Manny's Geology Blog

The coastal hazard that I will be talking about that affects Japan is sea-level rise. Osaka is one of the most popular cities in Japan and over the past few years, global warming has caused sea levels to rise thus causing millions of people in Osaka and across Japan  to be at risk of coastal flooding. The city of Osaka is among the world's 10 port cities that are most exposed to coastal flooding and wind damage due to a typhoon in 2005. If Japan reaches a sea-level rise of 3.3 feet, then that would put another 4.1 million people at risk of flooding. Osaka is projected to suffer $1 trillion in damages of assets owing to coastal flooding by the 2070s, which is more than 4 times its current economic risk of $216 billion. The best way people can help prevent this problem is by reducing carbon emissions. If people make significant efforts to reduce heat trapping emissions, then sea-level rise between the present day and the end of the century could reduce to  1.25 feet. So there is

In July 2018, Japan was hit by possibly their worst weather disaster in decades. Torrential rains happened which caused landslides in Western Japan and killed at least 176 people. Millions were forced to evacuate while dozens went missing in the country's worst weather disaster in 36 years. During this same scenario, in Tokyo, at least 48 people were stated to be missing due to the torrential rain. Japan's Meteorological Agency issued warnings across 4 prefectures in the island of Honshu. Due to the urging vigilance against landslides, rising rivers and strong winds this scenario was referred to a historic rain. Here are some pictures of the unfortunate Summer in Japan 2018: These past 2 years I have been telling people how much I want to travel to Japan before I die. It's the reason why I picked Japan as my country to research but after doing research on Japan, it sounds really depressing. It feels like Japan can't get a break and are hit by disasters 24/7.

The different types of Mass Wasting Hazards around the world are Falls/Avalanches, Landslides, Flow, and Creep. The type of mass wasting hazard that Japan gets hit by a lot is landslides. Landslides are sudden, have fast movements of soil or rock sticking together. There are two types of landslides in which they occur, one of them involves along a flat surface parallel to the angle of the slope in a stepped-liked pattern with no rotation. Meanwhile the other type has movement of surface material along a concave surface. Both of these types of landslides can be moist but are not usually saturated with water. On July 2018, the Japanese government confirmed that at least 155 people died in floods and landslides that were triggered by torrential rain in western Japan. It has been stated that it was the highest death toll caused by rainfall that Japan has seen in decades. Here are a few pictures of the damages: Here is how Japan  has tried to prevent landslides: The Ministry o

Japan is located at the junction of 4 tectonic plates - the Pacific, Philippine, Eurasian and North American plates, and its volcanoes are mainly located on 5 subduction-zone related volcanic arcs where the Pacific Plate descends under the North American Plate along the Kuril Trench and the Japan Trench and underneath the Philippine Sea Plate along the Izu-Bonin Trench. The Philippine Plate itself subducts beneath the Eurasian Plate at the western end, forming the Ryukyu Trench. The principal resulting volcanic ars are: - Ryukyu Arc and Southwest Honshu Arcs in the south (Philippine plate subducting beneath between the Eurasian Plate), - Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc (subduction of Pacific plate beneath Philippine plate) - Northeast Honshu and Kurile Arc in the north (subduction of Pacific plate beneath the N-American plate)  The image above is an active volcano in Aira, Japan. The primary volcano type is Caldera. The last known eruption happened this year. It's latitude is 31.5

  Seismicity is the frequency of earthquakes in an area. According to the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Maps in Japan, each site will be affected by an earthquake of seismic intensity 6 lower or more within 30 years. It can be seen on the images above that most of Japan's seismicity is located in the East and South. One of the reasons why Japan gets hit by so many strong earthquakes is because they are located on what's called the "Pacific Ring of Fire." This ring of fire is considered the most active earthquake belt in the world and it goes around a couple of plate boundaries. Since Japan is the country to get hit with the most frequent strong earthquakes, they are also the country that is most prepared for earthquakes. Here are some examples on how they prepare for earthquakes: Children in school are taught heavily on how to prepare for an earthquake under any scenario with monthly drills at school After the Kobe earthquake in 1995, building regulations for

  Japan is very unfortunate since they are in the middle of 4 different plate boundaries. They are surrounded by the Phillipine Plate, Eurasion Plate, North American Plate, and the Pacific Plate. Japan is also unfortunate because they are near a convergent boundary. The reason why I say Japan is unfortunate due to all of this because they are located in a spot where there lots of volcanoes located and where many strong earthquakes happen.Japan get very strong earthquakes (compared to what we are used to) because they are near a convergent boundary which are plates that move toward one another. This played a key factor on why Japan was hit by an earthquake of a magnitude of 9 and a tsunami in 2011. References: 1)   http://montessorimuddle.org/2011/03/11/plate-tectonics-and-the-earthquake-in-japan/ 2)   http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_asia/japan_tec.html