Isaac Hiatt
Natural Disasters
ePortfolio Assignment
Part 1: Tracking Earthquakes
Earthquake 1
 Magnitude: 6.0
 Location: Off the east coast of Honshu, Japan
 Date: April 21, 2011
 Time: 1:54 am
 Depth: 4.35 miles
 Type of Tectonic Boundary: Oceanic to Oceanic
 Why: This earthquake is located around the pacific ring of fire; plates are very
active in this region resulting in lots of earthquakes and deadly tsunamis.
Earthquake 2
 Magnitude: 5.3
 Location: On the coast of Chile, 20 miles west of Santiago
 Date: April 19, 2011
 Time: 5:53 AM
 Depth: 6.34 miles
 Type of Tectonic Boundary: Oceanic to Continental
 Why: This was also located on the pacific ring of fire, however in this region
part of the plate is trying to sub duct beneath the continental plate.
Earthquake 3
 Magnitude: 4.1
 Location: Mojave Desert Nevada
 Date: April 16, 2011
 Time: 9:46 AM
 Depth: 8.14 miles
 Type of Tectonic Boundary: Transform
 Why: This is along a mountain range that was formed by plates sliding
past one another and this is a result of built up pressure.
Earthquake 4
 Magnitude: 5.0
 Location: Tibet Border Region
 Date: April 20, 2011
 Time: 4:27 PM
 Depth: 9.69 miles
 Type of Tectonic Boundary: Continental to Continental
 Why: This is in an area where mountain ranges were formed by
continental plates pushing toward each other and they haven’t stopped
moving.
Earthquake 5
 Magnitude: 4.8
 Location: Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge
 Date: April 19, 2011
 Time: 8:30 PM
 Depth: 6.34 miles
 Type of Tectonic Boundary: Divergent
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Why: This is in area where plates have been moving away from each other
and this earthquake shows further movement.
Part 2: Identifying Volcanoes
Volcano 1
 Name: Mt. Rainier
 Type of volcano: Composite Volcano
 Type of tectonic boundary: oceanic to continental
Volcano 2
 Name: Skjaldbreiaur, Iceland
 Type of Volcano: Shield Volcano
 Type of tectonic boundary: Hotspot
Volcano 3
 Name: Paricutin
 Type of Volcano: Cinder Volcano
 Type of tectonic boundary: Hotspot
Volcano 4
 Name: Yellowstone Caldera
 Type of Volcano: Caldera
 Type of Tectonic boundary: Hotspot
Part 3: Assignment Reflection
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The correlation between earthquakes and volcanoes with regard to the theory
of plate tectonics is that because of movement going on in the different plates
openings to magma chambers are being exposed creating hotspots or
volcanoes.
The spatial relationship is quite close, usually where ever there is an area with
a lot of earthquakes there is bound to be volcanoes nearby.
I didn’t realize just how frequent earthquakes take place. For some reason I
thought that they were few and in between, but in fact they are happening
every day. Volcanoes are amazingly destructive when they erupt. They contain
as much energy as hundreds of atomic bombs.
They main thing I’ve gotten out of this course is that as human beings we need
to respect mother nature more and not try to contain her as much as we do. We
need to be smarter about how treat the earth because we can contribute to our
own destruction. Also I’ve come to think that when disasters happen its all
part of the earth’s own growing process.