Technical and Nontechnical Reports
Each
of the volcanoes listed below has been active in the last few decades, and
there is abundant literature, in English, on each. You have drawn a number
corresponding to one of these; this is now Your Volcano. Prepare a technical
report and a nontechnical report on this volcano's activity during the time
specified, following the guidelines below.
1. Etna, Italy, 1991 present
2.
Nyamuragira, Zaire, 1991
present
3. Piton de la Fournaise, Reunion Island, 1990-1992
4. Ruapehu, New Zealand, 1992 present
5.
Manam, Papua New Guinea,
1992 present
6. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, 1994 present
7. Anak Krakatau, Indonesia, 1992 present
8. Merapi, Indonesia, 1992 present
9. Kelut, Indonesia, 1990 present
10.
Semeru, Indonesia, 1981 present
11. Pagan, Mariana Islands, 1981-1992
12. Unzen, Japan, 1990 present
13. Bogoslof Island, Alaska, 1992
14. Mount Redoubt, Alaska, 1989-1990
15. Spurr Volcano, Alaska, 1992 present
16.
Colima, Mexico, 1991 present
17.
Popocatepetl, Mexico, 1994 present
18. Volcan Hudson, Chile, 1991-1994
19. Soufriere Hills,
Montserrat, 1995 present
In
addition to describing your volcano's activity during the specified time,
you should also mention its eruptive styles during previous activity, and
discuss any hazards that it poses for the future.
The
technical report must be a
minimum of 6 pages, double-spaced, not counting bibliography (required) and
illustrations (required), and must begin with an abstract (about 200 words).
Write the abstract last. A good abstract is easy to read, and hard to write.
You will find bad examples, and perhaps some good ones, in your reading.
The technical report should be written for geologists familiar with
the basic vocabulary of the earth sciences.
In your technical report, document facts in either of these two ways:
direct quotation:
Smith (1979, p. 243) reported that "lava was observed coming from a
fissure in the southeast flank on October 2."
indirect quotation:
The total volume of ash is estimated to be 5 km3
(Jones and Brown, 1983,
p. 711).
Do
not use footnotes!
Use
the following format for references in your bibliography:
Books
and monographs:
Simkin,
T., and Fiske, R. S. (1983) Krakatau 1883. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian
Institution Press, 464 p.
Taylor,
G. A. M. (1958) The 1951 eruption of Mount Lamington, Papua. Australian
Bureau of Mineral Resources, Bulletin 38, 117 p.
Articles
in journals:
Bacon,
C. R. (1983) Eruptive history of Mount Mazama and Crater Lake caldera,
Cascade Range, U.S.A. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v. 18,
p. 57-115
Walker,
G. P. L. (1979) A volcanic ash generated by explosions where ignimbrite
entered the sea. Nature, v. 281, p. 642-646
Online
sources:
Geist,
D. (2003) Some documentation
and thoughts on Volcan Alcedo, on website of Dennis Geist, University of
Idaho, 15 February, 2003 (ideally the last revised date, or at
least the day that you examined the website), URL:
http://www.uidaho.edu/~dgeist/galapagos/alcedo.html.
Put
all the references in one list, alphabetized by authors, and chronological
for repeated authors, thus:
Brown,
A.B. (1978) ..........
Brown,
A.B. (1979a)..........
Brown,
A.B. (1979b)..........
Brown,
A.B., and Jones, H.C. (1973) ............
Brown,
A.B., Jones, H.C., and Smith, J.R. (1972) ............
Brown,
A.B., and Smith, J.R. (1970) .............
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If
even part of a sentence is not your own writing, that part must be
enclosed in quotation marks and the source must be cited in the ways shown
above. Failure to do this is plagiarism and is a serious offence
constituting academic dishonesty. However,
do not overuse quotes, i.e. it is best to paraphrase.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The
nontechnical report must
also be at least 4 pages long, double spaced, not counting any
illustrations. Neither an abstract nor a bibliography should be included.
The nontechnical report should be written as a newspaper or magazine article
intended for readers with no background in the sciences, and should use a
nontechnical vocabulary. Be sure that everything is in your own words; if
you must quote a specific source in a nontechnical report, use
something like this: Professor A.B. Brown, a volcanologist at the University
of Central Northwestern South Dakota, summed up the situation when she wrote
in a 1979 report that "this was a very awkward thing to have
happened."
The
technical and nontechnical reports are both due
on March 4.
You must submit revised drafts of both by April 8, for additional grades.
Here
is how your reports will be graded:
Technical
Report
Nontechnical Report
Scope
and Focus .................
(10%)
Scope and Focus ........................
(20%)
Organization
..........................
(10%)
Organization ................................
(20%)
Writing,
proofreading............
(30%)
Writing, proofreading .................
(40%)
Abstract..................................
(10%)
Awareness of reader's level ......
(20%)
Conclusions............................
(10%)
Total .............................................
(100%)
Documentation
......................
(20%)
Bibliography
...........................
(10%)
Total ........................................ (100%)
Finding
information
For
your volcano, you should be able to find several published accounts,
and your biggest problem may be in choosing between conflicting observations
or interpretations. Start your investigation with a GEOREF search, limited
to younger literature, as all of the topics concern eruptions since the
mid-1080s.
There
are some dedicated sources of this sort of information, e.g. Global
Volcanism Network Bulletin of the Smithsonian Institution (available on the
internet and in print editions, and summarized, with a time lag of several
months, in most issues of Bulletin of Volcanology starting in 1986). Some other useful sources include:
Simkin
and Siebert (1995) Volcanoes of the World, 2nd edition
McClelland
and others (1989) Global Volcanism 1975-1985
Wood
and Kienle (1990) Volcanoes of North America
Bulletin
of Volcanic Eruptions (annual, now published in Bulletin of Volcanology; see
below)
Catalogue
of Active Volcanoes of the World, Parts 1-22 (see below)
Bibliography
and Index of Geology (annual, and monthly for the current year).
Journals
will provide more technical accounts, and the following are likely to be
helpful:
Bulletin
of Volcanology (formerly
Bulletin Volcanologique),
Journal
of Volcanology and Geothermal Research,
Volcano
News (this was published only in 1979-86),
Journal
of Geophysical Research,
Journal
of Geology,
Geological
Society of America Bulletin,
Journal
of the Geological Society (London),
Geological
Magazine.
And
of course you will find a tremendous amount of information on the web, with
the usual issue that seldom is any web information peer-reviewed, i.e. user
beware. Start with the links on
the course webpage.
You
should utilize both published and online information in your report.
After
you have searched, but before you start writing, show me the list of
items you have found; I may be able to point out some others. You should provide me with your reference list not later
than Feb. 4.
The
IAVCEI Catalogue of the Active Volcanoes of the World is on reserve
for this course in the Geology Library (for library use only). The call
number is QE 522 C38. The 22
parts were published in order of receipt, so there is no orderly progression
from one region to another, as there is in Simkin and Siebert (1995)
Volcanoes of the World, 2nd edition. The
following index shows the regional coverage of the Catalogue:
1
Indonesia
2
Philippine Islands and Cochin China
13 Kermadec,
Tonga, and Samoa
3
Hawaii
14 Galapagos
Islands
4
Africa and the Red Sea
15 Chile
5
Melanesia
16 Arabia and the
Indian Ocean
6
Central America
17 Turkey and the
Caucasus
7
Kurile Islands
17 Appendix: Iran
8
Kamchatka and continental Asia
18 Italy
9
USA (excluding Hawaii and the Aleutians)
19 Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru
10 Antarctica
20 West Indies
11 Japan, Taiwan, and the
Marianas
21 Atlantic Ocean
12 Greece
22 New Zealand
Two
other parts, to cover Iceland and the Aleutian Islands, have never been
finished. The Catalogue is outdated for some volcanoes, but useful for many
others; don't rely on it as your major source.
Years covered
Number of bulletin
BV volume and number
various
1-4
not in BV
various
5
29
various
6
31
various
7
34, no. 2
various
8
33, no. 3
various
9-1
34, no. 2
various
9-2
34, no. 1 Then they
finally got their act together:
1966-70
10
36, no. 1
1971
11
37, no. 4
1972
12
38, no. 2
1973
13
39, no. 1
1974
14
40, no. 1
1975
15
41, no. 1
1976
16
41, no. 3
1977
17
43, no. 2
1978
18
44, no. 1
1979
19
44, no. 4
1980
20
45, supplement
1981-92
21- 32
46 to 57, supplements
Numbers
15 through 21 and 23 are also available separately, as QE 521.5 B844.
Some numbers contain updates and corrections of information in
earlier numbers. Starting with
volume 49 in 1986, most issues of BV also contain the Smithsonian
Institution Global Volcanism Network's "Summary of recent volcanic activity."
If
you want to follow what is happening globally in volcanic activity, as well
as to be informed to other issues of importance to the topic, you may want
to subscribe to the listserv VOLCANO (from Arizona State University).
To
subscribe to the VOLCANO listserver, send an e-mail to:
LISTSERV@ASUACAD.BITNET
with the one-line message "SUBSCRIBE VOLCANO <your name>".
This listserver provides a lot of material, some interesting, some
useful. Included are monthly
updates of the Global Volcanism Network, weekly reports from the U.S.
Geological Survey volcano observatories, same-day reports of eruptions, and
political posturing and ego-tripping by some individuals who should know
better.