Reference no: EM131518015

Natural Disasters

To complete our section on hazards, we are going to look at Google Earth layers dealing with wildfires and earthquakes. Begin by opening "MODIS Active Fire Detections 2010.kmz". This is a large layer, so it may take some time to load. This layer was created from data provided by the Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC), a Forest Service center located in West Valley City. RSAC receives data from two MODIS sensors multiple times per day, and uses the data to produce maps of active fires at a spatial resolution of 1 km. Our data layer combines all of the fire detections for a month into a single layer. Each yellow dot in a monthly layer will indicate that a fire burned within the 1 km by 1 km pixel represented by that dot sometime during the indicated month. Note that the active fires data will detect all fires above a minimum size, including wildfires and agricultural fires.

Use the time slider to look at the geographic distribution of fire detections during each month of 2010, and answer the following questions:

1. Note the large number of fire detections in Kansas, North Dakota, and Minnesota during April 2010. Examine the land cover closely. Were these fires likely wildfires or agricultural fires? How do you know?

2. Large wildfires will be displayed as a large number of dots clustered tightly together. Were there any large wildfires in Utah in 2010? If there were large wildfires, where did they occur and in what month(s) did they occur?

3. How does the geographic distribution of fire in the United States change through the year?

4. Find the magnitude 7.8 (M 7.8) earthquake near Japan. Based on the plate boundaries in the area, what type of stress is present at the plate boundaries near these earthquakes?

5. The recent earthquake is between two white arrows, one to the north and one to the south. What is the subduction rate of the Pacific Plate to the north of the recent earthquake? What is the subduction rate to the south?

6. What is the fastest rate that the Pacific Plate is subducting under another plate? Where in the Pacific is this subduction occurring?

7. What category of hurricane was the 1900 storm just before it made landfall near Galveston, TX?

8. What was the wind speed of Hurricane Camille in knots just as the storm made landfall?

9. What category of hurricane was Hurricane Katrina just over the southern portion of Louisiana?

10. What was the wind speed of Hurricane Katrina just over the southern portion of Louisiana?

Attachment:- Natural Disasters.rar