The Asia-Pacific region is home to well over half the world's population and is also the focus of some of earth's most intense geological activity. It is no surprise therefore that geological hazards, in particular earthquake and volcano hazards, make the Asia-Pacific region the scene of som e of the worlds most lethal natural disasters. While this is evident form a perusal of historical data relating to natural disasters, it is not clear how well such historical data can be used as a guide for high -impact events that might be expected in the future. This uncertainty is due to (1) how poorly extreme geological events having long recurrence intervals are represented in the relatively short historical record, and (2) the failure of the historical record to account for recent demographic trends, in particular the explosive growth of population in the Asia -Pacific region and its rapid urbanisation during the 20 th century. We present here two novel techniques for assessing the potential impacts of volcanic and earthquake events on human population in the Asia Pacific region. For volcanic risk, we have calculated the frequency of large eruptions, aggregated for the countries of the Asia -Pacific region, using data provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program. These eruption frequ encies have been combined with an analysis of population data for the region to estimate the average number of people who might be affected, in the broad sense of death, injury or loss of essential services, by a major volcanic eruption. For earthquake, risk, we have considered that the potential future high -impact events will be driven by the probability that an earthquake might occur in or adjacent to one of the many megacities of the Asia -Pacific region. Earthquake probabilities near megacities are cal culated from catalogue data, and these are combined with a rough criterion for damage based on earthquake ground motion, to asses potentially affected populations. We present preliminary results of these analyses, which suggest the potential for earthquakes and volcanoes in the Asia-Pacific region to cause future `mega-disasters', for which affected populations may be much larger than the numbers indicated by the historical record.

This Australian volcanoes image set comprises 15 images on CD-ROM with accompanying descriptive text and student question/s for each image. Learn the history of Australia's hot spot volcanoes over 60 million years and examine 9 Australian volcanoes in detail. Suitable for primary levels Years 5-6 and secondary levels Years 7-10

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The activity of Mount Lamington over the last half year has tended to confirm conclusions drawn from earlier observations, namely, that conditions of slow decline in overall activity pointed towards a return to the dormant state. There have been fluctuations in activity during this period, renewed dome building in some sectors of the crater and on one occasion, explosions were reported to have occurred near the dome summit.

On the 9th January, 1953, the writer received a letter from the Rev. Knoller of the Lutheran Mission, Umboi, describing some recently discovered thermal areas. Permission was requested and obtained from the Government Secretary, Port Moresby, to proceed to Umboi and investigate these areas. During the investigations all six thermal areas known to the inhabitants, both European and Native, were visited. These six areas are disposed about Mt. Talo, a well defined volcanic cone containing two crater lakes and located somewhat northwest of the centre of the island. These thermal areas have been numbered i to vi in the order in which they were visited.

Mount Langla is one of a group of volcanoes which lies on the western end of the island of New Britain. The 3,800 feet cone is on the eastern flank of the ancient volcano, Mount Talawe and is almost due south of the wartime Gloucester airstrip. The original report concerning the signs of increasing activity was made by Father McSweeney of the Kalingi Catholic Mission. Father McSweeney was returning from a trip along the north coast on 12th May, when he noticed condensed steam rising from a new location on the summit of Mount Langla. On a visit to Borgen Bay on 30th May he saw gas bubbles in the sea close to the shoreline adjacent to the small conical hill which lies on the western side of the Bay. At the request of the Government Secretary the writer left Popondetta and flew to Lae on 18th June, and left by trawler the same day to arrive at Kalingi on 20th June. An inspection of the volcano confirmed the recent nature of the increase in gas emission and revealed a number of phenomena which are usually identified as pre-eruption conditions.

An area of about 12,000 square miles was mapped in the field seasons 1950-51. It contains four Pre-Cambrian rock groups ranging from Archaeozoic to Uppermost Proterozoic. The main groups in the area, the Mt. Isa and Lawn Hill Groups, are shallow-water geosynclinal sediments involved in a Proterozoic orogeny which resulted in fairly intensive folding along dominantly north-south axes, together with much faulting. The geological features discussed in this report include physiography, topography, stratigraphy, igneous activity, structure, mineral deposits and water supply.