Hazards Booklet:

A reminder of the spec for Hazards topic:

Task 1: RAG rate the spec so far. We have covered 3.1.5.1 and 3.1.5.2
We now starting 3.1.5.3 Volcanic Hazards:

Task 2: Complete all of the tasks below:

As you know from your work on different plate margins and magma plumes, volcanic activity is mainly associated
with:

 ocean ridges and sea floor spreading

 destructive plate boundaries and subduction zones
 rift valleys
 Intraplate vulcanicity - hot spots.

Volcanic hazards include nuées ardentes, lava flows, mudflows, pyroclastic and ash fallout, gases/acid rain, tephra.

TASK: Research volcanic hazards & complete the table below. See your textbook & link below.

Volcanic Hazards Description

Nuées ardentes

Lava flows

Mudflows

Pyroclastic & ash

fallout

Gases/acid rain
 Tephra

Useful link: http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/hazards.htm

Where do we find vulcanicity &

how does it vary?
Learning objectives:

 To describe the spatial distribution of volcanic activity.

 To understand how volcanic activity can be predicted using a range of techniques.

Specification content: Spatial distribution, magnitude, frequency, regularity and predictability of hazard events.
Starter: Think back to our work from last lesson. Using a map of volcanoes (from your textbook or
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics), add the main bands/groups of volcanoes to the map below.

Question: Describe the relationship between the location of volcanoes and plate boundaries.
Question: Describe the spatial distribution of vulcanicity.
The magnitude of volcanic eruptions is measured using the Volcano Explosivity Index (VEI), which uses a logarithmic
scale from 0-8.

Frequency refers to how often volcanoes erupts.

Regularity refers to how consistent the gap between eruptions is.

It is difficult to predict when volcanoes are likely to erupt; some have been thought to be extinct but have then
proven to be dormant, including Mount St Helens and Chances Peak in Montserrat. If volcanoes are monitored, it is
often usually possible to predict eruptions as they tend to follow weeks of seismic activity and other warning signs.
This means that warnings can be issued, and evacuations organised.

TASK: Describe how the following help to predict a volcanic eruption. (Use your textbook/CGP notes to help you)

Seismometer –

Tiltmeter –

Ground deformation –

Earthquakes –

What is the impact of

volcanic activity?
Learning objectives:
  To know how the type of volcano affects the eruption and impact of activity.
 To understand how impacts of vulcanicity can be categorised in different ways.

Specification content: Impacts: primary/secondary, environmental, economic, political.

Starter: How does magma vary between different types of volcano? How does this affect the eruption?

Magma –

Eruption -

The impacts of volcanic activity depend upon the type of volcano, for example:

TASK 1: What types

of volcanic activity are
associated with the
following?

 Fiss
u re eruptions –

 Aci
d dome volcanoes –

 Caldera –

TASK 2: Define the terms below and relate them to volcanic activity.

Primary impact –
Secondary impact –

TASK 3: Watch the first part of the lecture event ‘Open Minds – Studying the Impact of Volcanoes’ from the OU -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maRPczwbzFw . What impacts are shown?

Environmental?

Economic?

Political?

Extension task: Watch the rest of this lecture event in your own time.

How do we respond
to volcanic activity?
Learning objectives:

 To know examples of short and long term responses to volcanic activity.

 To apply understanding to a case study Nyiragongo.

Specification content: Short and long-term responses.

Starter: Look at the cartoon below. How can volcanic eruptions lead to flooding?
Short term responses are those that happen as soon as the volcano starts to erupt. Long term responses are those
that continue for months or years after the eruption.

‘What do you do when the volcano in your own back yard erupts? Call your family volcanologist? ("Sandbag the river
bank and call me in the morning....") What if it is your responsibility to make an evaluation or to take action? First,
you must gather information to determine the current situation (seismic activity, active eruption, etc.) and evaluate
the potential type and magnitude of hazards associated with the current situation. Then you must choose a response
to the threat. Options include, but are not restricted to the following:

1. Ignore. The situation may warrant no further concern.

2. Wait and watch (Literally). The situation may only need careful continuous monitoring without restricting
the movement of the people.

3. Put monitoring system in place. The technology exists to put sensors in place that will detect a variety of
changes in a volcano, like inflation or seismic activity. A system of motion sensors high in a valley prone to
mudslides can give some early warning to communities farther down the valley. (The warning time depends
on the sensor's distance upstream and the speed--typically 40 to 50 mph--of the mudflow.) Many volcanoes
already have some monitoring systems, but most do not.

4. Restrict access to an area. Rather than total evacuate, you may choose to allow certain types of people
into the danger area, such as businessmen or employees of companies operating in the area, owners of
private homes in the area, police or forest rangers, or geologists monitoring the volcano. You must decide
whom to restrict and why.

5. Evacuation of an area around the volcano. The size and location of the evacuation area depends on the
projected size and type of eruption. You may only need to evacuate particular valleys (as in the case of local
lava flows or mudflows), or you may need to evacuate all around the volcano for many miles. Some
eruptions may throw ash high enough to affect passing aircraft, in which case you may want to restrict
movement in a large airspace around the volcano.

6. Brace for the "End of the World." An eruption may be so large that there are no practical responses.

7. Something else? The possibilities are limited only by your creativity.

Remember that any action taken will have consequences. Some, such as #2 and #3, cost money for equipment
and/or people--money that will have to come out of somebody's pocket. Any kind of access restriction or evacuation
will cost money, disrupt lives, and take time. Businesses, like hotels or grocery stores in a restricted area, will lose
money due to loss of customers; others, like lumber companies and mines, will lose access to their means of
production. You will have to balance the potential risk to public safety against the needs and interests of private
individuals. In our society, individuals can often exert excessive pressure on decision makers to choose courses of
action that may not be in the public interest. As an evaluator or decision maker, you need to be as honest and
accurate in your judgments as possible; because if you are wrong, you may cause needless disruption, economic
hardship, or the loss of life.’

TASK: Summarise your Nyiragongo volcanic eruption and the Icelandic eruption into the following boxes. Use a
different colour for each volcano.

Short term responses Long term responses

Reflection... Why do you think some of the people in Nyiragongo were reluctant to leave their homes despite the
increase in volcanic activity?

How can we manage

volcanic hazards?
Learning objectives:
  To know what is meant by preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation.
 To relate these management approaches to real world situations.

Specification content: risk management designed to reduce the impacts of the hazard through preparedness,
mitigation, prevention and adaptation.
Starter: List the challenges that face those in LICs when trying to cope with volcanic hazards?

Risk management is designed to reduce the impacts of volcanic hazards via:

 Preparation/preparedness
 mitigation
 prevention
 adaptation

From: https://perri-n-natural-hazards.wikispaces.com/file/view/preparedness.JPG/
144588759/preparedness.JPG

Mitigation means reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.

‘The success of mitigation efforts requires that the hazards themselves are well understood; that they can be
recognized before they reach a critical level; that warning of their occurrence can be communicated clearly,
accurately, and quickly to public officials; and that public officials will act to put the appropriate risk-mitigating
measures into operation. The important elements of an effective mitigation program are these:

1. Communication is essential among the many groups that live and work around the volcano, including:

 Within the scientific community.

 Between scientists and responsible authorities.

  Between scientists and the public.

 Between responsible authorities and the public.

2. Planning and implementation of risk mitigation measures should involve scientists, government, business,
and citizens and should be coordinated and, where appropriate, integrated with other planning activities in
the region. Several measures, including the following, should be considered for implementation in order to
significantly reduce risk from volcanic hazards to people and property:

 analyses to identify regions and populations at risk;

 land use planning to encourage appropriate use of high-risk areas;

 engineering solutions to mitigate risks, where possible, from specific volcanic hazards; and

 economic incentives to encourage business and citizens to reduce risk from specific hazards.

Costs and benefits of specific mitigation measures should be put forward for public debate and, once implemented,
these measures should be periodically tested and adjusted as necessary.

Societal impacts of a major eruption or debris flow would likely be enormous in aggregate, but these effects would
probably be spread unevenly across different communities and population groups. In planning and implementing
specific mitigation measures, planners should focus on the vulnerabilities of different sectors of the population,
region, and economy.’

Adapted from: http://www.nap.edu/read/4546/chapter/6#88

You can’t prevent volcanic eruptions, but you can take measures to prevent devastation.

From: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=237
Adaptation means making changes to enable people to live alongside volcanoes. Successful adaptation can bring
many rewards, as in the case of Montserrat:

"The volcano, once our greatest enemy, is now our greatest gift," the premier said. "Tours of the exclusion zone and
[the observatory] are a solid revenue stream for us; the rubble created by the volcano has given birth to the new
industry of sand mining, and we export much of the material to nearby islands for use in construction."

The steam and gases flowing in and under the volcano provide sources of geothermal energy, and Romeo predicted
that by 2020 the entire island will be powered by this energy source.

"Many of our people who fled the island after the eruptions are coming back to us now with degrees and training,
which will enable us to become a modern island with a green, smart economy," he said.

From: http://www.travelweekly.com/Caribbean-Travel/Montserrat-adapts

TASK: Summarise your notes of the Nyiragongo eruption and the Icelandic eruption to complete the table below.
Use a different colour for each volcano.

Preparation

Mitigation

Prevention

Adaptation

Reflection... Which of these strategies would be appropriate to use to manage volcanic activity from Mount
Nyiragongo? Which would not be appropriate? Why?

Task: Using your own research, create a fact file comparing and contrasting the Nyiragongo and Icelandic eruptions.
Use the headings to help you:
 Spatial and temporal setting of the event.
 Cause of the event (must link to the plate boundaries and movement)
 Perception of the event
 Changes in perception (must link to magnitude, frequency and population characteristics)
 Impacts (explain and assess them)
 Responses (explain, assess and justify the response to the event including factors affecting these)

Task: Answer the 9 mark question below:

 What are seismic
hazards?
Learning objectives:

 To understand the nature of seismicity and related hazards.

 To know where and why seismic activity occurs.

Specification content: The nature of seismicity and its relation to plate tectonics: forms of seismic hazard:
earthquakes, shockwaves, tsunamis, liquefaction, landslides. Spatial distribution, randomness, magnitude,
frequency, regularity, predictability of hazard events.

Key terms:

 Seismology - the study of earthquakes and seismic waves. The seismograph records the seismic
waves generated by earthquakes, allowing the seismologist to determine where, and how deep, a particular
earthquake is.
 Earthquake - Movements within the Earth’s crust cause stress to build up at points of weakness, and rocks
to deform. Stored energy builds up in the same way as energy builds up in the spring of a watch when it is
wound. When the stress finally exceeds the strength of the rock, the rock fractures along a fault, often at a
zone of existing weakness within the rock. The stored energy is suddenly released as an earthquake.
From: http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/hazards/earthquakes/whatIs.html

Starter: Look back at your notes showing the different types of plate boundaries. Which types of boundaries do we
usually associate with seismic activity?
TASK 1: Using a map of earthquakes (from a textbook or http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics), add the main
earthquake zones to the map below.

Describe the relationship between the location of earthquakes and plate boundaries.

TASK 2: Use http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthquakes/Earthquake-Hazards and/or a

textbook/CGP notes to find out what is meant by these terms:
Focus –

Epicentre –

Shallow focus –

Intermediate focus –

Deep focus –
Primary waves –

Secondary waves –

Love waves –

Rayleigh waves –

Tsunami –

Liquefaction –

Landslide –

The Richter scale is a well-known scale for measuring

the magnitude of earthquakes – it is a logarithmic scale.
However, it is more usual now to use the moment
magnitude scale (MMS) which uses energy release.
A third way of measuring earthquakes is the Mercalli
scale, which measures the intensity of an earthquake
and the impact it has.

From:

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/hazards/earthquakes/MeasuringQuakes.html
The frequency and regularity of earthquakes don’t show predictability and it is impossible to predict exactly when or
where an earthquake will strike. Seismologists study plate margins and know which areas are most at risk; they then
monitor these areas for signs such as microquakes, bulging, changes in gases in groundwater and curious animal
behaviour to produce risk assessments.
Reflection: Complete the earthquakes crossword below.

What is a tsunami?

Learning objectives:

 To understand what a tsunami is and related hazards.

 To know where and why tsunami occur.

Specification content: The nature of seismicity and its relation to plate tectonics: forms of seismic hazard:
earthquakes, shockwaves, tsunamis, liquefaction, landslides. Spatial distribution, randomness, magnitude,
frequency, regularity, predictability of hazard events.
Key terms: Tsunami – A tsunami is a series of waves caused by earthquakes or undersea volcanic eruptions.

Starter: What do you already know about Tsunami? Test yourself using the quiz at
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-12/tsunami-quiz/7881976 - note any points that surprise you here.
TASK 1: Read the information about tsunamis in your textbook/CGP notes, then answer the following questions:
 What are the key features of tsunamis?

 What influences the effect a tsunami has when it reaches land?

 Why are 90% of tsunamis generated in the Pacific Basin?

TASK 2: Using information from the textbook/CGP notes and/or the internet, complete the 5Ws table below for
either the December 2004 Boxing Day tsunami or the March 2011 Tohoku tsunami.
When?

Where?

What?
Why?

Who?