1. Tectonic Hazards: Trends Over Time
By the end of this lesson you will:
Be aware of the trends in Frequency and Impacts of tectonic hazards.
Investigate the most recent tectonic hazards and their general impacts for comparison and to support your reports.

2. Haiti Earthquake January 2010
HAND IN YOUR HAITI 2010 REPORT NOW
What were the CAUSES? Magnitude, named plates/margins types etc.
Background details on Haiti? – population, economy etc.
What were the IMPACTS?, Social, Environmental, Economic, Political
What were the RESPONSES in the short term? – try to link to Park’s model so far.
What do the DREGG MODEL AND PARK MODELS for Haiti look like?

3. Frequency of Tectonic Hazards:
Earthquakes are harder to predict than volcanoes and so tend to be studied more widely.
Earthquakes trends vary over time, but globally they appear to be increasing in frequency.
This is partly due to better recording, especially of smaller magnitude earthquakes with better seismographs.
However, using data for magnitude 7 and over earthquakes eliminates this as these were always recorded.
USGS recorded earthquakes ( average = 18)
USGS recorded earthquakes, a 6x increase.
Volcanoes do not show any increase with eruptions per year and a mean of 58.

4. TASKS:
You have been ed the key research tasks below to complete in the lesson. Ensure you print out any useful research and your final report:
Read through the article ‘Earthquakes – What are the long term trends?’ on the following website:  
Paste the graph on the webpage onto a powerpoint, publisher or word file and annotate to describe the trends over time, use data to support your description. 
Are there any reasons to question the reliability of this website? 
Use the USGS Earthquake Archive at: to add details of some specific earthquakes and years. Where were the events and what was their magnitude? 
Explore the dataset at the following website, where you can change the magnitude required to register. Are earthquakes getting more intense as well as more frequent?  
Look at the data for Volcanoes (figure 9.20 on page 263 of the green textbook) and compare the trend. 
Use the information on Impacts at the bottom of page 263 and figure 9.21 to describe the trend in impacts over time. Look at the original academic article at: and expand your notes and understanding of this topic (a good article to reference in the exam!). 
Read/print the following Guardian article and make any notes on what it is saying – does this contradict your findings so far or not?  
Plan an answer to the question using your research:
‘Tectonic hazards are increasing rapidly every year’ Assess the extent to which you agree with this statement.

5. Independent Study: VITAL EASTER REPORT TASK:
Pre-released research steer:
‘The physical causes and effects of tectonic hazards, and responses to them’
Next week you will be given the full report title so be thinking about what might come up.
Begin to put together research on the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China ready for your case study next week.
Pay in your £2 to the college finance office at break time to get a Natural Hazards guide written by Cameron Dunn and other experts. This will also help with your Sichuan earthquake work as it includes a full case study and practice exam questions. DONT MISS OUT!
Ensure you have HANDED IN YOUR HAITI REPORT and have printed out your Asian Tsunami work for your file.