Earthquakes 2: Vancouver

1. It's been implied that Vancouver is due for an earthquake, since the Cascadia fault has been quite silent. On average, the fault has an earthquake every 300 to 1000 years. Since the last big earthquake was in early 1700, provided from reports of an tsunami hitting Japan, the dead trees in the ghost forest in Washington, and the soil carbon dating.

2. The area around Vancouver is on a silty basin known as the Georgia basin. The area also has the Strait of Georgia that Vancouver is on the coast of. Vancouver Island is on the left of the Strait of Georgia.

3. a) In terms of liquefaction, cities in the Vancouver are at risk to it (especially Richmond) since Vancouver is in the silty Georgia Basin. Houses built on mountainsides like in
Coquitlam or roads on mountainsides like Highway 5 are risk to landslides because of loose rocks or soil coming down because of a major shock.

Any city on a coast like Tofino and even Vancouver are at more risk to tsunamis as they are cities close to water after all. Vancouver Island is more likely to shield Vancouver a little bit from a tsunami, but a giant tidal wave like that would sweep cars off roads, among other things. Finally flooding is probably the most worrying issue, as cities like Richmond would become literal swamps after the tsunami wrecks it's way through.

b) The social impact would be quite harsh when the big one hits here. It's calculated that 400 to 800 people would perish from the quake and tsunami alone. Many more would be injured and/or homeless as well. Economically it would also be a disaster, as it's estimated that the quake alone would cause over 150 million dollars, with it rising more when the tsunami hits. On infrastructure, it depends on the stability and if it's was built to withstand such a natural disaster. Worst case, a skyscraper collapses or something else is decimated. Newer structures should fare better than older ones, as the codes of building have switched over the years. Areas like Gastown are at larger risks than rural Surrey for example just because of Gastown's older structures being weaker since they were built using older methods or been standing for a long time.

4. Metro Vancouver in terms of preparing for that earthquake have been quite lacklustre, in fact many say that nothing a

has been done to prepare at all. They have however, done things such as reinforce weaker structures (upgrading the Granville Street bridge) and things like earthquake drills to prepare people for what to do when the big one hits.

Earthquakes

1. The Terremento dell'lrpinia (Irpinian earthquake) occurred on November 23, 1980.

2. The quake epicentre was 40.85°N and  15.28°E, in the village of Conza.

3. It is unknown what caused the earthquake, but it is believed that it was caused by the Eurasian and African plates colliding with each other.

4. The quake measured a magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter scale. It also had 90 smaller aftershocks.

5. In all, 2984 people were killed and over  10,000 were injured. Many cities were destroyed, especially in the province of Avellino. 300,000 were left homeless because of the event. Many churches , an orphanage and even a 10 story apartment building in Naples were leveled. The Italian government spent 59 billion dollars on earthquake reconstruction, with West Germany contributing 32 million USD and the US contributing 70 million USD.

Plate Tectonics in Italy

1. 

Italy is located on the edge of the Eurasian Plate, close to the boundary of the Eurasian and African plates.

2. The Eurasian plate moves at about 2 cm per year eastward. It is divergent with the North American plate and convergent with the African plate.

3. Because of the convergent reaction with the African plate, mountain ranges like the Alps formed in the cause of the two pushing against each other.

4. Volcanoes are a major hazard caused by the convergent boundary. Some of these volcanoes have caused major casualties, like mount Vesuvius in Naples for example.

Earthquakes also happen in the regions around the plate boundary, but are much less common than the volcanoes.

5. Italy has some faults in the land, such as in the Alps and the Apennines.

Impact of Fishing

PART A

Fishermen: The amount of over fishing made by fishermen mean less and less fish being available for them to fish because of the amount of fish being caught.

Consumers: 90% percent of fish caught are eaten. When the fish are over fished, later generations won't get the luxury to know what fish is or get to eat fish at all.

Governments: the governments are getting more and more pressured to limit the fish being caught in their own country waters to a certain level where their populations stabilize and do not diminish and become endangered.

The Environment: With the fish becoming more and more endangered, species that fish eat like plankton for example, become more and more populated in the waters. If it keeps going like it is going, waters in the world may turn green from the amount of plankton and algae in the waters.




PART B:

Italy is one of the major fishing countries in the world, thanks to it being around the Mediterranean Sea. Since it has one of the major fishing industries, it does over fish quite a bit. It's also affected by the Mediterranean Sea heating up in deep and shallow waters due to climate change in the region. The species depletion hasn't affected Italy as bad as other countries, as other species with short-life spans and adapt towards warmer waters have adjusted in the Mediterranean.