Tectonics EQ1

Tectonics EQ1

1. E15 2010

   • Physical
     • Fissure Eruption
     • 20th March - 19th April
     • 11,000m ash plume
       • Fine grained
         • Distributed by high velocity jet stream
     • Volcano: Eyjafjoll
       • 1,666m tall
         • 2.5km wide
       • Iceland
         • On Mid Atlantic Ridge
         • N American & Eurasian Plate
           • Divergent
         • SE
     • 150m icecap melted
       • 700 evacuated
     • 3,000 EQs 3+ richter
   • Human
     • Local
       • Route 1 was destroyed
         • Others bulldozed for flash floods to reach sea
       • Fine ash silted rivers
         • Caused problems a year on
       • Govt. paid to dredge rivers & create new path
       • 20 farms destroyed bc flooding & ash
       • 500 farmers evacuated
         • Rural areas affected
         • Local water contaminated
     • Global
       • Fine ash caused plane damage
       • Britain had fine anticyclonic weather
         • Wind didn’t disperse ash
   • Secondary
     • 95,000 flights cancelled overall
       • 8 day flight ban
       • $2 billion loss est
         • Loss for oil companies
         • LDN loss £102 ml in tourism
         • IATA: £130 ml a day
       • 48% of total air traffic effected
       • 10 million passengers effected
   • Management
     • Had time to prepare
     • High tech equipment to predict eruptions in future
     • Texts to residents with 30 min warning
     • Emergency services well prepared
   • Capacity to cole
     • EU
       • Other transport methods
       • Largely food self sufficient
       • Legal & insurance covered
     • Companies had contingency plans in place
     • IMO
       • Had 24/7 watch on it
       • Uni of Iceland
       • LDN VAAC
         • British Meteorological Office
     • All countries had bodies to determine if flying is safe

2. 1.1

   • Plate Boundaries
     • Divergent
       • Plates move apart
       • Creates Mid Ocean Ridges
       • Destructive
       • Volcanic Activity
     • Convergent
       • Plates move together
       • Creates a trench
       • Creates Island Arcs
         • e.g. Hawaiian Islands
     • Transform
       • Creates EQs, friction builds up
       • Conservative
       • Faulting
   • Intra-plate
     • Tectonic hazards within a plate
     • Old/weak faults are reactivated by seismic waves
   • Hot spots
     • Areas of weak crust
     • Mantle Plumes
     • Volcanoes form around it
       • Plates move them away from the plumes
         • They become extinct

3. 1.2

   • Theory of Plate Tectonics
     • Alfred Wegner
     • Evidence:
       • ‘Jigsaw Fit’
       • Biological
       • Geological
       • Climatological
     • Key Elements:
       • Slab Pull
       • Earth’s internal Structure
       • Mantle Convection
       • Sea Floor Spreading
       • Subduction