CUNY Academic Commons

I enjoyed doing this lab3 because the maps were straight forward which was easy to understand the map. I liked observing different plate boundaries that have specific characters such as the patterns of earthquakes topography, and seafloor ages. The most intriguing part was the earthquake map. Most of the earthquakes were clustering around the Pacific plates. For example, I watched the news that Japan was struck by one of the powerful earthquakes and tsunami on record in 2011. Now I understand why Japan and other countries are exposed to earthquakes.

The lab experiment was thoroughly demonstrated the reoccurring patterns to which we were able to identify the ways in which plate boundaries and their movements displaying how they materialize on Earth through natural occurrences. Disasters we know to re-occur on a known pattern that we are able to visualize and track through these maps. More importantly, it allowed us to look into the future, in order to take preventative measures to compensate for anything that might happen. Take for example the known pattern of the “Ring of Fire” movements we are able to visualize on the marked Volcano map and the marked Earthquake map.

This lab was very interesting to do and the question/answers were very informative.  The maps were well made and very easy to follow through. The plate boundaries and reoccurring patterns were studied which helped me answer all the questions for this lab. It gave me a better understanding of why some countries experience more earthquakes and Volcanoes and other natural disasters than other countries. When Earth’s tectonic plates grind past one another, enormous amounts of energy can be released in the form of earthquakes.Understanding these patterns we could also take preventive measures to help us cope with these type of disasters in the future.

I thought this was a very informative lab as we were exposed to a various assortment of maps presenting different features and layers of physical properties in relation to plate tectonics. It was shocking to see the numerous patterns that arose when overlapping the earthquake and volcano maps with the plate map, indicating how the formation of natural earth features is relevant to the type of plate boundary these features form against. For example, on the west coast of the North American plate, there is a clear indication of the frequency of earthquakes with volcanoes, similar to the same features present on the Eurasia plate where Japan is located. If possible for closer examination, it might be said that these specific patterns could be dependent on the type of boundary that is present, such as convergent, divergent, and transformative, that is responsible for such patterns.