Week 4 Earthquakes

• The Netherlands is not usually active when it comes to earthquakes due to the fact that they are pretty far away from the Eurasian and North American plates. However, there have been a few earthquakes that have hit the Netherlands in the past.
• The last big earthquake to hit the Netherlands happened September 8 2011 with a magnitude of 4.2 on the Richter scale.

• Although the Netherlands does not typically have seismic activity, some eastern parts of the Netherlands experience earthquakes due to a long, thin rift valley where there is an uplifting of the Alps and the collision of the Eurasian and African plates.
• The Netherlands does experiences some seismic activity due to  the oil drilling that the government does. Although the seismic activity was not a factor at first, a lot more seismic activity has been tracked in the recent years.
• Because of these new earthquakes, residents have began calling on the government to shut down oil drilling because the drilling has caused earthquakes that have damaged houses and sent the property prices of houses extremely down.

http://article.wn.com/view/2015/02/19/Natural_gas_drilling_is_causing_earthquakes_in_Europe_too/
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/earthquake-in-netherlands-8-september.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/10162343/Earthquakes-from-onshore-gas-drilling-threaten-a-disaster-warn-residents-of-Dutch-city.html

Week 3 Plate Tectonics & the Netherlands

The Netherlands is located on the Eurasia tectonic plate but is not any where near the boundary that connects the Eurasia plate and the North American plate or the Eurasia and Arabian plates. 

The Netherlands is mostly settled below sea level and has been either covered by the sea or flooded at regular intervals.

Plate Tectonics and How the Netherlands is Affected

From a tectonic plate standpoint, the Netherlands is a fairly quiet area although they have registered some tectonic activity. The latest strong earthquake registered in the Netherlands was the Roermond earthquake back in 1992 that was a 5.4 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter located close to the Limburg city of Roermond.

Catastrophes, Disasters, and Hazards

Week 1

Differences between catastrophes, disasters, and hazards.

A natural process (volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.) only become a hazard when humans are in danger. Natural hazards are natural processes or events that are a threat to human life or property. Natural hazards include earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, and many other natural events.  In the entire US, no area is considered "hazard free".

A natural disaster a hazardous event or process that occurs over a limited time and within a certain area. It is classified as a disaster if one of these occur: 

• 10 or more people are killed
• 100 or more people are affected
• there is a declared state of emergency
• requested international assistance

A catastrophe is similar to a disaster but is a massive disaster that requires many years and significant spending for recovery.

Week 2

Minerals from the Netherlands

Netherlands and their Minerals

In the Netherlands, the focus is more on trade and processing the minerals rather than actually mining them. In 2010, Netherlands was a chief producer in salt and nitrogen besides producing mineral products and nonmetallic and metallic minerals. Overall, the country's mineral industry mainly focused on trading and processing.

Industrial Minerals

In the Netherlands in 2010, mining operations in the Netherlands mainly focused on the extraction of sand and gravel, peat and limestone. However, the entire mineral industry is overshadowed by the production of petroleum and natural gas.

However, the Netherlands plans on developing the mineral industry by concentrating more on its mineral processing activities that include the production of aluminum and cement.

Here is a website to the minerals tracked and mined in the Netherlands in 2010.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/2010/myb3-2010-nl.pdf