Living on the Fault Line Essay Example

Did you know that about 280 million people that live around faults can be damaged by a natural disaster, do you live near a fault? What if an earthquake strikes? Do you know how to prepare?

If you were surrounded by lava how would you respond? Would you know how to prepare? suppose you live near an active volcano and it erupted, how would it affect you? Well, scientists are inventing special technology like seismometers. Seismometers are pieces of metal that go under the ground by a volcano and will detect whether or not the volcano will explode. Scientists like Moran are testing these at Mt St Helen. Now, say the volcano you live near is relatively small and isn't wide, but today you woke up and saw that it is a little taller than yesterday. This might be a sign that it is going to erupt. Volcanoes can show lots of signs that they might erupt, as it states in the text the sides of the volcano can bulge from magma trying to escape and causing pressure, the volcano can also get taller as the melted rock swells under it. You can also see if the volcano is acting how it did during prior eruptions. 

Layers of lava flows, volcanic ash, and other material build-ups to form a composite volcano

Earthquakes are one of the most frequent natural disasters, they can happen at any time. Now if you live in California you might know about the shake tables buildings are being tested on. These shake tables are being used to see how powerful certain models of buildings are. There are also a lot more ways than we can prevent earthquake damage. Another example is more buildings are being built with steel frames. But why use steel frames? Steel frames are a lot stronger than wooden frames, steel can also resist fire a lot better than wood. In other parts of the world like Japan, they are making earthquake centers. These earthquake centers teach kids and adults how to survive an earthquake with an amusement park kinda feel to them, these centers look fun but have a very serious message to them. In other places of the world, countries are trying to copy this idea to inform the people that could be at risk of earthquakes. “Not everyone is preparing like the Japanese. The West Coast of the United States faces a similar threat. The coast is often rattled by earthquakes. A big tsunami is expected in the coming years. The city of Seattle, in Washington, could be in danger (“Japan's Approach” 2). However, places like California don't have the budget to do these types of things but when they have the money they will get right to work on making this.

Tsunamis are quite uncommon; they only happen in certain parts of the world and when they do happen they typically only happen once every decade. Despite this fact, Jeanne Johnson didn't want to take risks so she bought a pod to help her survive a tsunami. Julian Sharpe invented the pod, he invented this pod after a tsunami in the Indian Ocean and killed more than 200,000 people. As stated in the text it says: in 2011, a tsunami killed 16,000 people in Japan. This is when Sharpe really started working on the escape pod. This pod is bright orange so it's easy for emergency workers to see, two people can fit in the pod, the pod is made of aluminum, it has watertight windows and a door, it has its own air supply, and it's 13,500.

Now you may not live in a place where these are common, you may live in the middle of a country and have never seen the ocean, or you may live in the north of Canada and have never seen a volcano. Even if this is the case, you still know how to prepare yourself.