I found this article very interesting and it related to the topics we have recently studied in class. The law of superposition and Un-conformity’s. “The imprints are believed to have been those of sauropod dinosaurs, the gentle herbivorous giants which roamed the region about 150m years ago. They appear to have been well preserved by a thick layer of limestone sediment dating from the late Jurassic period – the geological era named after the Jura mountains which lie just to the north of where the tracks were discovered.” This statement made in the article applies to everything we have learned so far this semester, it talks about and contains information such as superposition, Absolute time, and nonconformity’s.  The absolute time we covered and broke down in class based around the time periods of Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.  But then this article also contains a nonconformity because of erosion because this foot print came out of no where and appeared on the service for these amateur enthusiasts to spot out.

The reason this foot print got so much attention and is such a big deal is because it is the biggest foot print found from a dinosaur, measuring 2 meters (6ft 6in) in diameter.”These are very large distances,” said Hantzpergue. “We’ve seen tracks of maybe 50 meters in France, around 100 meters in Switzerland, and the world record is in Portugal … with about 150 meters. Now, we still have many hectares to search but we will undoubtedly have more than 150 meters at Plagne.” It’s crazy to think that foot prints are still being found of dinosaurs we have never seen or heard of, the fact that this is the biggest footprint found is very exciting to hear about. They discuss how this area was very popular for finding foot prints back in 2004 on the Swiss side but its just unique to find this one and its so big. That foot print is about the size of a NBA player which is huge if you think about it that’s only its foot.

I thought this article was interesting to read and I wanted to share it with the rest of our class because of how much it pertains to what we have learned so far., also that it is the biggest dinosaur foot print in the world right now.

They also go on to talk about how monitoring of volcano’s has come so far since this eruption. Obviously technology  has improved a lot since then. They say that the information goes public and it posted on the web allowing other geologist to look at them and study the results to make possible predictions. If they feel that results have a strong possibility leading up to an eruption they will head to the location of the volcano to do further studies.

When the eruption occurred in 1912  the volcano  had the affects of  “the next 60 hours the eruption sent tall dark columns of tephra and gas high into the atmosphere. By the time the eruption ended the surrounding land was devastated and about 30 cubic kilometers of ejecta blanketed the entire region” The accumulation of this one eruption had more ejecta then all of the historic volcano eruption in Alaska combined. The impact that this eruption had was very problematic, “The inhabitants of Kodiak, Alaska, on Kodiak Island, about 100 miles away, were among the first people to realize the severity of this eruption.” Not only was the sound of the blast an attention grabber but so was the large cloud of ash that rouse 20 miles up into the atmosphere that was quickly heading towards them. This large cloud of ash then blanketed the surrounding areas with a foot of ash, this ash fell for three days straight. Due to the ash people were forced to take shelter however since the ash laid such a heavy and thick blanket some buildings collapsed due to the weight. But there was no chance for survival outside of shelter because the ash made the air impossible to breath and for any animals that could not seek shelter would most likely die off because there was no way to find food, water or yet alone breath the thick air.

Novarupta Dome “During the eruption a large amount of magma was drained from magma chambers below. The result was a removal of support from beneath Mount Katmai which is six miles from Novarupta. The top several hundred feet of Katmai – about one cubic mile of material – collapsed into a magma chamber below. This collapse produced a crater about two miles in diameter and over 800 feet deep.”

The issue of can this happen again and will it brings a lot of issues and problems to mind because it a blast this big were to occurr again it would ground all commercial flights due to the inability to fly in the ashy clouds.  When a smaller eruption a while back occurred it damaged many planes that were flying 1000 miles away from eruption. However if another eruption occurred the size of Novarupta it would shut down flight all across North America.

They also go on to talk about how monitoring of volcano’s has come so far since this eruption. Obviously technology  has improved a lot since then. They say that the information goes public and it posted on the web allowing other geologist to look at them and study the results to make possible predictions. If they feel that results have a strong possibility leading up to an eruption they will head to the location of the volcano to do further studies.

When the eruption occurred in 1912  the volcano  had the affects of  “the next 60 hours the eruption sent tall dark columns of tephra and gas high into the atmosphere. By the time the eruption ended the surrounding land was devastated and about 30 cubic kilometers of ejecta blanketed the entire region” The accumulation of this one eruption had more ejecta then all of the historic volcano eruption in Alaska combined. The impact that this eruption had was very problematic, “The inhabitants of Kodiak, Alaska, on Kodiak Island, about 100 miles away, were among the first people to realize the severity of this eruption.” Not only was the sound of the blast an attention grabber but so was the large cloud of ash that rouse 20 miles up into the atmosphere that was quickly heading towards them. This large cloud of ash then blanketed the surrounding areas with a foot of ash, this ash fell for three days straight. Due to the ash people were forced to take shelter however since the ash laid such a heavy and thick blanket some buildings collapsed due to the weight. But there was no chance for survival outside of shelter because the ash made the air impossible to breath and for any animals that could not seek shelter would most likely die off because there was no way to find food, water or yet alone breath the thick air.

Novarupta Dome “During the eruption a large amount of magma was drained from magma chambers below. The result was a removal of support from beneath Mount Katmai which is six miles from Novarupta. The top several hundred feet of Katmai – about one cubic mile of material – collapsed into a magma chamber below. This collapse produced a crater about two miles in diameter and over 800 feet deep.”

The issue of can this happen again and will it brings a lot of issues and problems to mind because it a blast this big were to occurr again it would ground all commercial flights due to the inability to fly in the ashy clouds.  When a smaller eruption a while back occurred it damaged many planes that were flying 1000 miles away from eruption. However if another eruption occurred the size of Novarupta it would shut down flight all across North America.

Since the start of class we have been focusing on plate tectonics and earthquake so this article would apply pretty significantly. Off the coast of Venezuela there was an earthquake at a 6.4 on the Richter scale. We talked about in class how the scale ranged from 1 to 10; 10 being the worst. Also the depth of the earthquake will affect the significance of the earthquake. They went on in this article to describe the earthquake as a swallow one due to the “right-lateral strike-slip faulting.” The reason this tectonic earthquake occurred was due to the fact that the plates in the Caribbean head in an eastward direction with the push of South American plate.

Another issue we have discussed in class was the movement of plates per year; the plate involved in this earthquake has a movement of 20 mm a year. Along with this plate there are collections of plates in the area, which include bocono, which is located in the southwest. Then located around the epicenter are the San Sebastian and El Pilar, which are heading from west to east towards the Epicenter. These few faults consist of the majority of the motion in the two plates. There is some speculation that this earthquake occurred due to movement in the San Sebastian and El Pilar plates but it cannot be pin pointed until further analysis has been done.

The area where this quake has occurred is known for earthquakes it’s been called “ seismically active” it has had strong rated earthquakes occur there previously. The two specific quakes they are talking about that have occurred in this location are “including an M6.5 quake in July 1967 that caused approximately 240 fatalities, and an M5.4 quake in May 1989 which made more than 2000 people homeless in the Tucacas area.” Obliviously this location is used to having tectonic earthquakes due to the plates location and movement from the Caribbean’s towards South America.

This article is a good example of what we have learned so far in class about plate tectonics it talks about the movement of plates and how it affects the earthquakes. This is also a hot spot for earthquakes to, it’s also a hot spot for tsunamis to occur to because of the climate changes and water temperatures that causes a tsunami to occur.

Earthquake Details
Magnitude
6.4
Date-Time
• Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 20:06:25 UTC
• Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 08:06:25 PM at epicenter
• Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location
10.757°N, 67.847°W
Depth
10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region
OFFSHORE ARAGUA, VENEZUELA
Distances
35 km (25 miles) NNE of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
60 km (35 miles) NNE of Valencia, Venezuela
100 km (65 miles) W of CARACAS, Venezuela
2115 km (1310 miles) SE of Miami, Florida
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 5.4 km (3.4 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters
NST=197, Nph=197, Dmin=806.2 km, Rmss=1.12 sec, Gp= 36°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7
Source
• USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID
us2009llbc