Plate Puzzle

This activity was designed to help students develop a better understanding of the Earth's plates and their distribution. They will explore plate motions and the interactions of the plates along the plate boundaries by re-assembling a map of the earth that has been cut along plate boundaries. They will then answer questions based on the direction and rate of plate movement. Before beginning this activity, students should have a basic knowledge of the Earth's plates, the lithosphere and asthenosphere, heat within the Earth, and the three types of plate boundaries - divergent, convergent and transform. Educational levels: High school, Middle school

Seismic Eruption Teaching Modules

This site presents educational modules for teaching about earthquakes, volcano eruptions and related plate tectonic concepts using an interactive computer program for mapping called Seismic/Eruption (also called SeisVolE). The program includes up-to-date earthquake and volcanic eruption catalogs and allows the user to display earthquake and volcanic eruption activity in "speeded up real time" on global, regional or local maps that also show the topography of the area in a shaded relief map image. SeisVolE is an interactive program that includes a number of tools that allow the user to analyze earthquake and volcanic eruption data and produce effective displays to illustrate seismicity and volcano patterns. The program can be used to sort data and provide results for statistical analysis, to generate detailed earthquake and volcano activity maps of specific areas or for specific purposes, to investigate earthquake sequences such as foreshocks and aftershocks, and to produce cross section or 3-D perspective views of earthquake locations. The Seismic/Eruption program can be a powerful and effective tool for teaching about plate tectonics and geologic hazards using earthquake and volcano locations, and for learning (or practicing) fundamental science skills such as statistical analysis, graphing, and map skills. The teaching modules describe and illustrate how to use the Seismic/Eruption program effectively in demonstrations, classroom presentations and interactive presentations, and independent study/research. Because the program has many useful options and can be used to examine earthquake activity and volcanic eruption data, the modules provide instructions and examples of quantitative analysis, graphing of results, creating useful maps and cross section diagrams, and performing in-depth exploration and research. The examples are intended to illustrate the features and capabilities of the program and stimulate interest in using the program for discovery learning in Earth science, especially earthquakes, volcanoes and plate tectonics. Educational levels: Middle school, High school, Undergraduate lower division, Informal education, General public

Seismic Waves and the Slinky: A Guide for Teachers

This teacher's guide is intended to provide suggestions on how to teach about seismic waves. It provides information on the types and properties of seismic waves and instructions for using some simple materials, especially the 'slinky', to demonstrate seismic wave characteristics and wave propagation. These activities can be performed by the students themselves, or as demonstrations by the teacher. Educational levels: Intermediate elementary, Middle school, High school

Seismic Waves and the Slinky: A Guide For Teachers

This teaching guide is designed to introduce the concepts of waves and seismic waves that propagate within the Earth, and to provide ideas and suggestions for how to teach about seismic waves. The guide provides information on the types and properties of seismic waves and instructions for using some simple materials, especially the slinky, to effectively demonstrate seismic wave characteristics and wave propagation. Most of the activities described in the guide are useful both as demonstrations for the teacher and as exploratory activities for students. Educational levels: High school, Intermediate elementary, Middle school

Accessing Current, Recent and Historical Earthquake Data

This site explains the many Internet tools that are currently available for accessing earthquake data. Students discover that by using these tools one can obtain information (such as location, origin time and magnitude) about the most recent earthquakes; search historical earthquake catalogs for earthquakes in a given region over a selected time period; and view, download or make maps of recent or historical earthquake activity of the world or of a selected region. They also learn that the tools support education and research activities related to earthquakes such as: maintaining a classroom map of significant earthquakes; calculating earthquake magnitude from educational seismograph records and comparing with official magnitude estimates; obtaining historical earthquake data for a specific area to relate a recent event to the background seismicity; and analyzing sequences of earthquake activity. There is a link to information about obtaining and using seismograms. Educational levels: High school, Undergraduate lower division

MAGSAT scalar anomalies

To facilitate processing large data arrays, elements of spherical Earth analysis programs NVERTSM, SMFLD, NVERTG and GLFD were implemented and tested on the LARS IBM 4341 computer. Currently, the problem of inverting 2 deg MAGSAT scalar anomalies for the region (80 W, 60 E) longitude and (40 S, 70 N) latitude is being implemented on the LARS-computer for quantitative comparison with free air gravity anomaly, geothermal and tectonic data. Gravity and MAGSAT anomalies from a subset of this region (30 W, 60 E), (40 S, 70 N) were already processed for a paper on satellite magnetic anomalies of Africa and Europe

Satellite elevation magnetic anomaly maps

The problem of inverting 2 deg average MAGSAT scalar anomalies for the region 80 W, 60 E longitude and 40 S, 70 N latitude was attempted on the LARS computer; however, the effort was aborted due to insufficient allocation of CPU-time. This problem is currently being resubmitted and should be implemented shortly for quantitative comparison with free-air gravity anomaly, geothermal, and tectonic data

Gravity and magnetic anomaly data analysis

Progress on the analysis MAGSAT data is reported. The MAGSAT data from 40 deg S to 70 deg N latitude and 30 deg W to 60 E longitude was reduced to radial polarization. In addition, gravity anomaly data from this area were processed and a variety of filtered maps were prepared for combined interpretation of the gravity and magnetic data in conjunction with structural and tectonic maps of the area. The VERSATEC listings and cross-reference maps of variable and array names for the spherical Earth analysis programs NVERTSM, SMFLD, NVERTG, and GFLD were also prepared

Magnetic and gravity anomalies in the Americas

The cleaning and magnetic tape storage of spherical Earth processing programs are reported. These programs include: NVERTSM which inverts total or vector magnetic anomaly data on a distribution of point dipoles in spherical coordinates; SMFLD which utilizes output from NVERTSM to compute total or vector magnetic anomaly fields for a distribution of point dipoles in spherical coordinates; NVERTG; and GFLD. Abstracts are presented for papers dealing with the mapping and modeling of magnetic and gravity anomalies, and with the verification of crustal components in satellite data

Improving the geological interpretation of magnetic and gravity satellite anomalies

Current limitations in the quantitative interpretation of satellite-elevation geopotential field data and magnetic anomaly data were investigated along with techniques to overcome them. A major result was the preparation of an improved scalar magnetic anomaly map of South America and adjacent marine areas directly from the original MAGSAT data. In addition, comparisons of South American and Euro-African data show a strong correlation of anomalies along the Atlantic rifted margins of the continents