Japan’s Triple Crisis

Last Friday, northeastern Japan experienced a HUGE earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The earthquake, along with damage from the tsunami has caused at least two nuclear power station reactors to come in jeopardy of meltdown. Nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating.

EarthquakeTsunami

Nuclear meltdown

Where is Japan?

Japan is an island nation in the western Pacific. It Is made up of three major islands and several smaller islands

“…our worse crisis since WWII.”

Japan’s Prime Minister on Sunday.

That’s saying a lot considering the only atomic bombs to every be used against a nation were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII.

Last week Japan experienced the largest earthquake recorded in modern history. Originally rated as a magnatude 8.9 on the Richtor Scale, as of Sunday, March 13, many have upgraded it to at least a 9.0 earthquake.

Earthquake-speak

Tectonics (it’s what causes earthquakes!)

• Tectonic refers to rock-deforming processes and resulting structures that occur over large sections of the upper crust of the earth.

The earth’s Tectonic Plates.

Continental Drift

In 1915, the German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener first proposed the theory of continental drift, which states that parts of the Earth's crust slowly drift atop a liquid core.

Types of plates

• Continental crust (the crust that on the surface is dry land) is thicker and less dense than Oceanic Crust.

• Oceanic crust (the crust under the oceans) is thinner and denser than continental crust.

• Crust is constantly being created and destroyed; oceanic crust is more active than continental crust.

Plate boundaries

• The area where to of the tectonic plates meet is called a plate boundary.

• The plate boundaries generally are one of three types– Transverse boundary– Divergent boundary– Convergent boundary

Transverse or lateral slip boundary

• When two plates move sideways against each other, there is a tremendous amount of friction which makes the movement jerky.

• The plates slip, then stick as the friction and pressure build up to incredible levels.

• When the pressure is released suddenly, and the plates suddenly jerk apart, this is an earthquake.

The San Andreas Fault in California is a slip-fault of

transverse boundary.

Canal built across a strike- slip fault. Notice how the canal no longer aligns.

Divergent boundary

Two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent boundaries within continents initially produce rifts which produce rift valleys.

Africa’s Great Rift Valley is a divergent continental plate boundary

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an Oceanic divergent plate boundary.

Convergent boundary-an actively deforming region where two (or more) tectonic Plates move toward one another and collide. -pressure, friction, and plate material melting in the mantle causes earthquakes and Volcanoes near convergent boundaries. -When two plates move towards one another, they form either a subduction zone or a continental collision.

When plates collide

Oceanic plates tend to “slip” UNDER continental plates creating Coastal mountain ranges.

One oceanic plate colliding with another tend to create mid- ocean island chains.

Continental plates colliding tend to create VERY highMid-continent mountains.

Richter Magnitude Scale

– developed in 1935 by Charles F. Richter – logarithmic basis of the scale • each whole number increase in magnitude represents a

tenfold increase in measured amplitude• a magnitude 5.3 might be computed for a moderate

earthquake, and a strong earthquake might be rated as magnitude 6.3

Epicenter

• The epicenter is the point on the earth's surface vertically above the hypocenter (or focus), point in the crust where a seismic rupture begins.

Earth’s surface

Below the surface of the earth.

What the experts say about Japan’s earthquake.

• The latest Japanese earthquake was a 9.0!• Parts of Northern Japan may have moved as

much as 8 FEET since the earth quake!• This even may have caused the earth to change

the speed of its rotation by .0001 seconds (that’s a bunch)!

• This quake may also slightly shift the earth on its axis!

The wave that followed.• If you’ve ever thrown a rock into a pool of

water or watched rain drops hitting a puddle, and noticed the “ripple effect”, you’ve witnessed a miniature model of a tsunami.

How an earthquakes creates a tsunami.

Tsunami (improperly known as a a tidal wave)

5 hours10 hours 15 hours20 hours

Tsunamis travel as fast as 600 miles per hour!

Facts about tsunamis

• In the open deep ocean, a tsunami’s wave may be barely noticeable.

• Once the tsunami reaches shallow water, the wave builds UP and creates a wave wall.

The earthquake in Japan last Friday caused a tsunami because the epicenter of the quake was off

shore (under water). The quake and the following tsunami severely

damaged several nuclear reactors in the coastal areas.

Scenes of the event

How tall do you think the waves were?

Ocean fishing boat left capsized, high and dry.

Before

After

New cars that were to be exported to other countries waiting to be loaded onto ocean-going cargo ships were caught in the tsunami.

Remains of aBrewery threemiles awayended up in aresidentialAreadevastated bythe wave.

Estimates are that 10,000 Japanese have died so far due to the event.

Passenger ferry perched atop a house after the tsunami.

Cargo containers were pushed into massive piles. Cargo containers are the size of semi-truck trailers.

Sendai Airport before and after

Airport runway littered with cars and debris.

Tens of thousands of Japanese may be homeless and without food, water or shelter for weeks. The night after the earthquake, temperatures dipped to the 30’s while many spent the night on their roof tops with no blankets.

Many have been left with NOTHING.

• One rare bit of good news was the rescue of a 60-year-old man swept away by the tsunami who clung to the roof of his house for two days until a military vessel spotted him waving a red cloth about 10 miles (15 kilometers) offshore.

Those who have been exposed to radiation fromthe nuclear power plant damage have been isolated.

A mother tries to talk to her daughter who has been isolated for signs of radiation after evacuating from the vicinity of Fukushima's nuclear plants.

American soldiers and sailors have already begun efforts to assist Japan.

Experts think it will be over a year before numbers can be put to the total cost of the destruction and the loss of life.