Tour of my travels

Earth Science tour with de~1.kmz‎ (15 KB‎)

Stop 4: Mid-Atlantic Ridge: A stop as I fly home on my helicopter

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge (16 letters) is a lulu (learned this word from seeing it in endless crosswords) of a divergent boundary. A divergent boundary is when two plates get pushed apart from each other. Most divergent boundaries (like this one) are underwater and contain rift valleys. In a divergent boundary, magma is forced through these rift valley divisions between plates. The magma then cools and hardens until it is very firm. This new land forces everything else to move. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge has had a lot of volcanic activity and earthquakes--it spreads about 2.5 centimeters per year! Recently (just this March 22nd) there was an earthquake there with a Richter Scale rating of 6.0! Luckily, the earthquake didn't appear to do much damage because it was in the middle of the Southern Atlantic! Here is a picture of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge--it actually runs through Iceland on land! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/albaret-boit/176502393/]

My "room" for the night

Well, I just got back from a long but very cool helicopter ride over the Himalayas and am sitting in my yurt that I rented for the night. And let me just tell you that everything about this place is awful! There's no electricity so I had to use my flashlight to solve the crosswords [today's was very cool--one clue has two answers that both work with the clues surrounding it--both Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson fit!]. And the bed . . . don't get me started about that! It feels like someone walked outside and pulled one of the rocks off Mt. Everest and stuck it in my yurt! And this yurt cost the equivalent of 300 dollars! The "continental breakfast" consisted of some stale bread that must have been bought 50 years ago! I can't wait to leave this place and fly back home to the United States!

Stop 3: Himalayas near Mt. Everest

Well, I'm off on another long flight to the Himalayas (9 letters). The Himalayas are a great example of a collision boundary--in this case, the Indian and Eurasian plates are directly colliding and shifting by 5 centimeters a year. The coordinates of the location I'm visiting are about 27.6 degrees North and 86.5 degrees east. This colliding created the volcanic Himalayan mountain range because the Indian plate is rising. Besides having volcanoes, there are also been tons of frequent (and severe) earthquakes and avalanches. A famous (and very recent) earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 hit the India/Pakistan border, shocking the countryside. I'm not actually going to climb into the Himalayas, I'm just going to fly over them in a helicopter. Here is a picture of the Himalayas [www.kerdowney.com]:

Stop 2: Aleutian Trench

After a long flight (and a delicious continental breakfast!) I arrive on a private plane right next to the Aleutian Trench (14 letters). The Aleutian Trench is a really good example of a subduction zone. A subduction zone it when one plate gets pushed under another. In this case, the Pacific Plate is getting pushed under the North American plate. The spot on the Aleutian trench that I'm visiting is at about 50 degrees North and 170 degrees West. As the Pacific plate moves under the North American plate, it heats up as it gets closer to the molten core of the Earth. The melted plate turns into magma which rises up to the surface of the ocean and spews out before cooling to normal temperature, creating a volcanic island. This process created the Aleutian Islands which are an archipelago of islands over 1500 miles long. In terms of crosswords, Attu, the westernmost Aleutian island, is very well known to crossword people. There are often earthquakes that trigger tsunamis at the Aleutian Islands as well because of the shifting plates. One famous Aleutian Islands earthquake happened on March 9, 1957. It had an aftershock of 1200 kilometers and measured about 8.1 on the Richter scale. There was a recent big earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale in 2007. Below is a picture of erupting volcanoes onthe Aleutian Islands [www.ieatgravel.com].

Back from traveling!

Whew--I just got back from a long day of touring Daly City and San Francisco and have arrived at my hotel. I pull out an old New York Times puzzle and try to solve it. Like many other puzzles by Kevin Der, it is rebus-filled and extremely difficult. Also, the grid has irregular dimensions because it's supposed to look like a bowling alley. I finish solving it and consider making a themeless puzzle with "Daly City" as one across. I really like the letter combination (two y's!). Well, I'm going to bed now--I have a long flight ahead of me tomorrow (of course after I eat the delicious homemade cinnamon rolls that Holiday Inn Express provides).

Stop 1: Mussel Rock Park (Which contains part of the San Andreas fault)

My first stop that I plan on visiting is Mussel Rock Park in Daly City, California which is on the San Andreas (10 letters) fault. This park is at approximately 37 degrees north and 122 degrees west. The San Andreas fault is a transform boundary between the Pacific and North American plates. A transform boundary is when two plates interact with side to side motion but don't actually crash into each other. Though there are no active volcanoes on the San Andreas fault, there are tiny elevated ridges in the ground marking the fault. Probably the most famous historical earthquake here was the 1906 San Franciscoquake which measured at an 8.3 on the Richter scale (very strong!). The ground shifted 31 feet! An estimated 3000 people were killed. The most recent activity is just about now--experts are predicting another major earthquake really soon for the fault has been noted to produce a major earthquake every hundred years or so. Here is a picture of the San Andreas fault [www.qwiki.com]: