An article on CBS news titled “Earthquakes suggest new tectonic plate is forming,” discusses how scientists believe a new tectonic plate is forming from the breaking up of the Indo-Australian plate.  After 2 earthquakes, that were very strong for their location, scientists believe these abnormal occurrences are the result of the plates breaking apart.  The article states that the breaking up of these plates will likely occur over  million of years, and while this plate is breaking and becoming two, that more earthquakes are likely.  Earthquakes in the middle of the ocean, as we unfortunately know, can trigger large tsunamis that can have catastrophic impacts on coastal regions.

This week’s lesson discussed the processes that can affect coastal zones, and some of those processes include the shifting and movement of tectonic plates and waves.  I wonder how the breaking up of one plate into two will impact the coastal zones within these ocean areas.  With the anticipation of more earthquakes, which raises the tsunami risk, and the gradual shifting of plates, I imagine the coastal zones near these areas will experience changes over the course of time it takes for the complete separation to occur.  It is amazing how the earth is changing and shifting right under our feet.  Once the earth’s continents were connected, Pangea, and now we have seven different continents with mass amounts of ocean waters separating most.  I definitely believe that any shift in tectonic plates will in some way change or alter the coastal zones near the changing plates.

References:

Johnson, B. (2012, September 27). Earthquakes suggest new tectonic plate is forming. Retrieved May 29, 2016, from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/earthquakes-suggest-new-tectonic-plate-is-forming/

This week’s topics shed light on the interconnectedness of many different factors in determining coastal features and dynamics. I am a systems-minded person, so I really enjoyed the process of trying to understand how the many factors and features work together. The role of biodiversity and biological activity, in particular, were interesting to me.

This led me to think about how climate change and threats to biodiversity may impact coastal processes and, consequently, impact the features of coastal zones. An article I found, “Global Warming is Starving West Coast Waters of Oxygen”, raised further questions in my mind about the nature of climate change and biodiversity in coastal areas. Concentrations of oxygen and minerals are influenced by a confounding array of natural and human factors, and they haven’t been well measured, meaning that there is a great deal to be learned still about how coastal environments are changed.

This led me to a bit of conjecture. Although our course discusses how warm waters foster greater biological activity in coastal areas, this article highlights the downsides to warming waters and how, as atmospheric pollution warms the planet and its seas, oxygen levels in oceans decline, making it harder for the bottom-dwelling fish to breathe. This could have a formative effect on coastal areas, as fish and other creatures die from low oxygen supply in the water, there is an increased supply of minerals and organic detritus, which may influence coastal processes.

Conversely, since many coastal areas feature reefs, which are structures made of calcium deposits from small creatures, warming of coastal waters may result in reef degradation and, consequently, less fortification of coasts and hastened erosion. Ultimately, this week’s course material raised many questions in my mind about how different processes are interconnected and how fragile coastal systems actually are.

 

References:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/global-warming-starving-waters-of-oxygen-20303

I found a New York Times article about man-made earthquakes, called Drilling is Making Oklahoma as Quake Prone as California. I didn’t know that humans could cause earthquakes by drilling. After reading this weeks lesson I was intrigued by the impacts of these earthquakes. I knew that shifting of plate tectonics could cause earthquakes but after reading this article I was really surprised at the lengths that we humans are going to to have oil and fossil fuels. By drilling in these areas like Oklahoma, they are now prone to earthquakes as bad as California.

 

The article says that the area that is at greater risk is the land along the Oklahoma-Kansas border, and it has been repeatedly rocked by tremors. Much of the regions boom in oil and gas production comes from hydraulic fracturing of shale deep in the Earth, this process is also called fracking. This year Oklahoma has recorded more than 160 earthquakes with a magnitude of 3 or more. These tremors that they have had over the last 5 years have rivaled the largest in the histories. The pace of these earthquakes have seemed to slowed down a little after the state’s oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. They effectively imposed steep reductions in underground waste disposal earlier this year.

 

I know that there are some places in Pennsylvania that practices fracking, and after reading what it is doing to Oklahoma, I’m worried that it could happen in PA too. This article just shows another way that we have influencing our planet. The effects of burning fossil fuels are known, and now we know that the process of getting our oil is hurting our environment as well. This article really changed the way that I look at earthquakes.

 

Wines, M. (2016, March 28). Drilling Is Making Oklahoma as Quake Prone as California. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/earthquake-risk-in-oklahoma-and-kansas-comparable-to-california.html