Volcanic Hazards

To what extent can preparedness and planning mitigate the effects of a volcanic hazard (40 marks)

Assess the extent to which primary rather than secondary impacts are the more serious effects arising from volcanic eruptions. (30 marks)

A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat tolife, health, property or environment. The level of hazard posed by different volcanoes can very greatly, from a weak eruption with minimal impact that causes little damage, to a voilent and life threatening explosion. Most of the sixty-plus volcanoes that erupt each year are low risk, however a combination of factors can cause a volcano to be a serious hazard. The factors causing these variations will be explained in this essay.

Volcanoes can be found throughout the entire world and are formed when there is a rupture in the mantle of the Earth's crust. This effect allows the output of volcanic lava, ash, and various types of gases. These tectonic plate breaks are normal, the planet Earth is divided into 17 tectonic plates and consistently move against each other forming shifts from low to high intensity. It can cause displacement of earth or water.

Have you ever been near a volcano when it erupted? Most of us haven't, but if you're unlucky enough, you just might have. Many people think it would be cool, but it is indeed not. In fact, the people of Pompeii were very unlucky when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Nearly two-thousand people died. Although that eruption was very similar to the 1980 eruption of Saint Helens, it was also very different.

Volcanoes are one of the most destructive, yet, most beautiful things on Earth. They can make a famous city choke in its own ashes in one day, like Pompeii. Or they can turn a once damaging mountain into a graceful and peaceful home for new life, like Mount St. Helen’s. All volcanoes are unique, and no two are the same. Some erupt differently than others, some look different than others, and all are located in different spots all over the world. I learned this while completing the project and the five volcanoes I researched are examples of my discoveries. The five volcanoes I researched were Mount Hood, Mount Mageik, Long Island, Mount Muria, and Las Pilas.

Another physical factor is snow; if a volcano is snow capped, like Eyjafjallajokull, then the lahars and flash floods become a greater hazard. The flooding in Iceland in 2010 caused 700 people to be evacuated. Without the snow then lahars and floods may not be a problem at all.

A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment. There is a very big difference that helps prepare for a volcanic hazard and that is whether you are in a MEDC or a LEDC. In a MEDC monitoring volcanic zones and potential hazards is an option many LEDC’s don’t have. In Italy at Mt Etna they have Geochemical monitoring programs currently run by INGV which focus on the analysis of temporal changes, chemical changes and seismic activity.

A human factor that would cause differences in the hazards posed by volcanoes is settlement, which includes where people chose to live in relation to a volcano. For example, in Indonesia many people settle near Mount Merapi because of the rich and fertile soil favoured for farming. As Indonesia is a poor country many people rely on subsistence farming, therefore are willing to risk everything by settling beside a volcano. Furthermore, in the last eruption in 2010 360,000 people were displaced from their homes, meaning not only did they lose their home but also their livelihood; hundreds also lost their lives. Therefore, the hazards posed could have been minimalised if people chose to settle elsewhere.

Most people would seriously question on why so many people throughout the world live in the immediate vicinity of a volcano, and although we can only see the downside of that, there are benefits from living so close to a volcano. One of the biggest reasons are the soils close to a volcano is full of nutrients and minerals which keep the soil very fertile. This happens because of all of the lava and rock that a volcano releases. This helps soil stay rich with nutrients and gives opportunities to grow fruit, rice or other

While volcanoes can be a beautiful tourist attraction they can also be quite destructive by nature. Volcanoes can be beneficial to the environment and become attractions but they can also kill and injure countless people.

Lumps of Lava cool into solid rocks as they fly through the sky, forming rounded chunks that can be also known as bombs, while pieces with corners and sharp edges are named blocks. Both bombs and blocks can cause a great deal of damage. As the volcano begins to burst, the sky fills with choking, smoky powder, while it starts raining lava, and rock. The air warmed quicker than when you pour kerosene on a fire, with a sound so loud it circled the earth four times, red hot lava flows down the side of the volcano and magma spews out the top. The only taste in my mouth is the smoke coming from the lava, as the gas in the air turned all my silver jewelry black. I feel very frightened knowing this is such a normal thing to happen in different

Volcanic eruptions are a constant issue. There are around 50 -70 eruptions every year with some volcanoes erupting more than once. Around 35 people die every year from volcanic eruptions along with an average cost of damage of 98,992,000. I believe that with a little math that these numbers can go down. Issues with volcano causing so much death is more of the debris that comes out of it if we could estimate the distant that this debris could travel then we would simply need to change the areas that we build cities and how far we would need to evacuate in a sudden emergency. This will include the ideas of projectile motion, angular projectile motion, Geometrical estimations. For this example, I will be using the volcano Mount Vesuvius. This volcano is known best for the destruction of Pompeii and villages that surrounded it. This eruption works the best due to the easily known eruption and the easily measurable distances from Pompeii to the center of Mount Vesuvius.

How volcanoes affect people and environments? A volcano is a mountain or hill having a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapor, and gas are in. Volcanoes can change the weather. They can cause rain, thunder and lightning. Volcanoes can also have long-term effects on the climate, making the world cooler.

Volcanoes and Earthquakes are two of the most intriguing natural disasters that can occur on earth. Unlike hurricanes and tornadoes, they can awaken at almost any point in time throughout the year. These two natural disasters are also different from others because they occur on the layers of the earth itself. Volcanoes, while large to us, are actually small, conical patches of earth that spurt and ooze hot molten lava from the core, and can destroy areas of land triple their size. Earthquakes, on the other hand, are severe jolts felt on land due to the movement of earths tectonic plates. Some may describe earthquakes as being similar to riding a bike down a flight of stairs. The impact of an earthquakes can take down even the largest buildings and strongest structures. All natural disasters can have damaging effects on land, some more than others, and all can be measured or predicted in different ways. Although earthquakes and volcanoes are similar to each other, the two are still very comparable. A few of these similarities and differences include the cause of their occurrence, and how their occurrence impacts the environment.