The Andes

     Buenos días from Mendoza Argentina! I'm here in the city at a research center with my parents as they study the Andes Mountains, which stretch along the west coast of South America. It’s very warm here in the city, but we're going out to the mountains in a few days, and I suspect the same won't be true at those high altitudes. We've just finished "el desayuno," and already mom and dad are working. We woke up pretty early, but since the hotel is in the city and near the research center, it didn't take nearly as long as it has in trips past to get from point a to point b. I quite enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city. The air is dusty, the people are frantic, and despite all this movement everything seems perfectly orchestrated, the city like inter-workings of a complex machine. Here there's life everywhere. I've even befriended a stray named Pedro much to my parent's dismay. They're much too busy to do much about it though. They are hard at work studying the complicated plate boundary where the Nazca Plate and a portion of the Antarctic Plate are sliding under the South American Plate (boundary location: 32°27'40.63"S 73°13'10.80"W).

     This sort of boundary they are studying is called a subduction boundary. Here the denser, oceanic Nazca and Antarctic Plates subduct (fancy geology word for go under) beneath the continental South American as they are forced together, causing a deep ocean trench. As the plates dive down toward the hot mantle, the rock encounters greater heat and pressure, and is heated into magma. The water also helps by lowering the melting point of the mantle, and aids in this melting into magma. That magma then rises as we know hot matter does and breaks the surface to form volcanoes.  The Andes are the result of this volcanism as well as uplift, raise in elevation caused by tectonics. Here is a diagram subduction causing volcanoes: 

http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/subducvolc_page.html

As you can see the volcanoes form slightly to the continental side of the boundary creating on land volcanoes, but if this were the case of two oceanic plates the subsequent volcanoes would form islands. Here is a picture of that: 

http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/subducvolc_page.html

The Andes have many volcanoes, which are divided into four different zones: the Northern, Central, Southern, and Austral Zones.  These volcanoes erupt every so often, some having been dormant and others having been erupting for years. The movement of the molten rock combined with the converging plates creates earthquakes in this area as well. These earthquakes have been some of the biggest ever recorded for instance the 9.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in 1960. There have been recent earthquakes every couple of years or so, but none quite as big as this. There are also hot springs and geysers due to the geothermal activity in the area. The seismic activity in this area has been going on for millions of years and will continue to for millions more.
Here is an Andean volcano in Ecuador:

  http://www.monstersandcritics.com/science/features/article_1390385.php/In_photos_Volcanic_Eruptions_in_Ecuador_and_Chile
Pic of hot springs in Chile from you guessed it masterfile.com:

 http://www.masterfile.com/stock-photography/image/600-03075632/Hot-Springs-at-El-Tatio-Antofagasta-Region-Chile

The Baikal Rift Zone

     Its pretty chilly here at Lake Baikal in southern Russia (53°30′N 108°0′E) the one of the world's deepest and most ancient lakes. I'm sitting in temporary tent, bundled up to keep out the chill. Outside there is beautiful lake with endless mountains at its banks.  My parents must be pretty cold outside. They're doing research on the Baikal Rift Zone, a divergent boundary beneath the the lake. The lake is actually formed in the rift valley of the boundary, which is a linear indent made by the stretching of the crust as the plates diverge. It is likely that the mountains were formed as a result of the tension. As the rift sunk down the rock on either side moved up, or so is common with divergent boundaries.
     At this boundary, Eurasian and Amur Plates are being forced apart. Often, at a divergent boundary, less dense, hotter magma forces its way through the crust, but in this case the driving force is not definite. As I said for a typical divergent boundary, magma rises up, breaking through the crust, and then it hardens repeating this process to make new crust and continue moving outward. In this case though scientists are not sure of the cause. They think its likely that the movement of other plates is driving this movement as well as some local, circulating magma beneath the surface. Though there are no volcanoes here, as the magma has not actually reached the surface, which I was rather disappointed about, there are hot springs as the magma is very close to the surface.  There has also been some recent volcanic activity nearby likely to have been caused by the divergent boundary, which is another reason why mom and dad are here, to study recent volcanic and seismic activity. As I said there hot springs, and there are also some decently sized earthquakes every couple of years. These earthquakes are the result of the magma and moving plates. Similar seismic activity has happened in the past, which has shaped the land to how it is now, and the earth continues to change. The plates move apart from each other at 4 mm a year, and earthquakes and movements driven by tectonics will continue to move the earth until this lake becomes an ocean.
Here's a pic of the lake:


   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/features/9668060/lake-baikal-siberia-russia.html

The Himalayas

The Himalayas from the plane window!

http://www.himalaya-foto.ru/himalayas-from-plane.htm

     New Zealand was a blast! The landscape was gorgeous, and once all the research in predicting the next big earthquake was finished, my parents and I got a week to ourselves. We went white water rafting, hiking, went to shows, and did a lot of other fun stuff. I'm sad to have left NZ, but I'm sure Nepal will have some equally  fascinating things in store. We've only been here a day and mom and dad are already hard at work. They've allowed me to stay in the hotel (which is not nearly as nice) just for today to sleep and acclimatize, but I'm ready to get back out there. My parents are now at a research facility in Kathmandu, touching base with the rest of the research team.  They're examining the data collected by machines on Everest placed by climbers as they made their way to the summit. I find this highly impressive, given that I'm lightheaded at an altitude that would make Everest, which is 29,029 feet above sea level, laugh.
    Everest is a pretty amazing land formation, and its kind of hard to be believe that it and the rest of the Himalayas exists all because of plate tectonics. Mom and dad have been going on and on about since we got here. Supposedly these two continental plates, the Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates, collided, and as the Indian subcontinent slammed into the Eurasian continent, the Himalayas were formed. This sort of boundary is called a collision boundary, and often results in earthquakes and mountain ranges. They aren't however known for volcanic activity as no magma is forcing its way up, nor is the mantle heating a subducting plate to make magma. If your looking to find them on a map they are at 27°59′17″N 86°55′31″E.  Now these two land masses are wedged together and continue to push and grow taller (About 5 mm a year), causing earthquakes from time to time. India continues to drive into China at around 5 centimeters a year. This picture gives you a good idea of what happened to cause these amazing mountains.

As you can see, India made its way over millions of years before slamming into Eurasia. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas

Also, here's a diagram of a collision boundary: 

     http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tectonics/tectonics-collide.html

The Alpine Fault and Southern Alps

     Today I was awoken from a deep, jet-lagged sleep at a impossible 5:30 in the morning, which thank God is like 12:30 Cali time. Still it took both my parents to pry me out of bed and get me out of our hotel, which is surprisingly nice. I guess the research team that has been put together is being sponsored by this big shot who insisted upon the highest accommodations. Well, I'm not complaining, except when it comes to my skipping the studies and lab work, which for you information I was not allowed to do. So, now I'm on site at the base of Mount Cook, the highest peak of the Sothern Alps,which the locals call Aoraki.  Its absolutely pouring and the winds are pretty strong but the landscape is gorgeous. The rainfall has made the area nice and green, and the snow-capped mountains look picturesque beside the Tasman River.  They say that the Alps were formed when three brothers were canoeing and became stranded on a reef. The south wind then froze the wrecked canoe into the South Island and the brothers into the mountains. The tallest of them was a child named Aoraki for which the mountain is named. Although this is obviously a legend my parents haven't stopped ranting on the impossibility of the story of the mountains' formation. All I have heard all day long is how the movement of tectonic plates formed these mountains. 
     From what I understand there are two plates, the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates, that are sliding past each other. This sort of plate boundary is called a transform boundary, and this specific one is called the Alpine Fault (located at 43.2 degrees South latitude, 170.5 degrees East longitude). These two plates despite moving predominantly past each other are also moving into each other as well. This movement is driven by convection currents in the mantle, moving the plates above. The subsequent pressure between the plates is what forces up the earth, and along with the accompanying earthquakes the Southern Alps have been formed. The associated tension of the transform boundary is what gives these mountains some of there fissures.There is little to no volcanic activity as that isn't very common with transform faults. The pressure between these plates builds, and then when it finally becomes to much the plates slide causing ruptures and earthquakes. From 1848- 2009 there have been seven major earthquakes that received between a 7.1 and 7.8 magnitude. Over the last thousand years there have been four major ruptures which occurred around 1100, 1450, 1620 and 1717 CE, at intervals between 100 and 350 years. The range's growth has been fastest during the last 5 million years, and the mountains continue to be raised today. - Maris 

http://www.orc.govt.nz/Information-and-Services/Natural-Hazards/Great-Alpine-Fault-Earthquake/
Mount Aoraki and the Tasman River

http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Plate%20Tectonics.html
A transform boundary


http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Plate%20Tectonics.html

An Intro to My Tectonic Tour

     I am writing from an altitude of 30,000 feet as I leave behind sunny northern California for "an exciting geological adventure". Well that's what my parent's said anyway. They're both geology professors at UC Berkeley and staring at rocks and land formations is their idea of a good time. Don't get me wrong, my parents are the best, but that didn't stop them from pulling me out of school to go with them on "a once in a lifetime" research opportunity. Now I'll be spending all year in planes, cars, and shady motels as they travel around the world analyzing different plate boundaries. My parents say I'll learn a lot on this trip, but personally I've always found their work just a little dull. I once went to work with my dad and spent hours classifying rock samples only to realize that shiny wasn't an "acceptable definitive factor", so I can only imagine the boredom I will face now that my parent's work has become the center of my life and the height of my social calendar.
     I'm hoping I can avoid the studies, and use this trip as an opportunity to (as my mom would say) immerse in the cultures of all different groups of people. The trip has in total four stops. These include New Zealand and the Alpine Fault, Nepal and The Himalayas, Russia and the Baikal Rift Zone, and finally the Andes Mountains. Despite being prematurely uprooted from the school year, this will be a good travel opportunity, which I am looking forward to. The plane is about to land, so it seems I have to sign off now, but be on the lookout for a new post in the next couple of days. - Maris

Here's a view of New Zealand from up in the air. Guess who got the window seat!

http://www.solofemalenomad.com/how-to-have-a-working-abroad-adventure-in-new-zealand/

Note: This is a fictitious trip that I made up for a school science project. The events mentioned did not actually take place nor do the people mentioned actually exist.