japan question

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Geology

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Dec 6, 2023

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At Fukushima power plant the nuclear crisis worsens the emergency batteries are dead there is no power to cool the reactors temperatures quickly rise water levels drop pressure builds the incredible heat of the fuel rods generates hydrogen gas. the hydrogen explodes. Desperate plant workers inject seawater into the reactors in an effort to cool them. Essentially those plant operators at the time said we’re going to commit plant suicide we’re going to go ahead and kill these plants knowing that they’ll never work again but that was a better option than not letting the cooling system fail and risking even a worse outcome. There’s been another blast at a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant the second hydrogen explosion in three days the Japanese military use helicopters to scoop up seawater to dump on the reactors it doesn’t work the long-term consequence of what is happening at Fukushima remains unknown the humanitarian disaster continues estimates put the death toll from the quake and tsunami at over 20,000 for scientists the analysis goes on from all the data they have acquired one threat is still very real for years experts have warned of a large quake and tsunami off the coast near Tokyo Japan’s recent disaster happens 260 miles north but now the fault lines below Tokyo are even more stressed what’s been expected is slip of the Philippine plate relative to the north of the Eurasian Plate and what has actually occurred is slip of the Pacific plate relative to the Eurasian plate. Sometimes a great earthquake will cause the next patch of the plate boundary to slip so all eyes are on what’s happening how this earthquake has stressed the neighboring part of the plate boundary but understand this whole region is in a very high state of stress and ready to go and they’ve been expected to go any minute so this recent earthquake is going to brought that closer the question is how much close when an earthquake like this happens it basically all of the stress that it relieves in the Earth’s crust essentially gets transferred somewhere else it doesn’t go away it actually adds loading to other parts of the crust the densest areas of populations survive. Largely unscathed next time could be different one area of extreme concern is Tokyo the world’s largest city there could be a major event in Tokyo that would be extremely damaging to this very densely populated region of you’re going to choose somewhere to put one of the major industrial economies on the planet that part of the Pacific Rim is not the place you would choose it could be happening as we speak and what it might not happen for a decade the critical thing is has the particular earthquake shake and that region up so that it brings forward the timing of that earthquake it’s foolish to think that we can stop natural phenomenon what we’ve got to do is to learn to live with them and minimize the consequences when they happen and minimize also the recovery time. It’s very difficult the science to protect against earthquakes and tsunamis what science can do is help town planners, engineers to make building stronger to make designs of buildings and cities more resilient we cannot stop these things happening. We can’t prevent it we can prepare for it. Scientists believe Japan’s tsunami holds valuable lessons for the U.S.. One of the interesting things about this earthquake is that it’s really a template for what might occur on the northern coast of Oregon, Washington. We know we are expecting us at almost identical sized earthquake stretching from Vancouver island to Northern California is Cascadia a vast and volatile fault line here like Japan. One plate is driving beneath another squeezing and compressing it tremendous pressure builds. Cascadia could rupture in a huge magnitude 9 quake a mega quake off the pacific northwest coast would create a tsunami similar to Japan’s. Roger bilham scans the coast of Japan for clues he hopes to understand what could happen to

America’s West Coast like this coastline is long and flat parts of the Oregon coast are mountainous that not maybe a problem where we have what Matt my gland is. We’ve got to expect a similar fact a little bit like airplane crashes. The people go in and try to figure out what happened and learn from that and unfortunately we learn from these disasters but it makes people stronger for the next one the world has seen what happened in Japan the question is are we prepared, we compared to Japan where the preparation level is higher than what we have in the US and we see that the Japanese had still quite a ways yet to go. It’s a little sobering. Think about how many decades of work we have in front of us to just to get to where the Japanese were and then we have to get probably beyond that as well the exploration continues on Nova’s website where you can watch any part of this program again hear from a leading experts on what Japan’s nuclear crisis will mean for the future of nuclear energy and go inside the training center at a US nuclear power plant to see how engineers prepare for the worst dig deeper into the natural forces on planet. 3. Because Washington and Oregon in particular share a similar geological environment, residents of the Pacific Northwest of the United States should take special note of large earthquakes and tsunamis that have occurred in Japan. They have subduction zones, or places where two tectonic plates are pushing under one another, and are situated along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Megathrust earthquakes with the capacity to cause enormous devastation and tsunamis may arise from this. The Pacific Northwest must comprehend the dangers and put precautions in place to improve safety and resilience in the face of possible future occurrences. This requires learning from Japan's experiences with earthquake and tsunami planning, response, and recovery. Describe the geological process known as subduction. Include references to how it can cause each of the following: a) Earth’s largest earthquakes, b) volcanoes, and c) tsunamis. 2) Describe the role of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in saving lives and making people aware of tsunami hazards Near the reactor reveals the earthquakes power sensors at the plant automatically shut down the reactor cores the reactors are in lockdown when the s-waves hit but the intense heat generated from the nuclear reaction process does not simply dissipate when you think shut down. You know it’s the dangers gone because it’s shut down but the reactor core was still extremely hot you know if you have a pan in the oven and you shut the oven off that oven continues to heat inside even after you’ve turned it off with the reactors stopped there’s no power to drive the cooling pumps the reactor cores heat up emergency diesel generators take over plumping coolant through the reactor the Fukushima plant survives the earthquake intact. Scientists 3800 miles away at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii receive emergency alerts. Researchers around the world see the event unfold. Japan has lots of seismometers so there was a lot of information fast so the earthquake was still going on when we got our page first indications a magnitude of around seven but as data floods in the numbers start to climb 7.5, 7.7 up into the eights the immediate reaction of everybody was that’s not right because in the history of Japan there has never been an earthquake larger than 8.4 really heightened our in the intensity of what we were doing because we knew we were dealing with something very big and something that could affect the whole Pacific Basin. We realized oh this is it and then immediately you realize this horrible for Japan the source of this disaster lies 62 miles off Japan’s coast four miles below the surface the earth is distorting caught in a vast slow-motion collision the Earth’s crust is made up of several continents sized slabs of rock tectonic plates. Japan lies at the point where the Pacific plates rams into the Eurasian Plate at three inches a year about the same speed your fingernails grow. Japan is on the

Eurasian Plate it compresses and buckles as the Pacific plate drives underneath it snagging and catching as it goes over centuries immense stress builds up until suddenly the plates snap causing an earthquake the energy that drove this earthquake had been building up for a couple hundred years caused by the movement of the Pacific plate towards the Eurasian Plate think of it as a giant elastic band that’s being wound up for 200 years. 100 seconds since the fall blind slipped the destructive s-waves reach Tokyo the city has 60 seconds warning. The quake lasts an unprecedented five minutes. An American geologist is in Tokyo we expected it to end after 10, 15, 20 seconds something like that maybe a minute at the most about minute three or four. We were just all kind of astonished that it would just kept going and going. 2. Through its monitoring of seismic activity and sea level changes in the Pacific Ocean region, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) plays a critical role in saving lives and increasing public awareness of tsunami threats. The PTWC promptly evaluates the possibility of a tsunami following a major underwater earthquake and notifies impacted areas—including coastal communities—of the impending danger. Their alerts are sent to the public and authorities via a variety of channels, giving crucial information for disaster preparedness and evacuation plans. The work of the PTWC is crucial in reducing the effects of tsunamis and making sure that people are aware of the risks and equipped to react to these natural calamities. Describe the geological process known as subduction. Include references to how it can cause each of the following: a) Earth’s largest earthquakes, b) volcanoes, and c) tsunamis. 1. A geological process called subduction occurs when two tectonic plates clash, creating convergent plate boundaries. Many of the world's volcanoes and the greatest earthquakes on Earth, known as megathrust earthquakes, may result from this. Megathrust earthquakes may unleash enormous amounts of energy and have magnitudes greater than 9.0 on the Richter scale. Because of the abrupt tension and movement along the subduction boundary that can raise or lower the seabed, subduction zones can trigger tsunamis, which can inflict extensive damage along coasts. 2. 3. Through its monitoring of seismic activity and sea level changes in the Pacific Ocean region, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) plays a critical role in saving lives and increasing public awareness of tsunami threats. The PTWC promptly evaluates the possibility of a tsunami following a major underwater earthquake and notifies impacted areas—including coastal communities—of the impending danger. Their alerts are sent to the public and authorities via a variety of channels, giving crucial information for disaster preparedness and evacuation plans. The work of the PTWC is

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crucial in reducing the effects of tsunamis and making sure that people are aware of the risks and equipped to react to these natural calamities. 4. 5. Because Washington and Oregon in particular share a similar geological environment, residents of the Pacific Northwest of the United States should take special note of large earthquakes and tsunamis that have occurred in Japan. They have subduction zones, or places where two tectonic plates are pushing under one another, and are situated along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Megathrust earthquakes with the capacity to cause enormous devastation and tsunamis may arise from this. The Pacific Northwest must comprehend the dangers and put precautions in place to improve safety and resilience in the face of possible future occurrences. This requires learning from Japan's experiences with earthquake and tsunami planning, response, and recovery. 6.

japan question

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