Geography of the PacificGeog 095 – Fall 2006

Tuesday and Thursday

12:30-1:45pmRoom 200 Lafayette

Professor: Sasha Davis

Where we are going today:

• Introduce ourselves

• Short writing assignment

• Some discussion about the Pacific

• Syllabus

• Hand out reading for Thursday

• On Thursday discuss reading and start in on Physical Geography of Pacific

Who are we???

Short free write..

• What does the Pacific mean to you… today?

Things said about this Pacific island…“It is a tropical paradise, unspoiled by development, with excellent scuba diving..."-Timothy Ferris, MSNBC TV, June 30,1997

“There are not many places that could look more like the Garden of Eden.”  - Conde Nast Traveler Magazine, July 2000

“This is a wilderness. This place hasn’t been touched in forty years” -Kristof, New York Times, 1997

“To me it was simply 'Utopia’, [with] pristine beaches as soft and as white as baby powder.” -Patty Newell-Mortara,

Publisher of Women Underwater

"“It is what you picture in your mind…It's a remote, beautiful South Pacific island. Beautiful beaches. There's

nothing to do. No television. No phones. It's what you want it to be. We all wonder why the [people] aren't here.

It's such a beautiful place.” - unidentified tourist 2002

Test Shot “Bravo” March 1, 1954750X power of

Hiroshima bomb

Bravo crater

Globe with RMI

“It is a paradise, a place where you have everything you need. It is a place God puts you where all is

within your reach.”

“[the old people] say that [the island] is paradise… Like it is easy for them to go fishing and it's easy for

them to go on the other islands... And I think that when they were here everybody shared what they had

and their life here was really easy for everybody. That's why they say some of the people they always think about the past, what they were on [the island].”

“Living on [the island] is like living on a ship, except that the ship will get to port, but [the island] will never

go anywhere.”

A US Navy Admiral proclaimed that “the [island] itself is unhealthy” because it, “produces little food

besides coconuts and fish.”

Empty Pac

What do geographers do?

Questions in Geography

• Where is it?

• What is it?

• How did it come to be the way it is?

• Should it be that way and can we change it?

syllabus

Where we are going

• Discussion of Sea of Islands

• Physical Geography:– Geology– Climate– Oceanography

Our Sea of Islands

Getting used to viewing Pacific Maps

Geology

Plate Tectonics

announcements

• Buy books please!

• Turn in talking points from last class (sea of islands)

• Don’t forget to turn them in today.

• Don’t forget to include on it what country/island you plan to follow. Show website.

Climate

Pg. 41 in Textbook

Walker circulation

Typhoons, Cyclones, Hurricanes

Pg. 41 in Textbook

Oceanography

waves

• Tsunami

El Nino

Pg. 41 in Textbook

Tectonic Settings and Volcanic Activity

El Niño and La Niña

Ecology in the Pacific