Jack's Blog

 Coastal Erosion is when waves slowly weaken land near the coast and cause it to erode over time. According to " climatechangepost.com " (last updated April 2024) "In the Russian Federation, 25,000 km of the 61,000 km total length of the marine coast suffers from severe erosion." This is significant as coastal erosion can have many negative impacts on the economy. For example, coastal erosion can make it difficult for ships to navigate shipping ports, damage property, and impact fishing and agriculture. To put this in perspective, according to an article titled " Some Estimates of Coastal Erosion in Russia " (published in 2002) Russia loses 5000 ha of important coastal areas annually, or (50 MILLION meters squared). This is something that the ever growing issue of the thawing of permafrost impacts. According to " https://thebarentsobserver.com " (published in 2021) "The Russian State Commission for the Development of the Arctic has pointed t

 Two notable heat waves which have occurred recently in Russia include a heat wave in 2010, and a heat wave in 2020. According to metoffice.gov.uk (siting the The World Meteorological Organisation) a heatwave is "a period of more than 5 consecutive days where the daily maximum temperature exceeds the average maximum temperature by 5°C or more." According to metoffice.gov.uk , the Russian heatwave in 2010 occured due to a "Blocking High" which seems to be a concentrated point of high pressure. Primarily because of this tragic event, Moscow reported over 14000 deaths in July 2010. From around January 2020 to June 2020, Siberian regions experienced an extreme heat wave likely due to climate change.   This image (taken from worldweatherattribution.org ) Shows the difference between the average temperatures during the heatwave and the average temperatures from 1981 - 2010 during the same months. worldweatherattribution.org states that "The results showed with hi

 Mass Wasting Hazards are hazards which involve parts of the environment (specifically rock and soil) moving downwards all at once in a way that poses harm to humans. This includes things such as rockslides, mudslides, etc. Causes of these hazards can include things such as earthquakes, heavy rainfall, or a decrease in the usual amount of vegetation in where the hazard occurs. An example of a serious Mass Wasting event in Russia can be seen in the 2007 Mudslide in the "Valley of Geysers." In this event, despite from what i can tell no people being hurt ( This Source states that the tourist group of 20 and the few personnel there at the time weren't in harms way) multiple buildings were destroyed. This slides estimated volume was somewhere between 12-15 million cubic meters of landmass. The case of this landslides wasn't an earthquake, but a result of erosion eventually leading to this slide.   aftermath of the mudflow: To prepare for landslides, redcross.org recomme

 According to source Russia contains 117 Holocene Volcanoes. "Holocene" refers to the current geological time period, spanning from 11700 years ago to now. Of the volcanoes in Russia, 61 are currently considered active source . Something interesting is that this source states that there are 77 volcanoes currently in Russia, conflicting with the 117 from the previous source. Making the assumption that both sources are credible (the first being a .edu and the second being a .info, which I think is credible) there could be a good reason for the difference in data. Volcano.si.edu lists each volcano individually, and the reason they list more could be because of the inclusion of volcanoes thousands of years ago which worlddata.info may not count (for example, the Bolshoi-Kekuknaysky volcano last erupted in 5310 BCE), and also the fact that volcano.si.edu also counts all volcanoes on shared boundaries, which might be excluded from the other website's count. In the Kamchatka Pe

 Examples of where earthquakes are located in Russia can clearly be seen in this image taken from a 2017 publication. Areas where earthquakes are the most frequent include the Kamchatca Peninsula and Sakhalin Island in the East, as well as the Caucasus Region in the southwest. This is because both areas are near plate boundaries, and Kamchatca as (mentioned before) has extreme amounts of tectonic activity. Something that I didn't understand about the map was why there was earthquakes documented along the east going towards the Artic Ocean despite there not being any plate boundaries near there (as it seemed to follow a random path along the Eurasian plate). However, i found my answer in the form of this graph which displays the fault lines located in Russia. Something to note is that the maps are projected differently, so it is recommended to try to match up similar landmarks such as islands or bodies of water when comparing the two graphs. These faults are the cause of the occas

 Russia rests mostly on the Eurasian Plate (a bit of Russia poking into the North American plate), with frequent seismic activity occurring on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Kamchatka Peninsula is special in that it is debated whether or not it is a part of the North American plate, or instead on a microplate separate from both the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate called the " Okhotsk microplate " Regardless, the subduction of the Pacific Plate and the plate which Kamchatka is on is part of is part of why the Kamchatka peninsula has 68 active volcanoes . This section of land is located on the Kuril-Kamchatka island arc, which is part of the "Ring of Fire." Another area of frequent tectonic activity is the Caucasus Region, which part of Russia resides in. The Caucasus mountains are a product of the collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. Because the Caucasus Region rests on this boundary, earthquakes are frequent in that part of Russia. (note h