LOG IN, TO BE
PREPARED
N.Nandhivarman
The
internet provides a lot of information about natural disasters, and can help
people in being forearmed. For that is being forearmed.
Time
has come for including disasters management as part of our school curriculum.
As disasters have become common, the news coverage is more on the plight of the
victims but the thrust area of scientific protections and preparedness in
hazards management are ignored.
In
one way this could be explained. The question of who will bell the cat is a
major stumbling block for predictions. If a scientist forewarns, immediately
there are people to counter his views. Instead of expecting government agencies
to wake up on time, people must be prepared to rise to the occasion with help
of the media. In this field, various earthquake observatories of United States
Geological Survey and that of many universities provide information, easily
accessible to every one via internet.
Now
we can have just observed International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction on
OCTOBER 13 while we are surrounded by disasters. United Nations designated the
second Wednesday of October every year from December 22, 1989 as International
Day for Natural Disaster Reduction and called it as a vehicle to promote a
global culture of natural disaster reduction, including disaster prevention,
mitigation and preparedness.
EXPLANATION
_
Divergent plate boundaries- where now crust is generated as the plates pull
away from each other.
-Convergent plate
boundaries- where crust is consumed in the Earth’s interior as one plate dives
under another.
-Transform
plate boundaries- where crust is neither produced nor destroyed as plate’s side
horizontally past each other.
-Plate
boundary zones- Broad belts in which deformation is diffuse and boundaries are
not well defined.
Selected prominent hotspots
In
pursuance of this, we have to evaluate various measures suggested by United
Nations, scientific observatories, various countries and their experiences to
evolve right methods for facing natural hazards. It is here the lessons and play
tools crafted by the United States Geological survey assume significance. They
not only educate people about current earthquakes through animation pictures
taken from observatories but also prepare them to be mentally prepared to face calamities.
What
we now witness is quakes along the collision lines of continental plates.
Exactly what drives plate tectonics is not known. One theory’s that convection
within the Earth’s mantle pushes the plates, in much the same way that air
heated by your body rises upward and is defected sideways when it reaches the ceiling.
Another theory is that gravity is pulling the older, colder, and thus heavier,
ocean floor with more force than the newer, lighter sea floor. Whatever drives
the movement, plate tectonic activity takes place at four types of boundaries;
divergent boundaries, where new crust is formed; convergent boundaries, where
crust is consumed; collision boundaries, Where two land masses collide; and
transform boundaries, where two plate slide against each other, according to
the site www.enchantedlearning.com.
Another
truth that researchers are revealing is that the Earth’s longest mountain chain
is not the Andes in South America, or the Himalayas in Asia, or even North
America’s Rockies. It’s an underwater chain of mountain s 47,000 miles long.
The
Chain runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean [surfacing at Iceland]. AROUND
Africa, through the Indian Ocean, between Australia and Antarctica, and north
through the Pacific Ocean, Running along the top of this chain of mountains is
a deep crack, called a rift valley. It is here that new ocean floor is
continuously created. As the two sides of the mountain move quay from each
other, magma swells up from the Earth’s interior. It then solidifies into rock
as it is cooled by the sea, creating new ocean floor.
The
speed at which new ocean floor is created varies from one location on the ocean
ride to another. Between North America and Europe. The rate is about 2.2 inches
[(3.6) per year. At the East Pacific rise, which is pushing a plate into the
west coast of South America, the rate is 12.6 inches (32.2) per year. With
detailed mapping of the ocean floor came many observations that led scientists
like Howard Hess and R DEIZAto call the new theory as ‘Sea floor Spreading.’
Among
the features that supported the sea-floor spreading hypothesis were mid oceanic
ridges. deep sea trenches, island arcs, geomagnetic patterns, and fault
patterns. “The deepest waters are found in oceanic trenches, which plunge as
deep as oceanic trenches, which plague as deep as 35,000 feet below the ocean
surface. These trenches are usually long and narrow, and run parallel to and
near the oceans margins. They are often parallel to large continental mountain
ranges. Like the mid-oceanic ridges, and that the age of the ocean floor
increased in addition, it has been determined that the oldest seafloor often
ends in the deep-sea trenches.”
The Western
Pacific margin has islands such as the Aleutians, Knurliest, Japan, Ruckus,
Philippines, Marianas, Indonesia, Solomon’s, New Hebrides, and the Tonga’s,
which can be best described as ‘Island arcs’ and usually situated along deep
sea trenches situated on the continental side of the trench. All these and many
more new findings which could be read from various web sides provide A to Z
information on all natural phenomena along with projections for natural
disasters ahead.
On
hearing news about natural disasters, students could log onto these web sites
and find relevant information to forewarn the people. For instance it must be
noted that on the day of Pakistan and Kashmir Quake, there were 177 quakes all
over the world., They may be low on the Richter scale, but earth is uneasy and
if the quake is in the boundary of Indo-Australian plate as in the recent case one
can forewarn the route it may take in due course of time’s
Courtesy: New Indian Express: 15th
October 2005
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