Investigating Volcanic Eruptions and their Effects on Humans and the Society

Investigating Volcanic Eruptions and their Effects on Humans and the Society

Purpose: To investigate real-world geologic processes and the effects they have on humans and society. The secondary purpose is to familiarize you with scientific writing and the use of in-text citations/References in APA-style.

Assignment Outline:

For this assignment, you will search for Geology-related stories in the news. The topic can be just about anything, as long as it is related to Physical Geology and has a clear impact on humans, society, or geologic understanding. Examples of topics to search for are recent Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions, landslides/mudflows, Sinkholes, Discovery of fossils, etc.

Once you have found the news story that you are going to write about, you will need to do a little more research to put it in geologic context. So, if you chose an earthquake, you will need to research and discuss why there are earthquakes in that particular area and what the geologic setting is.

You will summarize the geologic process and news story in a short 1-2 page paper (however long it needs to be to concisely explain your topic) that uses APA-style in-text citations and references.***

Additional Guidelines:

The topic you choose should be impactful, meaning that it actually affected the lives of people in a significant way or contributed to greater understanding in a significant way. ( so a magnitude 3 earthquake in LA that had no damage and was barely felt would not be a good topic. A larger magnitude earthquake that triggered landslides in Northern India and affected thousands would be a good topic.)

Your topic should be recent, some time in the last ~6 months.

Be clear, concise, and organized. Your summary should be brief, but informative while demonstrating an understanding of your topic. Organize your paper into paragraphs each with a clear purpose.

***You need a minimum of 3 different sources for the assignment. Pretty Straightforward- 3 different media sources or Journal Articles, or reliable websites that describe the geologic setting (no Wikipedia). You will use APA in-text citations and include your references at the end. If you aren’t familiar with APA-style, visit one of the links below (or do a search on your own).

Requirements: 2 pages   |   .doc file

Answer preview:

word limit:550