Eyjafjallajokull - Yr13

As well as keeping an eye on the news, and having a look at the websites, etc. that I've posted on Geogtastic, the BGS page about Eyjafjallajokull has been updated, and this blog post is very good. Both of these look at the eruption in a bit more depth than the news is doing...

Also have a look at The Volcanism Blog - loads of good stuff on there about various volcanoes, including Chaiten and Soufriere Hills.

Year 13 - Montserrat

A reminder that this morning we talked about Montserrat and the eruption of Soufriere Hills which began in 1995. The first of these videos is the National Geographic one that wouldn't work, and then there are two others - the one we watched part of towards the end of the lesson, and the Pan-American Health Organisation one.

The Montserrat Volcanic Observatory website has lots and lots of useful information, and it's worth a look at their Flickr photostream and the thermal videos.







Your A3 case study sheet needs to be handed in to Mrs Chambers on Thursday next week (4th).

Yr13 - Tectonics

We started Wednesday's lesson with a reminder about the structure of the earth... We talked about Mr Ogden's biro experiment (but didn't risk setting fire to the Maths Block...). We recapped the different types of plate boundaries that you had looked at while I was in Wales, the processes occurring at each, and the landforms that result.

We then watched the Volcanoes episode of Power of the Planet, where Iain Stewart visited, amongst other places, Erta Ale in Ethiopia ("the first time you're gonna abseil, you kinda didn't want it to be into an active volcano"!) and Thingvellir in Iceland.

We finished with a discussion about the theory of hotspots - still somewhat controversial, but the most commonly accepted explanation for the formation of volcanic islands such as Hawaii, well away from plate boundaries.

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.

Earth - The Power of the Planet

Hopefully, you will have just finished watching Earth - The Power of the Planet. Tonight's spectacular programme was the first of a new series on BBC2, and looked at volcanoes - "the most important force in the creation of the planet as we know it today"...



If you missed the programme, and didn't see Dr Iain Stewart abseiling into a lava lake, then it is repeated on Sunday at 6.oopm - make sure you are watching!! (You can also pre-order the DVD of the series from the BBC Shop... I wonder if Santa reads Geogtastic...)