Justin's First Blog

Italy has had its fair share of disasters caused by tectonic plates.  The country sits on top of two tectonic plates, the African and Eurasian plates.  Below you will see that Italy is covered mostly by the Eurasian plate with the African plate at its southern border.  It was interesting to learn that volcanoes are generally found at the border of tectonic plates and it is the case where most of Italy's volcanoes are found.   While Italy sits on top of two tectonic plates, there is a third plate that has and still does affect Italy known as the Adriatic plate.  Approximately 100 million years ago the formation of a lot of Italy's mountains were caused by the collision of the Adriatic plate and present day Europe.  This caused the plate to begin subducting and brought upon the loss of the microcontinent known as Adria.   The plates have caused high magnitude earthquakes as well as the formation of volcanoes, which have caused catastrophes dating back to the infamous eruption (Mo

The country I have chosen for this semester is Italy.  I recently traveled there and the history surrounding Italy is fascinating.  Italy has experienced it's fair share of disasters which adds to it's already rich history.  I look forward to diving deep and better understanding how disasters have impacted Italy.   A hazard is a naturally occurring event that presents a threat to human life/property.  A disaster is a hazardous event that occurs within a short time span within a defined area and must include one of the following conditions;  greater than 10 people killed, greater than 100 people affected, state of emergency declared, or international assistance requested.  A catastrophe a major disaster that requires substantial amounts of money to recover from the event.