New Zealand

http://www.villavillas.com/getimage.php?resortid=307&type=lgallery2

43° 59′ 0″ S, 170° 27′ 0″ E

Today I visited New Zealand! In the picture above I decided to let my friend, Qwert (the blue dude in the picture) that I met on my flight there, take me some place random and we went hiking. He wouldn't tell me where that was so sorry everyone! But I had a blast! The weather was amazing and it wasn't that hard of hiking! Qwert then told me that New Zealand was on the Alpine fault. I had no clue what that was so I asked him about it. He said that it is a transform boundary  between the Pacific plate and the Indo-Australian plate. Me, remembering what a transform boundary was, clarified it with him. I told him about how I learned that a transform boundary is when two plates grind against each other, get locked due to the ruggedness of the plates, and then the pressure builds up and then it breaks causing an earthquake. He was amazed on how knowledgeable I was about it and so he let me teach him about ALL the plate boundaries. It started to get dark so we decided to head to his families house. He let me stay at his house for my whole New Zealand trip and saved me $400 by letting me stay at his house instead of a hotel! I finally had to leave and I said goodbye to his whole family. His brother's name was Yuiop, mother's name was Asdf, father's name was Ghjkl, and he had a dog that had an extremely long name, Zxcvbnm. I thanked them all and went back on my flight.

The Himalayas!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India_71-0_Ma.gif


28° 0′ 0″ N, 82° 0′ 0″ E

The Himalayas are the HUGE mountain range in northern India. I decided that I wanted to hike in the Himalayas (even though it's extremely difficult). I went over to a place called, "Hiking the Himalayas for Dummies" and applied for a class there. They didn't accept me right away so in my spare time I did my research. I learned that (also in the picture above) the India land mass wasn't attached to Asia until 10 million years ago! It is a convergent collision boundary, which means that when the two land masses collided, they created mountains (unlike subduction which means a plate goes under the other and makes volcanoes) The Indian plate is still moving into the Eurasian plate at about 6.7 cm per year. That means that in 10 years it will travel 932 miles into the Eurasian plate! I got a call from the Hiking the Himalayas for Dummies and they said that they were too full so I couldn't hike it. Darn! But it's fine because I would have chickened out anyways... Well see you all later!

Google Earth Tour Test 1

Click here!

The Cascade Mountain Range

http://wallpaper-s.org/42__Mount_Shuksan%2C_North_Cascades_National_Park.htm

 48°49'51.45"N 121°36'10.50"W

Today I visited Mt. Shuksan in Washington State. The Cascade Mountain Range goes throughout the west coast. It gives people the perfect place to go skiing or snowboarding! There are nearly 20 volcanoes and many other volcanic vents around them. Most of these volcanoes are less than 2 million years old and some of the peaks are only 100,000 years old! The two tallest volcanoes are Mt. Shasta and Mt. Rainer. Mt. Rainer is 14,411 feet and Mt. Shasta is 14,179 feet. The Cascade mountains are a subduction boundary. A subduction boundary is when two plates collide and the denser one (usually an oceanic plate) goes under the other plate. The denser plate gets heated up and then sends the hot melted rock (magma) up and it launches out of volcanoes. In this case, the Juan de Fuca plate and North American plate collided and the Juan de Fuca plate went under.
The most recent major volcanic eruption was in 1980 when Mt. Saint Helens erupted. It sent out huge amounts of ash into the air in Washington. After the eruption, it caused two months of high earthquake activity, and the eruption blew off the top of the mountain! Hopefully no volcanoes erupt again any time soon!

Well that's all for today! Bye!

Iceland

http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/9706/018iceland.jpg, http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/9706/018iceland.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Iceland/Nordhurland_Eystra/Eyjafjardharsysla/thjorsa/photo98643.htm&h=477&w=800&sz=163&tbnid=hYJouzKedXar0M:&tbnh=85&tbnw=143&prev=/search%3Fq%3Diceland%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=iceland&usg=__xDQhik9I9Eo6_5lc34W-WwBCBTs=&sa=X&ei=4yOdTZ_NMaOy0QGmk7nlAg&ved=0CDsQ9QEwBA

Today I visited Iceland. I always thought Iceland was icy, but it's mostly quite the opposite. It's warmer there than in Greenland, because Greenland is closer to the North Pole. The economy here is just crashing down. The currency there, Kronur, used to be 77 per US dollar, but now it's 117 per US dollar! The whole country declared bankruptcy and the bank industry completely collapsed! 

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/images/iceland5.jpg


I visited the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal pool! It's heated by a nearby geothermal plant and it was so refreshing! 

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/images/iceland7.jpg


I also stayed up until 5 in the morning watching the Aurora Borealis (aka the Northern Lights) It was super pretty! While I was there, a man asked me if he knew anything about the geography on Iceland. I replied no and he told me all about how it will eventually be separated! 
Iceland is in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, in the middle between the Eurasia plate and the North American plate. It's called a divergent boundary. A divergent boundary is when plates are separating and the empty hole the break leaves will be filled in with water! It won't break apart for many many years but it's still kinda cool to think about!
Ok well that's all I have to say today! Bye!

San Francisco

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SF_From_Marin_Highlands3.jpg

Today I visited San Francisco in the Golden State. The picture is the Golden Gate Bridge and on average, over 120,000 people cross this bridge per day! I drove over the bridge and also went through the city on a cable car! It was super fun!
There was a tour guide on the cable car and he started talking about how they experience some earthquakes. I asked him why and he said because of a transform boundary. The San Andreas fault (where the Pacific plate is grinding against the North American plate) goes through 2/3 of California. That's why there was a huge earthquake in San Francisco in 1989. The plates are rubbing against each other and they eventually get "locked" in place. The plates keep trying to move but they're locked so the pressure keeps building up more and more. Eventually, the plates break off and cause a huge amount of seismic activity. Well I'm off to somewhere else now! Bye!

The Makushin Volcano (Aleutian Islands)

http://www.arctic.net/~dickson/images/ski/makus04.jpg


53° 53′ 11″ N, 166° 55′ 52″ W
On the island Unalaska, is one of the most active of the 40 volcanoes in Alaska. I took a tour of it and it's been pretty active in the last 200 years! There have been a total of 16 eruptions in the last two centuries and the most recent eruption was in 1995! The 1995 eruption was on January 30th and wasn't a dangerous one, but generated ash that went up to 1.6 miles in the air! Due to the many volcanoes, there have been several, but very minor earthquakes. The caldera (the crater on top of the volcano) of the Makushin Volcano is 1.9 miles in width! The closest town to this volcano is Unalaska, but it's 800 miles away and protected by a bay so if it erupts anytime soon they should be safe!