PROJECT 5

Visit the Center for Cave and Karst Studies (http://caveandkarst.wku.edu/). Discuss dye tracing. Discuss recent media reports of SINKHOLES in FLORDIA. Mention or briefly discuss the activities of the FLORDIA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY pertinent to sinkholes in that state.

Dye tracing refers to trailing of numerous movements of liquids using dye added to liquid in question with the main reason of analyzing the flow of the liquid and delineate areas that do not contribute to springs and wells. Dye tracing will show the time a given porous fluid it will use to travel and can be estimated. The components with slower flow will be deposited near their contributing areas like springs, well Dye tracing can be qualitative in that it detects the presence and estimate of a particular flow; it’s also quantitative since the amount of the outlined dye is measured in special appliances.in recent years fluorescent tracers are being used due to new and enhanced systematic techniques and also because of high demand of generated data. Tracers are mainly used by government agencies, cavers, and also developers.

In recent years, sinkholes have posed a very serious threat to the residents of Florida. Since 2010 the media has reported more than 296 sinkholes in the area. We have some real life examples about the same. On February 2013 a sinkhole opened under the bedroom of Jeff Bush in Tampa, Florida and his body has never been recovered.

In august 2013 a 20 meter wide sinkhole made a resort near Disney to collapse geological survey say that more than 80 percent of sinkholes in the country are caused by man activities.in 2011 two people died while drilling water well. Geology survey shows that sinkholes form due to the dissolving of the carbonate bedrock which is beneath Florida .the bedrock under Florida is mainly carbonate according to geologist most of sinkholes are caused by human activities such as water well drilling and other mining activities.

Go to www.GEOLOGY.COM to research recent issues related to sinkholes in USA. In general, how do most or many HOME INSURANCE policies address sinkholes?

Sinkholes have come with several other issues which affect human life .One of the main issues is the contamination of ground water which has the supply of main drinking water. Some people have taken sinkholes to be storm drains or dumping site which contributes to making the drinking water unsafe for human consumption. Sinkholes might as well lead to flooding. Sinkholes lead to lose of life and damages property. Due to many claims for insurance coverage to households which are affected by sinkholes the insurance body does not have adequate resources to cover all the claims. Formation of sinkholes may lead to the change of course of rivers and streams due to changing topography.

Most of insurance policy covers damages caused by sinkholes. These insurance policies cover preventive measures to ensure that structures are not severely damaged by sinkholes

Briefly describe the two (2) major earth science programs of the each of following governmental agencies:

USGS: www.usgs.gov

Oceanology involves the study of all the things found in ocean environment. Ocean covers more than 70 percentage of earth surface. There are some new technologies that help us to study the depth of ocean.

Climatology is the study of weather patterns. It is also referred to meteorology.

Geology is a branch of earth science that deals with study of all solid matter which makes up the earth. This may include rock and minerals and other solid materials.

U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE): http://www.boemre.gov/

Oceanography

This is a branch of earth science that deals with the study of oceans including water composition ,living organisms and depths

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Coastal & Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL): http://chl.erdc.usace.army.mil/

Permafrost involves the study of a thick layer of soil below the earth’s surface that is frozen through the year which is mainly found on the polar region.

Planetary geology is the study of celestial bodies such as planets, moon, comets, meteorites and asteroids.