FREE 'GOT SCIENCE' STICKERS-TRY THIS

To all Earth Warriors,

 check this survey here and get a cool free sticker-

Got Science? 

Quiz brought to you by Union of Concerned Scientists.

WEEK 13- COASTAL HAZARDS IN THE US

When I think about coastal erosion, I think about Pacifica, CA. After a declaration of a state of emergency in January 2016 after El Niño related storms, the news in February about yet another chunk of sandy cliff falling into the ocean and houses in need of abandonment was not new. A drone video of the area is clear. A lot of information can be found about how in a few years the cliff has eroded. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently studying coastal erosion fixes for it.

Two online portals have been developed as an interactive tool for any user to explore what coastal hazards are all about. Also, the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards of the USGS has very good information about coastal issues in the country.

The NOAA’s Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts (v. 2.0) website let you browse over possible scenarios of sea level rise and coast vulnerability. A great link to try! Recently the updated report on sea level rise got published as well.

Today I am going to focus on another link, the USGS Coastal Change Portal. The USGS Coastal Change Hazards Portal is a new tool that allows anyone to explore how coasts change due to: extreme storms, shoreline change, and sea level rise.

Extreme Storms: this allows ‘real-time and scenario-based predictions of storm-induced coastal change, as well as the supporting data, are provided to support management of coastal infrastructure, resources, and safety.’ For example, let’s focus on the Gulf Coast and a scenario of a hurricane (any category). Let’s see how a Cat 1 and a Cat 5 possibly looks like (with probabilities of collision (dune erosion), overwash, and inundation for sandy beaches along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts during a generalized hurricane landfall): see figures for both. The most probable areas should be risks areas and treated as such in an emergency.

Shoreline Change: this shows: ‘historical shoreline positions and rates of change along ocean shorelines of the United States’. Looking into the East coast now, offshore Norfolk, see figures for long-term coastal change rates, and for the short-term rates (<30 years rates of shoreline change for open-ocean shorelines of the United States ranging from 1970's to 2001).

Sea level Rise: there are two methods used to address this: a Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI), and a probabilistic assessment of shoreline change. 

CVI: ‘a preliminary overview, at a National scale, of the relative susceptibility of the Nation's coast to sea-level rise through the use of CVI. This classification is based upon the following variables: geomorphology, regional coastal slope, tide range, wave height, relative sea-level rise and shoreline erosion and accretion rates. The combination of these variables and the association of these variables to each other furnish a broad overview of regions where physical changes are likely to occur due to sea-level rise’. A quick image shown here shows how much red (very high vulnerability) our California coasts possess.

Probabilities of Shoreline Change: ‘this dataset was used to develop and evaluate the performance of a Bayesian network (BN) that predicts long-term shoreline change associated with sea-level rise. The BN is used to define relationships between driving forces, geologic constraints, and coastal response, which includes observations of local rates of relative sea-level rise, wave height, tide range, geomorphology, coastal slope, and rate of shoreline change. Using this information, the BN is used to make probabilistic predictions of shoreline change in response to different future sea-level rise scenarios’. See same area of CA and look at the area of south San Francisco.

As you can see this new tool will help tremendously to manage areas and to get a broad idea of what is happening on the US coasts.

Explore those links!-

WEEK 10: Extreme Weather in the U.S.

UPDATE 4/5/17-The National Weather Service issued tornado and flash-flood warnings for counties across Georgia on Wednesday afternoon as a system of storms barreled through the Southeastern United States. The storms were expected to leave nearly 60 million people at risk of tornadoes, damaging winds, thunderstorms and flooding, according to a CNN forecast.


This week we are exploring extreme weather events.

In the figure from the weather channel below you can see how today in the south there are a few flash flood and t-storms watches.In the convective map of the weatherunderground website, you can see the current dangers in parts of Texas and Louisiana.

Knowing your weather patterns matters.

As we have learned in class, a watch and a warning is a very different type of hazard. Knowing what to do in each one is very useful once the extreme weather condition affects you. There are so many types of extreme weather hazards that the mitigation efforts will be very different for each one. Being well informed is your best weapon. Both sites I posted here have twitter feeds you can follow.

Be informed. Be ready.

WEEK 8- LANDSLIDES

Landslides impact California’s terrain often.

The Californian Geological Survey released a new map in 2011 showing the susceptibility to deep-seated landslides across the whole of the state. This map does not take into consideration the occurrence of triggers of the potential landslides, which of course in this area are both intense rainfall and earthquakes.

In an area where earthquakes are common, we recently had two events happening: numerous wildfires in the area and a few big storms. In a burned area, a wildfire can make the soils repellent to water, creating a flood like flow on the ground that picks up rock and debris. In an area that has not burned, soil can become saturated. Pressure builds up underground, and soil starts moving and begins picking up mud and debris as it starts flowing downhill, creating mudflows or debris flows. 

No surprise mudslides, rockslides, and landslides occurrences are in the news often these days, cutting main traffic arteries, wreaking havoc in busy roads, or isolating populations like Big Sur. The map from Caltrans show all the problems along 61 miles of highway.

There is a USGS page with information on how to identify landslides and what to do if one happens: http://landslides.usgs.gov/learn/prepare.php

More information @

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-how-landslides-work-20170121-story.html

http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/geologic_hazards/landslides

http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/05/24/new-landslide-susceptibility-map-for-california/

http://photos.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/02/22/photos-storm-damage-in-big-sur/#1

WEEK 5- VOLCANIC HAZARDS

This week Geol9 is exploring the volcanic hazards in different countries and their warning systems. I’ll be focusing on the US.

There are several ways we minimize the danger of volcanic activity (apart from the obvious of ‘getting out of the way’…(J:

·         Forecasting (earthquakes as early warnings -although in 2014 a Japanese volcano erupted without any previous seismicity (livescience article), land swelling before eruption, gas emissions, etc.)

·         Volcanic Alert Codes (USGS): the levels of alert and the aviation code levels commonly change at the same time (chart on right). A non-erupting volcano will have a green icon, and a red one indicates an imminent eruption (see USGS Alert Codes).

Today the US hazards map shows the following U.S. volcanoes as to be above normal background (elevated unrest or eruptions) or have shown activity that warranted an Information Release (for example, an earthquake swarm):

Bogoslof- Alert Level=WARNING. Aviation Color Code=Red.

Kilauea and Cleveland- Alert Level=WATCH. Aviation Color Code=Orange. Note: Kilauea has been erupting for 34 years!

Mauna Loa Alert Level=ADVISORY. Aviation Color Code=Yellow.

A great image below from Hawaii's NSP. Lots of current videos and information about the park here.

WEEK 3- E-A-R-T-H-Q-U-A-K-E-S

If I want to know something about earthquakes, the first websites I go to are: the USGS Real Time Earthquakes Website or the IRIS monitoring website.

This week we are exploring seismicity and what countries do to prevent/mitigate the hazard.

Re: the first issue, the new US map of seismicity (see image from USGS) shows the (obvious, in not pink) ring of fire portion on the West coast but also a central area in the middle of the plate. I’d like to talk a bit more about this non-obvious one. This area, called the New Madrid Zone was shaken by a M8 (!) in 1811. The reason for the activity is a very old intraplate rift placed below the area (see image from http://showme.net)... if the earth shakes in any of those areas, you cannot say you do not know why....tectonics, tectonics, tectonics....

In the last years, a few papers have come out discussing man-made quakes. USGS has great articles about those. The number of earthquakes has increased dramatically over the past few years within the central and eastern United States. Nearly 450 earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and larger occurred in the four years from 2010-2013, over 100 per year on average. USGS scientists have found that at some locations the increase in seismicity coincides with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells. Much of this wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas production and is routinely disposed of by injection into wells specifically designed for this purpose.

WEEK 2 POST FOR GEOL9- BLAME IT ON TECTONICS

This week we are exploring plate tectonics and how the location of each country respect to the plate boundaries relates directly with their natural hazards, like volcanoes or earthquakes.

In the past months the center of Italy has suffered devastating shakes, the last one a few days ago -news here. The devastation comes from the poor construction standards on the houses close to the epicenter, not because it was an inactive area.. nobody that knows where the plates are located was surprised by the event.

In the US, the NOAA map shows clearly how the Easter US is a passive margin and the Western side of the country is a very active one, with the Pacific Plate, Cocos, Juan de Fuca plates connecting to the North American plate. Not a surprise we are on the ‘Ring of Fire’, where a lot of the volcanic and seismic activity happens!

Of course, there are a few exceptions, like the activity of Hawaii (hot spot) or the New Madrid area (ancient rift), both not at plate boundaries, but that will be another post another time.

We might not know when events like volcanic eruptions or big earthquakes will happen, but if you know your Tectonics, you definitely know where the do!

All for now-