countries happy with your decisions and healthy so that they will continue to elect you to the intergovernmental panel for climate change.

The policies that you choose from in the game are based on actual governmental policy documents (except for those near the end of the game in more futuristic conditions).  The scale of the decisions and their impact was scaled back to a single turn for simplicity, and even with this simplistic model the game presents the player with good background knowledge on where policy makers may be having the most trouble meeting climate change requirements and ensuring cooperation with politicians from other governments.

When I played the Climate Challenge, I tried to meet every goal set for the climate reduction plan every 30 years (3 turns).  While I was effective in keeping my popularity up for the majority of the game and successfully meeting environmental and emission standards, sometimes my concern for the well being of the people in the European Nations wasn’t as high as it should have been. My results page showed scores of Environmental policy: 89% effectiveness; Wealth: 13% effectiveness; Popularity: 20% effectiveness.

The content of the game does a remarkable job of highlighting different consequences for potential actions, placing the player in the role of a politician fighting to recognize climate change and enact policies corresponding to their impact on reducing human impacts on climate change.  It is easy to get lost in the game, learning as you make policy decisions and seeing the potential impacts on the status of nations having to enforce these policies.

The link to the game is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

A link to the background and description of the game is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/aboutgame.shtml