Natural Disasters

EENS 204/ EVST 203/ EENS 605

Spring Semester 2009

Prof. Stephen A. Nelson

Click on the Topic of Interest Below

Course Announcements

Syllabus 204

Syllabus 605

Disaster Summary Information

Lecture Notes

Homework Exercises

Web Links

Field Trip Infomation

May 7 , 2009 - Final Exam scores and course grades have been posted on Blackboard (My Tulane).   You should be able to access the Blackboard site for whichever section of the course you are enrolled in and see your score and grade from there.  This is the first time I have ever used Blackboard to post grades, so let me know if there are any problems.

If you want to see your final exam or have any questions about your scores or grades, please feel free to come by my office, Room 208 Blessey Hall, or you can send e-mail.  I will be around most of the time next week, before graduation.

Here are some general comments on the exam.:

• Some general advice - when a professor explicitly tells you that certain questions are going to be on an exam, it is alway in your best interest to believe that professor and take actions so that you do not miss those questions when they actually do show up on the exam.
  

• It is absolutely amazing that some of you still think that the levee breaches that occurred in New Orleans during the Katrina event, all happened the day after Katrina made landfall.  This is absolutley false.   All levee breaches occurred on the same day that Katrina made landfall (August 29, 2005). 
   
• Magmas do not come from the liquid outer core of the earth.
   
• The last time I checked, the letter C was still the third letter in the Alphabet.  I'm also pretty sure that it was the third letter in the alphabet (not the fifth letter) when Hurricane Camille came ashore back in 1969.
   
• Each increase in 1 in earthquake magnitude represents a 30 fold increase in energy released, not a 10 fold increase as many of you still think. 
     
• Hopefully, those of you who said that open fields and golf courses would be safe places to go to avoid a lightening strike will survive the next thunderstorm.
   
• Although large earthquakes in China and floods in Bangladesh usually result in a large number of casualties, an impact with a large space object (> 1 km) would result in many more casualties and is thus the worst possible disaster we discussed in the course.
  
  
• There is no such thing as an instrument called the Richter Scale.
  

Have a Nice Summer!

April 23 , 2009 - There will be a review session for this course on Thursday, April 30 at 10:00 AM.  It will take place in the same classroom where we normally meet - Jones Hall room 204. Come prepared with questions.

March 10 , 2009 - You can view the video of the La Conchita debris flow that I tried to show in class today by going to one of the following sites:

http://landslides.usgs.gov/recent/events/laconchita/

(You need the Quicktime player to view this video)

 or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4KWxglDL3o

(The same thing on YouTube).

March 10 , 2009 - The Tulane University Office of Disability Services wishes to hire a note taker for this class.  The note taker would only be required to take notes when we have videos in class.  This is a paid position.  If you are interested in this position please contact Lisa De Shazo (phone: 862-8433, email: lashaz@tulane.edu) at ODS, located in the ERC, 1st floor Mechanical Engineering Building

March 8 , 2009 - The midterm exams have been graded and will be handed back in class on Tuesday, March 10.  Information on the exam can be found by clicking HERE.

February 25 , 2009 - For anyone who has not gone on the field trip, there is another opportunity for a limited number of students to go on the field trip on Sunday, March 15.  Please send an email to Professor Nelson (snelson@tulane.edu ) if you are interested in going on this trip. This trip is now full.

February 17 , 2009 - For anyone who has not gone on the field trip, there is an opportunity for a limited number of students to go on the field trip on Sunday, March 8.  Please send an email to Professor Nelson (snelson@tulane.edu ) if you are interested in going on this trip.  This trip is now full.

January 23, 2009 - I have added 2 more dates for field trips.  One on Saturday, February 7 and the other on Sunday February 8.  If you have not yet signed up for a field trip, please do so now.  No further trips will be added until these are full.

January 12, 2009 - Be sure to sign up for a field trip to the levee breaches - click HERE for information on how to sign up and for further information on the field trip.

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or, view the PDF versions of the files which will always display all fonts correctly.

 Natural Disasters & Assessing Hazards and Risk*

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Earth Structure, Materials, Systems, and Cycles*

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Earthquakes: Causes and Measurements*

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Earthquake Hazards & Risks*

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Earthquake Prediction and Control*

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Earthquake Case Histories*

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Tsunami*

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Volcanoes, Magma, and Volcanic Eruptions*

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Volcanic Landforms, Volcanoes & Plate Tectonics*

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Volcanic Hazards, Beneficial Aspects, & Predicting Eruption*

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Volcanic Case Histories*

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Mass Wasting and Mass-Wasting Processes*

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Slope Stability, Triggering Events, Mass Wasting Events*

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Subsidence*

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The Ocean-Atmosphere System*

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Tornadoes & Other Severe Weather*

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Tropical Cyclones*

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Coastal Zones*

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River Systems & Causes of Flooding*

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River Flooding*

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Flooding Hazards, Prediction & Human Intervention*

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Meteorites, Impacts, and Mass Extinction*

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I. Disaster Info on the Internet* - Due Jan. 22

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