New Zealand!

Hi! Today I'm in New Zealand! I experienced a few earthquakes because of the Alpine Fault(transform boundary). The Australian plate moves northeast while the Pacific Plate moves southwest.

  http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/AlpineFault.png

Here you can see the fault pretty clearly.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs4S2QLRLWdrQIgNOg8YDg1iqA_mTQ3GMDyO35AuRBtUtQLO55DOH4qZaZDDAe2mxf33CKy5kK_O45qZi2y2uz3iUl4PXlMqEu1F7obJoVxkgJhy7HW9qJa5gPTaInZeZLlsS-q8PrvQU/s1600/NZ+south+island+NASAcrop.jpg

Divergent!

Because of the divergent plate boundary I celebrated by....................

That's right! I finally bought myself the Divergent book by Veronica Roth. I finished it in the airport even though it was meant for the airplane ride. It was really good! Now I want to watch the movie.

http://wojdylosocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Screen-Shot-2014-01-17-at-7.20.14-PM-767x1024.png

Iceland Plate Boundary

I headed over to Iceland it actually wasn't as cold as I thought. I found a squash club called Veggsport and I went sightseeing too! There's also a really interesting rift that goes right through Iceland.

http://www.platetectonics.com/book/images/Divergent1.gif

I did some research and found that Iceland is on the border of two tectonic plates, the Eurasian Plate, and the North American plate. They are both pulling away from each other making it a divergent boundary. Here's a picture of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at Thingvellir.

http://www.jnb-birds.com/Iceland/Pingvellir_RiftValley_D.jpg

The North American Plate is moving at a rate of 2.3 cm or 1 inch per year west/southwest and the Eurasian plate is moving north at about 2 cm or 0.79 inches per year. 

Italy Plate Boundary

The Netherlands and Finland are both on the Eurasian Plate but not on a boundary. However, Italy is on the boundary of the Eurasian plate and African. They are moving towards each other(African 2.15 cm (0.85 in) per year), causing subduction. (African underneath Eurasian).
 "Subduction zones are sites of high rates of volcanism, earthquakes, and mountain building." -Wikipedia

On earthquaketrack.com, is a list of the earthquakes these past few years near the boundary. 

This boundary caused the eruption of the Mt. Vesuvius, which is still active. It is also the source of other volcanoes in Italy, such as Campi Flegrei, Stromboli, Mount Etna, and Vulcano. Subduction creates these volcanoes as a plate underneath the other carries down rock which melts and is later brought up to the surface.