Darian's Blog

Week 4: Volcanoes In Panama, there are a total of four volcanoes which isn't as many compared to other countries. Two of these volcanoes are Holocene while the other two are considered as Pleistocene volcanoes. Going more into detail, Holocene volcanoes are volcanoes that were active in the past 11,700 years while Pleistocene volcanoes are volcanoes that were active from 11,700 to 2.5 million years ago. The Tisingal and La Yeguada volcanoes are the two Pleistocene volcanoes that are located in Panama which aren't active. However, the Baru and El Valle volcanoes are the two Holocene volcanoes that are located in Panama which are active. The El Valle volcano is considered to be a still active volcano, but there hasn't been any recorded evidence of when it last erupted. However, the Baru volcano is the youngest major volcano located in Panama and the most recently active which it last erupted around 500 years ago in 1550. In 770 AD, the Baru volcano largely erupted which destr...

  Week 3: Earthquakes and Mitigation In Panama, it is common for earthquakes to occur. This seismicity map shows that Panama doesn't get a lot of big earthquakes often, but however, they still have earthquakes hitting their country. Most of these earthquakes haven't caused any major damage throughout the country but there were some that caused great destruction and travesty through Panama. For example, the Panama Viejo earthquake took place on May 2, 1961 and was recorded as the first major earthquake on the Isthmus of Panama. This earthquake caused destruction to the old town in Panama, Panama la Vieja, and many of the buildings in the town were destroyed. Another earthquake was The 1991 Limon earthquake on April 22, 1991 where the epicenter was actually in Costa Rica, but was strong to the point that most fatalities happened in Panama. There were 127 fatalities in this natural disaster and 79 of them were people from Bocas del Toro Province in Panama. Adding on, there were al...

Week 2: What are Tectonic Plates? Tectonic plates are huge, irregular slabs of solid rock which is usually made up of continental and oceanic lithosphere, the outermost shell on Earth. These plates can cause many different type of things such as earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, etc. According to the USGS, tectonic plate size and thickness varies for each single plate making them different with the plate sizes ranging from "a few hundred to thousands of kilometers across" and the thickness ranging from "less than 15 km for young oceanic lithosphere to about 200 km or more ancient continental lithosphere". Tectonic plates actually created the Isthmus of Panama. According to Donovan, it's stated that instead of the isthmus "rising and subsiding ocean levels or existing as a string of islands as scientists previously believed, the Isthmus of Panama was first a peninsula of Southern Central America before the underlying tectonic plates merged it with S...