Yr13 - Tectonics

Those of us who were here on Wednesday reminded ourselves about the structure of the earth and talked about plate tectonics theory.

You then put some nice maps together showing the major tectonic plates and the directions in which they are moving.

For the next time I see you, you need to be finding out about the main types of plate margin:

Destructive (convergent) - oceanic/oceanic, oceanic/continental, continental/continental

Constructive (divergent)

Conservative

For each, you need to be thinking about processes and landforms, you need a named/located example, and you need a diagram.

You might also like to check out the post on Geogtastic about Hunga Ha'apai, the underwater volcano near Tonga that erupted earlier in the week - some spectacular photos about, and also check out the Smithsonian Global Vulcanism and USGS Earthquake Monitoring overlays in Google Earth.

Benidorm... Year 13

Tourism in Benidorm (an example of tourism in an MEDC) was the subject of Tuesday's lesson. After reading the Spanish Tourist Board's description of Benidorm and comparing it to our preconceptions, we looked at the location in Google Earth, talked about the climate and microclimate, and watched an interesting video from YouTube. (I can't link to the video because of some of the comments that have been posted but if you do a search for Benidorm - approach with caution - you will be able to find it quite easily, together with a selection of others...)

Image - Flickr User josago (CC)

We then looked a variety of news articles from earlier this year about the suggestion that the ideal ecotourism destination is not, in fact, a remote rural wilderness area, but a busy urban area such as Benidorm! GoSpain, New Scientist, BBC Magazine.

And then some more recent news articles that you weren't too keen on - the prospect of Benidorm as a World Heritage Site! Round Town News, Metro, The Telegraph, Wanderlust.

Year 13

Tuesday....

We started by looking at the coursework requirements and markscheme in more detail and you got thinking about your plans. You can access the markscheme (and a couple of other bits about coursework) on the AQA website.

Remember please, that you need to have your proposal (no more than 2 sides of A4) ready for Tuesday. If you are still struggling then come and see me or email me BEFORE Tuesday.

We then had a look at tourism in Betws-y-Coed and Trefriw, and you compared the effects that tourism has had on the two settlements (or at least you would have done if we'd managed to all be there and all have proper sets of results!!).

Wednesday...

This morning we started by completing our analysis of the deposits we studied at Llyn Ogwen, the Nant Ffrancon valley and the gravel pit. Some of you drew histograms (to look at length of long axis), some drew pie charts of divided bars to look at the angularity of the clasts, and others drew rose diagrams to show the orientation of the clasts. You came to the conclusion that the first deposit was glacial - collapsed lateral moraine, perhaps! The second one seemed to be either fluvio-glacial deposits, or glacial deposits that have later been affected by fluvial action. We were less sure about the third site, but were fairly certain that the deposits there had been affected by glacial and fluvial processes.

We then spent some time considering the maps and panoramic photos of Llyn Ogwen, Cwm Idwal and Nant Ffrancon. Remember, north is not always at the top! Worth checking out this virtual tour of Cwm Idwal:

Today, it was a bit more thinking about coursework - remember, lots of useful stuff on the internet if you look for it, and some very good articles in Geography Review. Good that some of you were using Google Earth to try and identify suitable locations - you need to have a look at OS maps as well (see post from the other day about Where's the Path?).

Have fun in London!