Monday, January 27, 2020

Impact of Volcanic Eruptions on Iceland

Impact of Volcanic Eruptions on Iceland Massimo Fanara Describe the three different types of volcanic eruptions that have given rise to rise to Iceland’s volcanic landforms. There are three different types of volcanic eruptions based on the lava texture. These are; Effusive: eruptions in which lava with low viscosity and settles on the side of the volcano forming gentle slopes. In this type of eruption, gases escape easily and thus there is no explosions due to the build-up of pressure (The Geological Society, 2014). Explosive: occur when gas pressure builds up in the volcano until it is released catastrophically. The highlyviscousmagma magma is trapped in the volcano by a blockage, which prevents gases from escaping. As the magma rises towards the surface, pressure increases until a weak point in the blocked crater is found. At this point all the pressure is released in a massive explosion of pyroclastics, volcanic gases and lava (The Geological Society,2014). Mixed: Eruptions involving explosions and magma flows Describe the characteristics of a thuya. How does this acquire its distinctive shape? Tuyas are eruptions occurring underneath ice sheets resulting in a layer-cake structure with a flat-top and steep-sidedvolcano. This steep sided layer-cake shape results from the rapid cooling of lava which does not travel far from the vent and thus piles up into a steep-sided mount. When the eruption is long enough that melts all the ice, a flat cap of basaltic rock on top of the hill is formed. Definethe term jà ¶kulhlaup and explain its significance to Iceland. Jà ¶kulhlaups: refers to an outburst flood event of glacial origin. Jà ¶kulhlaups erode, deposit, and re-work sediment simultaneously; they usually cause significant glaciological and sedimentological impacts creating large canyons and transport sediment and icebergs over vast outwash plains and sandur deltas (Russell, Roberts, et al., 2005). Another important aspect of jokulhlaups is the significant heat exchange between the magma and glacier, which result in subglacial eruprions and formation of hyaloclastite ridges and tuyas (Bjà ¶rnsson, 2010). What are the origins of Icelandic river waters? Describe the relevant main characteristics. Most of the Icelandic river waters originate from abundant glacier melting. This result in distinctive characteristics including; Huge amount of debris High turbidity Usually yellowish-brown in colour. The maximum discharge usually occurs in July or early August. Most of the rivers are unnavigable. Explain  the following terms: (i) tephrachronology, (ii) crytotephra,and (iii) isopachs. Tephrochronology: is a method for relating and dating geological, palaeoecological, palaeoclimatic, or archaeological sequences or events (Lowe, 2011). Crytotephra: It involves the use of volcanic ash which travelled long distances and which may have formed distinct but invisible layers within a sites stratigraphy (Lane, Cullen, et al., 2014). Isopachs: Isopachs are line drawn on a map connecting all points of equal thickness of a particular geologic formation. These allow the user to create isopach mapsillustrating variations in thickness within a layer orstratum. Isopach maps are used are utilized inhydrographic survey,stratigraphy,sedimentology,structuralgeology,petroleum geologyandvolcanology. One measure used totackle the problem ofsoil erosion is re-seeding with appropriate floral species. What characteristics of a plant would make it suitable for such a purpose? Roots are important structures not only for the plant but also for the underlying terrain. Plant roots; Describe one method that could be used to measure the profile of a beach. Beach profiling can be carried out by the use of a clinometer. This method consist of first, finding two points to use as reference points which define the line to follow when measuring a beach profile. The instruments needed are a clinometer, a compass, GPS (for the starting point coordinates), a measuring tape and a piece of wood (to place the clinometer on it when taking the readings). Measurements of the beach surface are taken by the use of a clinometer which measures the angle of the slope. This is done at different intervals between the two reference points until the sea is reached. Explain the following: (i) lateral moraine, (ii) kettle lake, and (iii) outwash plain. Lateral moraine: Unconsolidated material deposited on the sides of an alpine glacier. Most of the material deposited results from the freeze-thaw weathering of alpine valley walls (Lemke, 2010). Kettle lake: Kettles arefluvioglacial landforms created when depressions left behind by the melting of partially-buried ice blocks are filled with water (Schaetzl, n.d.). Outwash plain: Outwash plains areplainsformed fromglacialsediments such as gravel, sand and claydeposited by meltwater outwash at the terminus of aglacier (The Geography Site, 2006). Explain the presence of wave-cut platforms in areas ofIceland presently distant from the coast. Studies were carried out on the lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy in the northern coast of Iceland in the attempt of reconstructing deglaciations relative sea level changes. According to these studies sea level felt by approximately 45m between 11300 and 9100 BP. This corresponds to an isostatic rebound of 77m. Therefore, this change in sea level explains the presence of wave-cut platforms distant from the coast (Rundgren, Ingolfsson, 1997) Distinguish between mafic and felsic lava. Mafic lava: is less viscous than felsic lava due to lower silica content. This causes non-violent eruptions where lava moves slower. Mafic lava tends to be associated more with interplate volcanism and mid-ocean ridges and produces basaltic type rock. Felsic lava: found mainly at convergent zones. This type of lava has a high silica and water content, causing the lava to be highly viscous and causes very violent eruptions. This lava produces rhyolite and andesitic rocks. What is the nominal fix accuracy of a GPS? Why can a DGPS improve this nominal accuracy? Nominal fix accuracy of a GPS is how accurate a GPS can be. There are several factors affecting the accuracy such as atmospheric effects, sky blockage, and receiver quality. A higher accuracy is attained when using GPS in combination with augmentation system. These enable real-time positioning to within a few centimeters (National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, 2014). A Differential Global Positioning System(DGPS) is an enhancement toGlobal Positioning Systemthat provides improved location accuracy, from the 15-meter nominal GPS accuracy to about 10 cm in case of the best implementations. The DGPS is a combination of local land stations connected with satellites for more accurate data. In cartographic terms, explain why the datum used by a GPS navigation set must be the same as for the reference chart being used. A datum is any numerical or geometrical quantity serving as a reference point from which to measure other quantities. With regard to chart datums, these are also used in plotting GPS positions or transferring positions from one chart to another. When plotting and transferring points from one chart to another GPS positions must be on the same datum as the chart being used in order to prevent any inconvenience regarding with hazards and safe distances. References Bjà ¶rnsson, H. (2010). Jà ¶kulhlaups in Iceland: Sources, release and drainage [Abstract]. CRITSITE. (2014). Root structure characteristics. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://www.critsite.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/plants.rootStructures/index.htm Hofmann-Wellenhof, B., Lichtenegger, H., Wasle, E. (2007). GNSS–global navigation satellite systems: GPS, GLONASS, galileo, and more Springer. Lemke. (2010). Lateral moraine. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://www4.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/lemke/alpine_glacial_glossary/landforms/lateralmoraine.html Lane, C. S., Cullen, V., White, D., Bramham-Law, C., Smith, V. (2014). Cryptotephra as a dating and correlation tool in archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Science, 42, 42-50. Lowe, D. J. (2011). Tephrochronology and its application: A review. Quaternary Geochronology, 6(2), 107-153. National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing. (2014). GPS accuracy. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/ Schaetzl. (n.d.). Kettle lakes. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://web2.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/kettle_lakes.html RUNDGREN, M., INGÓLFSSON, Ó., BJÃâ€"RCK, S., Jiang, H., Haflidason, H. (1997). Dynamic seaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ level change during the last deglaciation of northern Iceland. Boreas, 26(3), 201-215. Russell AJ, Roberts MJ, Fay H, Marren PM, Cassidy NJ, Tweed FS, Harris T. (2005). Icelandic jà ¶kulhlaup impacts: Implications for ice-sheet hydrology, sediment transfer and geomorphology. Geomorphology, 75(12), 33-36. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2005.05.018 The Geography Site. (2006). Outwash plains. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/physical/glaciers/outw.html The Geological Society. (2014). Effusive explosive eruptions. Retrieved, 2014, Retrieved from http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/ks3/gsl/education/resources/rockcycle/page3599.html

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Edvard Munch The Scream and The Sick Child Essay

Edvard Munch was born in Norway in 1863 and became a troubled artist after he was influenced by many older impressionists. Most of his work is a reflection of impressionism and tells a story that is mostly dark or consist of death, illness, anxiety, pain, or fear. His paintings also are influenced by the heartache he endured as a child watching close family members die from sickness that he survived, such as, his sister and his mother who both became ill and died of tuberculosis. The darkness continued to haunt him throughout his life and influenced his paintings as well which in turn, created a very famous artist of impressionism and symbolism. Most of his work symbolized troubles, anxiety, and a loss in someway shape or form to include death, or psychological problems such as anxiety.(Wolf,2009) Munch used paintings that signify demons and bad times rather than the happy times in peoples lives which was different and accepted. One of Edvard Munch’s first and earliest paintings, sick child, is an early example of a painting that shows sadness, sickness, and possible death. The painting is of a young girl, munch’s sister, laying in a bed straight up and hovered over by another grienving womanly figure who’s head is bowed as to only show us the top of her head. The girl looks vaguely pale with bright red long uncombed hair and a blank stare on her face. The girl is staring at a dark wall that could signify death. The women hovered over her signifies grievance and pain seeing how she is not directly looking at the girl but rather sad and depressed. Hands are not drawn in the painting but an interlocking of shapes used to signify that joining of hands is greatly illustrated, perhaps, to indicate the woman at the bedside as being her mother who dies 11 years earlier. The painting of his sister who died at the age of 15 and his mother who died of the same disease a decade earlier is an obsess ive painting that took Munch 6 different tries to master exactly the way he wanted it to be. Each version was different in different ways and told the similar story. His first version of the painting was a black and white lithograph with similar thick vertical and horizontal brushstrokes as see in the paintings he did after the first. However, each new version of The sick child, adds more story and elements in order to further depict such a dark and haunting time. Munch used dark colors and rough brushstrokes of impasto paint in his painting depicting a sadness and hard time in his life.(Esaak,2012) Happiness is not in any part of this painting and melancholic tones are also used and presented throughout, as well as, scratched surfaces made to look weathered and torn. The lithograph painting was first painting in white and black and later was changed and painted with dark and more intense colors and with more impressionism which was popular in that time and therefore was a blend of both lithograph and impressionism. (Esaak,2012) Another famous work of art done by Edvard Munc h is, The Scream. Again Munch used free,loose, and vertical brushstrokes and paints with dark intense colors. The use of semi-abstraction is also present throughout this painting. Munch used fauvism, expressionism, and surrealism in this painting. The painting definitely depicts a distoration of reality throughout. The girl in the pictures face is distorted as well as the bridge and sky around her which leaves the work to personal vision when analyzing it. Munch was influenced to paint The Scream after walking with his friends at sundown and was frightened by a terrible scream and therefore, the picture is a symbol of his fear deep inside himself. The figure with an odd shaped cartoon head, comparable to an alien, has their hands to their agonizing face as if screaming themselves in fear and the world around them seems to stop as the sky in the background looks horrifying and portrays violence.(Welford,2002) The sky is shown in red and yellow colors and the sea below is shown with the use of dark blue, greens, and black. Nature represents the swirling of the sky and the sea and the swirling represents the irony of horror. As his friends walk on not feeling the same fear as the artist, shows that the fear inside peoples heads do not affect everyone. Therefore, the irony of this painting proves that fact that only certain people will relate to what the artist is trying to portray which is fear and anxiety within ones self. The scream itself is portraying the release of tension and fear that one feels from living with the anxiety and fears.(Welford,2002) The painting also depicts the sudden onset of anxiety and fear that can come on at any given time which affects some people in crowded places or just walking along on the bridge as in this painting. The noises and screams that the artist fears is not feared or heard by others around him and therefore, not everyone can understand the fear. Edvard Munch was an excellent antinaturalist impressionist artist who used realistic views in order to capture the views of his audience. His paintings incorporate the sorrow and heartache that most humans feel as some part in their lives, others more than some. Other paintings depict the anguish of facing the demons inside when it comes to psychological problems, as well as fear and anxiety and some viewers can relate to the artists work and how he used detailed paintings to show his point of view on the subject. He used subjective content and realism to show disparity, and darkness, as well as surrealism. People were also a large part of his paintings as well as nature when trying to convey his message like he did in The sick child, and The scream. Reference Page Welford, John. â€Å"The Scream by Edvard Munch.† Artwork analysis. (2002): 1-12. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. . Wolf, Justin. â€Å"The Art Story.† Edward Munch. (2009): n. page. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. . . Zsaak, Shelley. â€Å"The Sick Child 1896.† Edvard Munch. (2012): n. page. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. .

Friday, January 10, 2020

Aftershock: World War I and its Political, Social and Economic Legacy to America Essay

Though the major fighting in World War I was largely confined to a relatively limited area (Western Europe, the Balkan peninsula, Russia and the Alpine frontier of Austria-Hungary and Italy, and what is now known as the Middle East), millions people all over the world felt the effects of war. In its wake, the war left over10 million people dead, with the men lost in combat leaving a deep chasm in the socio-economic milieu of the post-war world (Ellis and Cox 20). On the American home front, significant changes were forged upon the nation. Primarily World War I created labor shortages, which led thousands of African Americans to migrate to the North and work on its steel mills, ammunition plants and stockyards (Tucker 250). This migration in turn provoked racial tensions and led to rioting in some cities, as was the case in Illinois, when race riots erupted in East Saint Louis (July 1917) and Chicago (July 1919). The labor shortages also profoundly altered the traditional roles of men and women, as men were called to the battlefields and women had to step up into traditionally male occupations in industries – women learned to become railroad workers, shipbuilders, among others. They thus achieved a certain degree of independence and self-reliance through the opportunities provided by the war, and ultimately mustered enough support for women suffrage with the 19th Amendment finally passed by Congress in 1919, granting women the right to vote (Venzon 118). On the political front, the war had greatly increased the responsibilities of the federal government, leading to the creation of new government agencies to persuade the public’s voluntary compliance in support of the U.  S. cause. New ways for revenue generation in order to finance the war were also in order, leading the federal government to increase income and excise taxes, the institution of a war-profit tax, and selling of war bonds (Venzon 128). With countries involved having to borrow heavily to pay for the war, either from their own citizens of foreign lenders, such deficit-financing led to high levels of inflation, which in turn impoverished many citizens earning fixed incomes. Such pressures wrought by the war evoked hostility and suspicion, particularly antagonism toward immigrants, especially those of German and Italian descent. Repressive laws were passed by Congress for fear of sabotage and retaliation, such as the Espionage Act of 1917, followed by the Sedition Act of 1918, resulting in thousands of arrests and convictions for antiwar activities (Venzon 1995). People on the left were hard pressed, following wartime concerns on dissent and hostility toward the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in Russia. Fear of radicalism, horror at Soviet communism, and the impact of wartime hysteria led to a series of attacks on radicals, i. e. the Palmer Raids of January 1920 led to arrests of thousands in 33 cities. Though the postwar Red Scare eventually abated, suspicion of foreigners, dissenters, and nonconformists prevailed well into the 1920s (Venzon 1995). The spirit of vindictiveness among the Allies influenced the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, leaving Germany shackled by the armistice and angered by the peace treaty (Taylor 291). The deplorable conditions in postwar Germany would later give rise to a fascist leadership in the 1930s, which would ultimately plunge the world to another war of a greater scale. The American experience of the Great War, brief and distant from the nation’s shores as it might have been, proved the turning point for the United States to realize its might – it had effectively mobilized its industrial forces and held its own in world affairs. At the end of the war, the U. S. was recognized as a world power (Taylor 315). While Europe tried to rebuild from the ashes of war, the U. S. ained overseas territories, access to markets and raw materials to fuel its industries. On the domestic front, the economy expanded with improvements in assembly-line production. The gains from improved auto production spread beyond car factories into the steel, glass, rubber and petroleum industries (Taylor 326). The federal government funded programs to build roads and highways, with previously isolated rural areas filled with tourist cabins and gas stations, leading to a growth in the construction industry as new suburbs rose at the outskirts of cities, transforming the nation’s landscape. The 1920s became characterized by mass consumption, particularly in the leisure and culture industries, easy credit, and advertising (Venzon 135). Yet even as profits soared, American zeal for reform waned, and business and government resumed their long-term affinity, and not everyone benefitted from these gains of economic prosperity. The mixture of economic change, political conservatism, and cultural conflict made the 1920s a decade of contradictions.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Basics of Short Story Writing

Do you think that writing short stories is easy? Easier than novels – it is a short story, after all, it is much smaller, involves less writing and should be easier! Right? Wrong. Although in modern literature the position of short stories looks like something of a poor cousin to ‘real’ literature – that is, novels – the rarely stated truth is that writing a short story is generally much, much more difficult than writing a novel fifty times longer than it. It is an art which requires a lot of training and work put into it. Things to Do Beforehand Plan. Short stories are, well, short. You cannot afford to let yourself wander, you should know what, when and how to write. So, in order not to find yourself in a situation in which you realize at the last moment that you have forgotten something – make a clear-cut plan before you start writing; Choose a definite message – you are going to have one, right? Here, two things are to be remembered: first, avoid vagueness – a short text should have a concrete, clearly understandable message which doesn’t try to be ten things at the same time; and second, don’t make a mistake of stating it outright. The reader should be able to get it on his own. Define the narrator. There are three basic variants, and you should decide on one of them before setting about. First person – you tell the story as if you were its character. All-knowing third person – somebody outside the story, who knows everything that happens. Second person – when you address the reader and make him a character of the story. In the Process of Writing Little time, few characters. Short stories by definition are supposed to cover the events that happen in a short span of time with relatively few characters. Otherwise it will be spread too thin: you will not be able to pay enough attention to the things that happen and will fail to make your characters believable; Stick to the point – generally a short story should have only one plot line – if there are more, you may find yourself incapable of fully exploring each of them; Avoid purple prose – don’t make your wording too ornate. You should keep the story short, and nobody is going to be impressed by long rows of five-syllable adjectives both you and the reader only vaguely know the meaning of. And finally, one tip that is probably better than all the rest: if you want to learn writing short stories, read them. A lot. Pay attention to how they are structured, what makes them work. Try to understand what it is exactly that makes you like them.