This month’s session continued the Physical Geography theme, focusing on Natural Hazards as part of the current GCSE Geography course material or at least my understanding of it. The session opened with a short slide presentation defining Earth’s natural hazards, then exploring the risks they pose to people and the environment, finally a short introduction to the various approaches to mitigation. One would wish to eliminate the hazards but we just live on a very active planet!
Earth’s natural hazards fall into three main categories: those caused by plate tectonic activity; those associated with weather; and those linked to climate. This session focused on the first category, which was explored through two 50-minute videos on volcanoes and earthquakes. These covered how and why such hazards occur, the likely damage they can cause, and their impact on populations as well as human and natural infrastructure as well as lightly touching on the forms of mitigation that can be undertaken.
The session also included a short, but remarkable video showing an actual side-slip earthquake in action, which occurred in 2025 at Thazi, Myanmar, clearly demonstrating the physical effects of this type of hazard on human structures.
For those that didn’t succumb to the rather close and hot Witham Room, we finished the session with a 5 minute look at what I suspect was an AI produced video on Mt Teide, the volcano sat in the middle of Tenerife. I’m sure the last time I visited, there was no lake up in the old caldera populated with rare frogs!
The August session, as agreed, will be a recess with the next meeting planned for September 17th when it is hoped that we can include one of our regular outside speakers, Professor David Evans possibly on the subject of Lichenometry. The full title of the session has yet to be decided.
Phil Johnson