A To Z Challenge: Seismology And Scientists Convicted Of Manslaughter

Seismology is a branch of earth science that studies earthquakes. It's a relatively new field due to the fact scientists have only been capable of truly measuring the entire scope of earthquakes for around 100 years, though different societies have had their methods of detecting shifts in the ground for far longer than that--the first seismograph (a device that measures seismic waves, or waves produced by earthquakes or other extreme phenomena) was built in 132 CE in China.

Perhaps a recent development in seismology that has received the most attention was the six-year jail sentence handed down to six scientists and a former government official. In 2009, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the town of L'Aquila in Italy and killed 309 people; the scientists and official, part of a National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, were accused of manslaughter for failing to predict the earthquake. The court's decision is based on the idea the statements put out by the commission were misleading in that they falsely provided a sense of security before the disaster--at one point, a statement was put out saying there was no danger. However, the scientific community has protested the court's decision because they feel it is, at least partly, an attack on science. Earthquake prediction is extremely difficult and there are zero tried and true methods of figuring out when the next significant quake is going to hit.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/seismology
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/waves.html
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/studying.html
http://www.seismosoc.org/society/education/careers.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/glossary/?term=seismology
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/italian-scientists-convicted-of-manslaughter-for-earthquake-risk-report/

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Do you agree with the court's decision? Or do you think that in these types of cases, regardless of the number of people dead, there are no grounds for scientists to be convicted?


-----The Golden Eagle

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Volcanology

Public domain image. SOURCE.

Volcanology, also known as vulcanology, is the study of volcanoes.

The field examines the formation and classification of volcanoes, matter expelled during eruptions (pyroclastic flows, lava, dust, ash, gases), volcanic relations to other geologic events (mountain building, earthquakes), and attempts to predict when volcanoes may erupt. It also involves geophysics, geochemistry, seismology, and geodesy.

Volcanoes form because of rising magma from beneath the surface of Earth, usually close to the edges of tectonic plates. There are three types of volcanic activity: spreading center volcanism (takes place along diverging plates), subduction zone volcanism (takes place where two plates converge) and intraplate volcanism (takes place mid-plate where there are no plate edges).

Volcano types are further classified as cones (steeply sloped with the typical volcano shape), shield volcanoes (shallow sloped), and stratovolcanoes (also known as composite volcanoes; they are shallow at the base, curves sharply upward toward the top). Some major kinds of eruptions include fissure eruptions (eruptions occur along a line), Hawaiian eruptions (relatively calm flows of basalt lava with little volcanic gas), Strombolian eruptions (explosive, noisy eruptions that involve a lot of volcanic gas), Vulcanian eruptions (short series of eruptions that send up a lot of rocks at the onset but become quieter and steadier after some time), Plinian eruptions (generate plumes of ash that travel up to 45 km into the air), and hydrovolcanic eruptions (eruptions that happen in water).

By Ahjartar, CC-BY-SA-3.0. SOURCE.

Notable Volcanologist:

Haraldur Sigurðsson

Haraldur Sigurðsson is a volcanologist and marine geologist. He received a Ph.D. in Petrology/Geochemistry from Durham University and is a current Professor of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. He has studied volcanoes in Iceland, North America, South America, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Italy, and Africa, and has researched underwater volcanoes. He was awarded the Coke Medal by the Geological Society of London for his work. Sigurðsson has also hosted several TV documentaries, including The Riddle of Pompeii, Horizon, Naked Science, and Timewatch.



Video with Haraldur Sigurðsson (embedding was disabled, so I couldn't put it directly in this post):




http://youtu.be/xz99nuPURXA?hd=1

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Sources:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/632202/volcanology
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/society/history/page2983.html
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/
http://www.gso.uri.edu/users/haraldur
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1475311/
http://www.learner.org/interactives/volcanoes/meltrock.html
http://www.plate-tectonics.org/volcanoes/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/cover2.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/volcanology
http://www.tomgidwitz.com/main/explorer.htm
http://www.uri.edu/endeavor/thera/bio-sig.html
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/vwlessons/kinds/kinds.html

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Do you live near any volcanoes?


-----The Golden Eagle

An Update: Poll Results, Writing, And Random Stuff

I haven't done one of these kinds of updates in a while. Here we go:

As for the poll "Do you think people will ever live someplace other than Earth?" I had up for July, here are the results, out of a total of 62 votes:

Yes--and I think it's important that we do (17 votes, 27%)
It's possible (28 votes, 45%)
No, not really (12 votes, 19%)
No--and I don't think we should (4 votes, 6%)
I don't know (1 vote, 1%)

Thank you for voting, to the readers who did--62 is the most votes a poll on my blog has ever gotten.

I hadn't expected so many of you to think that moving off of Earth was important. Personally, I agree with the majority--I do think it's possible (even likely) that humans will be living on other planets or in spacecraft or in orbit; and in the very, very long-term (should an asteroid hit Earth or there's some kind of other disaster which is not impossible), yes, moving off the planet might be a good idea. Someday. But regardless, should technology reach that point where we can move elsewhere, I hope to be around when we're traveling to new frontiers.

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I started a new novel on Monday.

It's going well so far, and I've got the plot for the story set out from beginning to end. I'm excited about the project, since it's in first person, present tense, something I haven't tried before. And in case you're wondering, it's SF, Young Adult, and the main character is a girl. The antagonist is a tyrant who took over the city in a coup de tat over twenty years ago and now aims to control the planet.

Yes, he's just a lovely fellow.

I want to finish this novel by November, so I can start something brand new for NaNoWriMo. (Hey, it's only three months away! Not too early to start planning for it . . . right? I have even come up with a potential idea for that story.)

(SOURCE)

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The grass is probably thanking the sky right now. It's been hot and dry and hot and sunny and also warm for the past week(s), and it's finally cloudy and rainy, so the water doesn't just run off without being absorbed.

(SOURCE)

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Well, at least the stock market went down only 500 points. It wasn't the enormous percentage drop that happened in 2008 . . . though it came pretty close. Thank you, Washington D. C., for stalling until the very date USA was set to default on its 14+ trillion dollar debt. It certainly helped the stability of things. Not.

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I have decided I really like Blogger's new format. It's faster and sleeker than the old one, and while I sort of wish there were scroll bars in the Post Editor, I do like that the edges shift as a part of your window does. The old one didn't go anywhere. I keep forgetting to add tags, though, since they're over to the right and not below anymore.

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So: what do you think of the idea of living on another planet, or in space? How's your writing going--have you got any new projects in the works? Is the economy getting better, or do you think we're going into a double-dip recession? What do you think of Blogger, now that it's been around for a while?


Finally, have you done anything exciting lately? :)


Hope you're all having a great weekend, bloggers!


-----The Golden Eagle