Showing posts with label Earth Sciences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earth Sciences. Show all posts

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Pacific Ring of Fire



Pacific Ring of FireImage via WikipediaIn closing of Volcano Week since I decided I was going to give you a three day weekend I decided to give you a little information on the source of all the volcanoes of Costa Rica. Today we will talk a little bit about the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The Pacific Ring of Fire I will actually start out by saying is not a ring it is more of a horseshoe shape. The ring is opened from Australia to South America but who cares they call it a ring and that is that. Just imagine basically a ring of fire running along the coast of the Pacific ocean all 25,000 miles of it and there you have your Pacific Ring of Fire. This is volcanic trenches, plate movements, and lots of activity. It is home to 452 of the worlds volconoes. Which is a grand total of 75% of the worlds dormant and active volcanoes so you can see why the Ring of Fire is so important to celebrating our Volcano Appreciation Week. Because of all the activity here at "The Ring" 90% of the Earth's earthquakes happen here.

Costa Rica is the result of the Coco plate being subducted beneath the Caribbean plate which is actually how Costa Rica was formed with the friction of the two plates heating up and shooting volcanoes to the ocean floor through time and rising and rising of volcanic material connecting the southern part of Nicaragua and the Northern Part of Panama. Also through this subduction mountains were raised from under the sea floor along with the volcanoes and this is why in some of Costa Rica's highest points you can find sea fossils. Hope you enjoyed Volcano Week and stay tuned for Next week is Costa Rican History Week!!!!
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Magma, Lava, & Tephra



Arching fountain of a Pahoehoe approximately 1...Image via WikipediaSince it is still Happy Volcano week I thought I would describe the different between three terms you might here during your visit to Costa Rica. First of all one that people always ask is what is the different between Magma and Lava?

They are both motlen rock but Magma is located in magma chambers below the Earth's surface and lava is molten rock that has reached the Earth's surface. The tempature of mamga is between 1300F - 2400F and lava is 1300F 2300F very similar. Lava probably comes from the Latin word "Labes" which means to fall or slide which best describes its action when it reaches the Earth's surface.

Now a third fragment you might not be too familiar with but you should know when visiting Costa Rica is Tephra. Tephra relates very much to magm and lava. Lets look at it like this. Lava is to magma in an extusive form what Tephra is to magma in an explosive form. What this means is that Tephra is fragment material produced by volcanos which becomes airborne. This is very common in history in Costa Rica. We always here have coffee crops were destroyed from acid rain and the present Turrialba volcano activity. Ash can travel for miles into the stratosphere and large amounts of Tephra can reflect light and heat from the sun and tempatures on the Earth can drop just from the eruption of a volcano. Now thinking for the last post I wrote at the start of volcano week the Tephra material is a result of what kind of eruption that is very common in Costa Rica? Pyroclastic Eruptions! Very good I can see your learning.  The picture in this blog is not of Costa Rica but I liked it so much I thought I would share...
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Turrialba Volcano Might Re-Open?



Turrialba VolcanoImage by Costa Rican Resource via FlickrI personally declared it volcano week since it seems to be the topic of this blog for the last couple of days it seems the local newspaper is lending itself to help me out. La Nacion the main news paper in Costa Rica which I consider the most formal and proffesional came out with the most unproffesional and informal article I could imagine. It was about the idea of re-opening the Turrialbal Volcano, you can read the article in Spanish here.

If it is time to reopen the Turrialba volcano than fine lets do it but if its not than lets wait. I find it interesting that the only way to get to the crater in the rainy season would be for the US not to send warships down but to send some tanks down. The roads are horrible and with these rains I can imagine not much better. The roads in the article were not so much an issue in the article in arriving but during an emergency evacuation. The article then talks about how the volcano is letting out a lot of gas and that it could be dangerous to the tourist, uh? Does this mean like going to Poas and you should only stay at the crater for 30 minutes because of the gases being released or does this mean dangerous from the moment you arrive.

The suggestion from La Nacion is that you would have to hire a tourism proffesional company to take you to the top of the crater to be safe. I've got news for you I run a tourism proffesional company and I dont have a clue when the Turrialba volcano is safe or when it is not safe I just go by what the experts tell me. Well I hope they dont open the park today but if it is open for the next high season I will be looking forward to it it would be quite the plus to any costa rican family vacation with the activity it is displaying and quite the free back massage with the road to get there.




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