LCI-Guggenheim Museum

Please go to http://801lci.blogspot.com/ and post to your response. YOUR RESPONSES SHOULD INCLUDE EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID AT THE Guggenheim Museum during our LC visit and a response to what someone else said.

Online Earthquakes & Plate Tectoics Resources

In connection with our unit on Plate Tectonics & Earthquakes watch the following movies and animations.
View as many animations as possible on plate tectonics and earthquakes
Seismic Monitor
Observe animations of earthquake waves.

Earthquake Videos
In this dramatic footage from the opening game of the 1989 World Series

Homeowners around Santa Cruz saw roads split open and houses destroyed.

Plate Tectonics & Earthquakes Review Website:http://regentsprep.org/regents/earthsci/units/earthquakes/index.cfm

Movie#1: Volcanic Eruption
Movie#2: A movie on Subduction

Plates on the Move

Please post the last part (group presentation) of Plates on the Move. Each member should post one part.
Due today 1/18/07

Post#11: Exit Project Topics

Write a one paragraph (5 sentences) description of your Science Exit Project Idea.
Due Friday by 9pm.

Post#10: Earthquakes

Visit the following website: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/kids.php, explore the following topics:
1. Latest Quake
2. Today in Earthquake History
3. The Science of Earthquake
4. Cool Earthquake Facts

Give a brief summary of what you learned.
Due Friday by 8pm

Post#9: Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Read the New York Times article "Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents" By WILLIAM J. BROAD at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/science/09geo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Watch the "Dancing of the Continents" by clicking on the icon titled multimedia located to the left of the article or just click on the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/science/20070109_PALEO_GRAPHIC.html

Click and enlarge the icon titled, "In 25 million years..." and write a reaction about what scientists predict about the Gulf of California and Los Angeles.

After you read the article give your opinion on the following questions in two paragraphs (5 sentences per arrticle) based on the article.
Due Sunday by 12pm.
1. What are Scientists predicting about the future of plate tectonics?
2. What will happen in California?
3. How do you feel after reading such an article?

Post#8: Tsunami Could Hit Here, Geologists Say By JEREMY SMERD

Read the article below then write a one paragraph (5 sentences) reaction.

Due Sunday by 11am.

December 29, 2004

Could New York be next?

The earthquake that ravaged coastline communities surrounding the Indian Ocean has reawakened a debate over the possibility that a tsunami could hit New York.

Earlier this year, geologists at a research institute in London warned that an unstable, 200-square-mile chunk of a volcano in the Canary Islands could slide into the Atlantic Ocean, causing a tsunami to slam into the mid-Atlantic coast. The paper, written by a pair of marine geologists at the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, Steve Ward and Simon Day, posited a worst-case scenario of 60-foot waves submerging parts of the East Coast.

In August, when scientists met at a conference to discuss such global geophysical events, known as "Gee Gees," writers joked that such a disaster could turn Cleveland into a bustling coastal town.

This week's deadly tsunami has given that scenario - and others like it - serious consideration.

It is doubtful Manhattan would bear the brunt of six-story waves, given the protective lee of Long Island, and new tsunami modeling that suggests the Canary Island scenario to be overwrought. Nevertheless, mass flooding from hurricanes, contaminated water, and evacuation pandemonium in a city of 8 million people and a multiplicity of languages are ever-present concerns facing local emergency management officials.

A marine geologist, Laura Kong, who is the director of the United Nations tsunami program in Honolulu, said most in the field challenged the alacrity with which the worst-case scenario was presented to the public.

While it is true that at some point the chunks will fall into the ocean - that is expected to be triggered by an earthquake in the next 10,000 years - the power of an ensuing tsunami has been overstated, Ms. Kong said.

"In what we have seen in the models that are much more sophisticated," she said, "the simple answer is the sizes of probable chunks that would slide from a volcano in the Canary Islands are too small to generate a large enough wave that would create a tsunami that would hit New York."

By contrast, the earthquake that hit deep beneath the Indian Ocean Sunday ripped a 500-mile gash along the sea floor, displacing water that spanned 3,000 miles from Malaysia in Asia to Somalia in Africa.

"Using that analogy, you would need a rupture or some material that is on the order of 1,000 miles to displace that much water to generate enough energy to go across the Atlantic," Ms. Kong said. "A 200-square-mile chunk of land couldn't displace enough water."

Other giant tsunami scenarios, involving fissures in the slopes along the Eastern Seaboard or a huge collapse of sediment, were also unlikely to cause giant tsunamis, Ms. Kong said.

Undersea earthquakes, while unlikely, could cause mass hurricane like flooding in New York, according to a visiting marine geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., Peter Clift.

"You wouldn't get the shock of a big wave but you would get flooding," Mr. Clift said. "I think it would be very expensive, but I don't think many people would get killed. It would be bad if you are an insurance company."

In the event of a tsunami here, Mr. Clift, who is a visiting professor from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, suggested hunkering down with a few tins of baked beans for a couple of days and viewing the flood from the comfort of a high-rise apartment.

"If they are properly built they should stand," Mr. Clift said. "We're not talking about a wooden hut in Bangladesh.

"People sitting on the beach at Coney Island, on the other hand, would be worse off," he said.

Unlike the communities in south Asia that did not have a system in place to warn of the impending tsunami, the Canary Islands, which are in the Atlantic off the coast of Morocco, are heavily monitored.