Taiwan ( 23°52'8.21"N; 120°56'10.76"E)

Hi, for my last stop on my tectonic tour I will be enjoying the delights of the island nation of Taiwan.  After a relatively short flight from Timika I checked into my hotel on the northern side of the capital city of Taipei.  The hotel was perfect, it was centrally located so all of the best restaurants in the city were literally at my finger tips. 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3113/2656959177_c51074d961_o.jpg

 

Since all of the attractions of the city were in walking distance I decided to take a stroll down to my favorite restaurant in town Din Tai Fung.  This amazing dumpling house offers some of the best food around.  My favorite are the juice pork dumplings. 

 



http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ding+tia+fung&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=8E6DEA17AEBDF18F34E8EBCE185249F4B6541EBB&selectedIndex=65

 

After a fabulous dinner, I strolled back to my hotel with a full stomach.  I love Taipei,    

one of my favorite parts is the Taipei 101.  It was the tallest building in the world in 2004, but the reason I really love it is because of its architecture, without it Taipei just would not be Taipei.  It really makes the city look the part. 

http://skyscrapercenter.com/images/albums/userpics/10005/Taipei101_Ext-NightContext_TaipeiFinancialCenterCorporation.jpg


 

I could see the building from my hotel room, so I ended up staring at it for a little while before drifting off to sleep.  After looking at that building all night I decided that I had to have a look at it up close.  So I walked over and just asked the man at the desk if I could ride the elevator to the top just to take a look.  Surprisingly he obliged and before I new it I was speeding up the elevator with the city of Taipei flashing farther and farther away.  When I reached the top I could see all of the magnificent city.  As I gazed down I realized that just outside the city limits mountains rose and fell as far as the eye could see.  I new from my tectonic plate experience that some islands like Hawaii are just volcanoes that have erupted over and over again, so the island is basically a mountain rising up from the sea.  This makes the terrain very mountainous, but on Taipei there are no volcanoes.  I immediately realized that coming to Taipei for the good food and view was great but I had overlooked the fact that it was also a rare find when it comes to tectonic plates.  Taiwan lies directly on a continental convergence boundary or a collision boundary.  When two continental plates converge it is called a collision boundary because since they are both not very dense instead of one of them subducting under the other they meet and start to go up creating mountains.  Hence the mountainous terrain of Taiwan. 

http://www.i-study.co.uk/images/images/photo_album/Tectonics/collision.gif


 

The collision boundary in Taiwan is rare because if you think about it Taiwan is an island so how can the boundary be two continental plates, shouldn't one of them be oceanic?  The reason for this is that the Taiwan collision boundary is actually the Yangtze continental plate colliding with a small continental plated edge of the Philippine oceanic plate.  The small continental plate is part of the Philippine plate, sometimes tectonic plates are a mix of oceanic and continental plates, that is truly why Taiwan is a rare find concerning tectonics.  This collision boundary also causes large amounts of earthquakes in the area.  Taiwan has a history of large quakes ranging all the way up to 7.8. Yeah, that is a large earthquake.  The most recent earthquake in Taiwan was in 6.1 magnitude in march of this year. 

 



http://www.greenfudge.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/earthquake-taiwan.jpg



 

 

This will be my last blog post for a while.  I am going under cover to find the highest peaks of the highest mountains, hopefully I will make it out alive and be able to take you on a tour of some of the most remote mountains the planet has to offer.  For now this is your travel guide signing off. 

 

http://wallpapers5.com/images/wallpapers/72943173/Landscape/Amazing-Mountain-Fuji-003.jpg

 

 

 

Timika (4°28'39.36"S; 136°51'2.25"E)

After a tiring flight I arrived in Timika a small city on the island of Papa New Guinea.  I took in a quick bite to eat at Hotel Rimba Papua, and then immediately set out for a round of golf. 



<a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g297703-d301786-Rimba_Papua_Hotel-Timika_Papua.html"><img alt="Photos of Rimba Papua Hotel, Timika" src="http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/0e/d6/09/rimba-papua-hotel.jpg"/></a><br/>This photo of <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g297703-d301786-Reviews-Rimba_Papua_Hotel-Timika_Papua.html">Rimba Papua Hotel</a> is courtesy of TripAdvisor

 

As you can see the golf course was amazing, unfortunately I lost the game because on the last putt I felt a tremor run through the ground and I twitched sideways and sprayed the putt wide of the hole.  I was in disbelief.  What were the chances of a small earthquake hitting right as I was putting!

 

http://jeremyberg.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/angrygolfer.jpg

well maybe I wasn't that angry!

I wanted to find out what the actual chance of experiencing an earthquake during golf would be so I did a little research on the tectonics of Papa New Guinea. It turns out that Timika lies very close to a transformer fault.  A transformer fault is were two plates meet, each plate is moving in a different direction so they end up rubbing against each other causing massive earthquakes.  Another example of a transformer fault is the San Andres fault, right next to San Francisco.  

 



http://www.gweaver.net/techhigh/projects/period1_2/Yellowstone/Images/transform.jpeg

 

Timika lies next to the transformer fault made by the Australian plate and the Maoke Maoke plate.  When these two plates run against one another they create massive earthquakes.  The island of Papa New Guinea is scattered with earthquakes ranging from 5.0 to 7.5 and higher.  These earthquakes cause aftershock as well as the earthquake.  Aftershocks occur because the crust around the plate boundary is adjusting to the original shock, this can cause aftershocks, a smaller but still potent earthquake.  So it turns out that missing a putt because of an earthquake is a regularity in Timika, their town is dotted with earthquakes too!  The last earthquake that occurred in Timika was a 7.1 magnitude in April off this year.

 





http://www.friendlyforecast.com/earthquake/2012/08/6-2-mount-hagen-new-guinea-png-madang-earthquake-august-20-2012-at-08-41-50-am/neic_c000c350_s.jpg





 

Can you believe that all of those dots are earthquakes!



  



Rhodes (36° 5'45.04"N; 28° 4'10.73"E)

 

 

Our first stop is on the island of Rhodes.  One of the greatest ancient wonders of the world was once located on this magnificent island.  The Colossus of Rhodes.  e.g. a giant statue of a guy holding a ancient lamp. 

http://beauty-places.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/colossus_of_rhodes_wallpaper-by_pervandr.jpg

   

Of course after my 10 hour fight there was no giant statue waiting to greet me, instead I had to be content with a miniature model.  My first move was to wander the city streets,  watching helpless tourists get haggled into terribly bad deals on junk that they would never use.  After wading through the crowds, I finally made my way to Lidos Blu my hotel.  I highly recommend this hotel for its views, and amazing swimming pool. 

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g227884-d1017752-Reviews-Lindos_Blu-Lindos_Rhodes_Dodecanese.html

 

The beautiful views of the sea paired with a refreshing greek salad of cheese, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives from the island of Rhodes reminded me of how this island and this way of life came to exist. 

Rhodes lies next to the subduction zone of the African oceanic plate and the Eurasian continental plate.  A subduction zone is when two plates collide and one of those plates subducts or goes under the other plate.  The denser plate subducts under the other plate, it is like the continental plate is styrofoam, and the oceanic plate is a block of contrite.  When they collide the denser one will sink under the other plate.   



http://www.jclahr.com/science/earth_science/animate/subduct.gif

Subduction zones normally cause volcanoes because of when the oceanic plate subducts under the continental plate it carries a lot of fluid (water) with it.  When this fluid reaches the continental plate it causes the very hot rocks that makes up that plate to melt and rise to the surface.  It is the same principle of adding salt to ice to make it melt.  When you add salt the melting point decreases, when you add water to the hot rock it lowers the melting point.  The odd thing about Rhodes is that there are no volcanoes, this is very rare.  The reason that Rhodes does not have volcanoes is because the magna that made up the island stopped and did not break the surface, which means that there is magma underneath the island so be wary of surprise volcanoes eruptions when you head to Rhodes, just kidding there will never be any volcanoes on the island of Rhodes.  Also there are no earthquakes on the island of Rhodes because subduction boundaries do not cause earthquakes.     

 

Iceland (64°47'48.54"N; 18°35'21.52"W)

The next stop on my journey is Iceland.  The magnificent country side caught my eye the moment I arrived in the capital city of Reykjavik.

http://deadwildroses.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/1iceland.jpg

After I unpacked and slept I immediately headed off for the Blue Lagoon.  This tourist attraction in Iceland is a mineral spring heated to 40C by the natural powers of the earth.  These Springs were amazing, they really get you to think, and I thought, "how on earth do these springs get heated naturally to 40C, I can't even get my bath that hot!"  I knew my knowledge of the tectonic plates would help me on this one.  Originally I had decide to visit this beautiful paradise of fire and ice  because it is an odd, spectacular phenomenon.  Iceland sits directly on the mid Atlantic ridge.  This ridge is created by a divergent boundary. 




http://dreamtigers.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/divergent_boundary_draft.jpg

Iceland is located on a divergent boundary between the Eurasian Plate, and the North American Plate.  A divergent boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other creating a gap.  Molten rock from the mantle fills this gap and creates new rock and sometimes island formations.  Just like the hot air is forced through the doors that are open.  One of the main attractions on Iceland is seeing one of the many volcanoes that has formed from the magma bubbling up out of the divergent boundary.

http://feww.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/volcano-map-of-iceland.jpg

And then it hit me, the divergent boundary must be heating these pools, after all the divergent boundary has created many volcanoes on Iceland and where there is magma there are hot springs! 
A recent eruption in Iceland was the Eyjafjallajökull volcanoes in April of 2010.  Earthquakes also occur along the fractures caused by divergent boundaries.  The largest earthquake near Iceland was a 5.2 magnitude on January of 2005.  




http://img.xcitefun.net/users/2010/08/203622,xcitefun-iceland-volcano-2.jpg

Introduction

Hi Everyone, this is Eli Fonseca taking you on a tour of the most exotic islands in the world.  I will travel to remote coastal shores in search of tectonic wonders.  All along the way I will be treating you to cool facts, good hotels and restaurants.  For now, this is your travel guide signing off.