Geology rocks !

This week I will be focusing on Extreme Heat! Extreme heat is classified as a hazard of "medium" danger in Chile, according to ThinkHazard. The website includes, "there is more than a 25% chance that at least one period of prolonged exposure to extreme heat, resulting in heat stress, will occur in the next five years". Much of the extreme heat hazard is caused by the increase of global temperatures due to global warming and the country's placement on the equator, however according to the most recent assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013, northern Chile's "temperature increase in the next fifty years will be slightly higher than the worldwide average". Example Just a couple years ago in 2016, a heat wave in Chile's capital of Santiago broke the record heat set 100 years prior. For the last century, the record had been 98.96 degrees Fahrenheit (set back in 1915), and had been broken by a 99 degree Fahr...

Hazards Chile's middle and southern regions are areas of high susceptibility to mass wasting, while the northern regions are classified with low to very low susceptibility, as you can see on this map from ThinkHazard. The reason for the concentration of landslide hazards in the central and southern regions is explained by Sergio Sepulveda, a student at the University of Chile. Sepulveda says, "In Chile, debris flows are usually triggered by heavy rainfall, although the amounts of precipitation required to initiate the flows are very variable according to the climatic regime".  Northern areas of Chile are classified as having an extremely dry climate (< 2 in of rain/yr), as it boasts the driest desert in the world, the Atacama. The central regions of Chile are classified as having a Mediterranean-like climate (12-40 in/yr), and the southern regions rainy-temperate (40-80 in/yr, sometimes reaching up to 157 inches in the southern coastal islands). Of course, ...

Turns out Chile has a ton of volcanoes.  In fact, there's about 2,000 of them dotted around the Andes, but the majority of them are dormant or extinct. Chile has the second largest volcano chain in the world, after Indonesia. According to an article on ChileCulture.org, "About 500 volcanoes are potentially active, 36 are currently active and 44 have erupted at least once since 1820". In addition, there have been 15 eruptions in the last 20 years. Other interesting facts The last eruption in Chile was of Calbuco Volcano in Puerto Varas on April 22, 2015 Here's a time lapse video ;-) ~ video ~ According to the Global Volcanism Program, the Chaiten volcano in the southern region of Chile erupted in 2009 - its most recent eruption prior to it was around the year 7420 BC +/- 72 years (what the heck?!) Most of the large volcanoes are stratovolcanoes There's also plenty of geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles  How Chile Warns its People I actually w...

Because Chile is so prone to seismic activity, their earthquake preparedness and preventative measures are some of the best in the world. Warning Systems Following the 8.8 earthquake of 2010 that claimed the lives of more than 500 people, Chile "implemented a new system that alerted residents by telephone, computers and television in real time". The system, compromised of a network of digital broadband seismic and ground motion stations, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations, and GPS stations, allows Chile to capture accurate information for damage assessment and warnings. Chile has also recently experimented with a newer system the rest of the world may soon adopt, called G-FAST. The Seismological Society of America describes G-FAST as using "ground motion data measured by GNSS to estimate the magnitude and epicenter for large earthquakes". The implementation of this system could allow even more time for earthquake warning and evacuation in the fu...

Chile is located essentially at the convergence of the South American, Nazca, and Antarctic plates. The South American and Nazca plates converge at about 88 mm per year (one of the fastest rates in the world) making Chile an area highly vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanism, and landslides. Chile's earthquakes in particular tend to be very powerful, so powerful in fact that it boasts the location of the largest earthquake of the last 200 years - the 9.5 earthquake of 1960. The strength of these humongous earthquakes often causes large earthquakes and tsunamis to occur elsewhere. For example, the 1960 earthquake caused a tsunami that caused loss of life not only in Chile, but Japan, Hawaii, and the Philippines as well. Chile has encountered 13 major earthquakes in the last 30 years. Citations: Image “The Chilean Earthquake: The Plate Tectonics.”  Physics Today , American Institute of Physics, 1 Mar. 2010, physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.024122/full/. ...

This week I will determine the difference between hazards, disasters, and catastrophes. Natural Hazards Natural hazards are natural processes/events that have potential to threaten human life and property. Some examples of natural processes are volcano eruptions and earthquakes. These natural processes are only considered hazardous when humans are in their path. No area of the United States is free of hazards. Major hazards in the United States include tornadoes and windstorms, as they are associated with the largest volume of deaths per year. Most of these cause big property damage. Expansive soils cause more than $15 billion in damages per year. Natural Disasters If an event occurs over a limited amount of time within a defined area, it is considered a natural disaster. In addition to this criteria, one of the following must also occur for an event to be deemed a natural disaster: 10 or more people are killed 100 or more people are affected a state of emergency is decl...