Natural Hazards, Disasters, & Catastrophes of England

This week we learned about mass wasting. Mass wasting is the downward and outward movement of soil/sand/rock that is typically affected by water. For example, heavy rains might cause the soil to loosen on mountains which then slide down as a mass. If there are communities close by sometimes these mass wasting might affect them. In England there are landslides and coastal erosions at Aldbrough. This is located about 10 km (about 6.2miles) from Hornsea. Such close proximity has cause the loss of buildings through time. There is a program in charge of monitoring costal erosion at different sites around this area, this program is called British Geological Survey (BGS). This program has discovered that the cliffs in the area are constantly receding. These cliffs are prone to landslides when there are high tides. Constant monitoring of coastal erosion and landsliding is how they prevent damage in the area. Once they’ve seen a considerable change on the cliffs or landslide they alert the c...

This week we learned about volcanos. Just like earthquakes, volcanos are related to the location of plate tectonics. Most volcanoes are located along the Ring of Fire, which is in an upside down U shape along the regions of the Pacific Ocean. There are, however other volcanoes around the world. In areas where there is hotspot activity or portions of a mid-ocean ridge such as Iceland. The main types of volcanoes are the stratovolcanoes (or composite cone) which are shaped like a cone with high sides, eruptions consist of lava flows. There are Lava dome volcanoes which, as their name says it, they are shape like a dome and are also steep. These volcanoes mostly erupt lava piling up near the vents, although at times they can explosive. There are shield volcanoes which look more flat on the surface. These have gentle arches and very low slopes. The lava flows of these volcanoes flows on the outer ridges of their surface which travels far. The cinder cone volcanoes are tall with the to...

This week we learned about earthquakes. Very well on time for us to understand what happened in southern Mexico this Friday. Basically an earthquake occurs when two plate faults move pass each other.   These faults sometimes get stuck as the rest of the plate moves on its normal course. When they are stock they store the energy that normally would move them around, that energy gets released when they finally move from where they were stuck. These energy moves are called “seismic waves” and when they reach up to the earth’s surface they make it shake. The spot on earth’s surface where the quake starts is called the epicenter. This main spot is where the mainshock occurs, and depending on the magnitude of such earthquake there could be aftershocks for weeks and even months to come. In England, and the UK in general, there are not many occurrences of earthquakes. An average of 25 small ones are felt by people yearly. The largest known quake occurred in 1931 with a magnitu...