Thursday, September 20, 2012

Building Earth's Landscapes


Building Earth’ Landscapes

 Tectonics

Italy is placed between three tectonic plates; they are the Eurasian plate, the African, and the Anatolian plate. The Eurasian plate takes up most of Italy and the African plate only takes up an eastern region of Italy (look at the map for reference). The interactions of these three plates can help explain Italy’s mountain formations as well as the volcanic activity.
 

[Map of tectonic plates and fault lines around Italy]
 
http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/italy-earthquake/
 Volcanoes
Mt. Etna is the largest volcano in Italy and it is an extrusive volcanic landform. Italy has several active volcanoes. Etna is located on the island of Sicily (see map for reference). The volcano is formed because of a convergence or subduction of the two plates; the Eurasian and the African plate. Mt. Etna is a cinder cone volcano; it was an example that is in the class notes. The volcanic material that the volcano has is called tephra, which are rocks that are blown out of the volcano. There are several volcanoes that are around each other and they are formed due to subduction zones of the two plates and are close to mountains. As stated in the notes, “volcanoes rest on top of mountains” and much of Italy is covered in mountains. 
 
Mountains

The mountains that are formed in Italy are formed because of compression between the Eurasian and African plates. They were compressed together and mountains formed throughout Italy. Because of the activity of these two plates, Italy gets earthquakes.  The most recent one was in May, and it occurred in northern Italy along the fault lines of tectonic plates. Tectonic activity affects people in Italy because inn the southern part of the Eurasian and African plate volcanoes form while in the northern part earthquakes occur. People are affected by volcanic activity and earthquakes that cause issues with health, safety, and shelter.