Tulane University
- Center For Global Development
- Center For Global Education
- Center For Inter-american Policy And Research
- Central America
- Child Health
- Children's Literature
- Cuba Abroad
- Cuba Embargo
- Cuba-us Relations
- Cuban & Caribbean S
- Cuban & Caribbean Studies
- Cuban Ambassador
- Cuban And Caribbean Studies Institute
- Cuban Artists
- Cuban Film
- Cuban Heritage Collection
- Cuban Theater
- Cuban-american
- Day Of The Dead
- Declining Inequality
- Declining Inequality In Latin America
- Delgado
- Democracy
- Development
- Diaspora
- Disaster Relief
- Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy
- Diversity
- Dominican Republic
- Doris Stone Librarian And Director
- General Latin America
- Glick Fellowship
- Global Development
- Globalization
- Graduate Conference
- Graduate Research
- Graduate Student Conference
- Graduate Students
- Gran Fiesta
- Grants & Fellowships
- Greenleaf
- Greenleaf Fellow
- Indigenous Latin American Languages
- Inequality
- Inter-american Relations
- International Health & Development
- International Programs
- International Relations
- Lasa
- Lasa 2010
- Latin America
- Latin American Library
- Latin American Studies
- Latin Americanist Graduate Association
- Mexican Cultural Institute
- Mexico
- Mexico-u.s. Border
- Miami
- Middle America
- Middle American Research Institute
- Natural Disasters
- Neoliberalism
- New Oreleans
- New Orleans
- New Orleans Center For The Gulf South
- New Orleans Film Festival
- Santiago De Cuba
- School Of Architecture
- School Of Law
- School Of Liberal Arts
- School Of Public Health & Tropical Medicine
- School Of Public Health And Tropical Medicine
- School Of Science & Engineering
- School Of Social Work
- Semester Abroad
- Sexuality
- Slave Rebellion
- Slave Trade
- Staff
- State-society Relations
- Stone Center
- Stone Center For Latin American Studies
- Stone Center Summer Abroad
- Student Funding
- (120) Cuba
- (62) Caribbean
- (46) General Latin America
- (42) Haiti
- (30) Cuban & Caribbean Studies
- (29) New Wave
- (14) Art
- (14) Future Of Cuba
- (14) Music
- (13) Cuba-us Relations
- (13) Stone Center For Latin American Studies
- (12) Study Abroad
- (12) South America
- (12) Literature
- (11) Latin America
- (11) Core Faculty
- (10) Community
- (10) Puerto Rico
- (6) Slavery
- (6) School Of Public Health And Tropical Medicine
- (6) Immigration
- (6) Spanish & Portuguese
- (6) Jamaica
- (6) Art History
- (6) North America
- (5) Hispanic Heritage Month
- (5) African Diaspora
- (5) Social Justice
- (5) Venezuela
- (5) Environment
- (5) Public Health In Cuba
- (5) Social Policy
- (5) Architecture
- (5) Greenleaf Fellows
- (4) Colombia
- (4) Events
- (4) Center For Inter-american Policy And Research
- (4) Social Work
- (4) Political Science
- (4) Tulane
- (4) Socialism
- (4) Food And Culture
- (4) Graduate Conference
- (4) Summer Study Abroad
- (4) Law
- (3) Photo Competition
- (3) Political Economy
- (3) Environmental Studies
- (3) Identity
- (3) Spanish
- (3) Coffee
- (3) Performance
- (3) Performing Arts
- (3) A.b. Freedman School Of Business
- (3) Language
- (3) Slave Trade
- (3) Graduate Students
- (3) Honduras
- (3) Immigrants
- (3) Politics Of Migration
- (3) Africana Studies
- (3) Revolution
- (3) School Of Social Work
- (3) Pebbles Center
- (3) Mesoamerica
- (3) Louisiana
- (3) Book Talk
- (3) Exhibitions
- (3) Reading Project
- (3) Film Studies
- (3) Symposium
- (3) Community Events
- (2) Social Movements
- (2) Archive
- (2) New Orleans Film Festival
- (2) Graduate Research
- (2) Diversity
- (2) Cuban Artists
- (2) Haitian Revolution
- (2) Lasa
- (2) Foreign Policy
- (2) Urban History
- (2) Urban Planning
- (2) Middle American Research Institute
- (2) Us-mexico Border
- (2) Study In Latin America
- (2) Student Funding
- (2) Spanish America
- (2) Linguistics
- (2) Afro-caribbean Religion
- (2) Language And Culture
- (2) Museum
- (2) Hurricane
- (2) Critical Race Theory
- (2) Black History Month
- (2) Cuban And Caribbean Studies Institute
- (2) Lasa 2010
- (2) Newcomb
- (2) Celebración Latina
- (2) International Programs
- (2) Poetry
- (2) Festivals
- (2) Affiliated Faculty
- (2) Caribbean Literature
- (2) West Indies
- (2) Exhibition
- (2) France
- (2) Inter-american Relations
- (2) Teacher Workshop
- (2) Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
- (2) Postcolonial Studies
- (2) Curriculum Unit
- (2) Travel
- (2) Greenleaf
- (2) Jazz
- (2) Undergraduate Conference
- (2) Human Development
- (2) Film Series
- (2) Staff
- (2) Celebracion Latina
- (1) Social Conflict
- (1) Social Studies
- (1) Non-profit
- (1) Indigenous Latin American Languages
- (1) Hurricane Katrina
- (1) Environmental Governance
- (1) Southern Cone
- (1) K-12 Cuba Teacher Institute
- (1) Commitment To Equity
- (1) French
- (1) Lgbtqa+
- (1) Fundraising
- (1) Office Of Multicultural Affairs
- (1) Contemporary Arts Center
- (1) International Students
- (1) Chile
- (1) K-12 Teacher Workshop
- (1) Audubon Zoo
- (1) Oliver Houck
- (1) Afro Latinos
- (1) Foodways
- (1) Social Inclusion
- (1) Cuban & Caribbean S
- (1) Trauma Institute
- (1) Graduate Student Conference
- (1) City
- (1) Maya Symposium
- (1) Belize
- (1) Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy
- (1) Afro-brazilian
- (1) Lago Conference
- (1) U.s.-cuban Relations
- (1) Children's Literature
- (1) Migrant
- (1) Declining Inequality
- (1) Declining Inequality In Latin America
- (1) Immigrant
- (1) Day Of The Dead
- (1) Mexico-u.s. Border
- (1) Colonialism
- (1) Latin Americanist Graduate Association
- (1) Colonial Era
- (1) Undergraduate
- (1) Teacher Workshop; Outreach
- (1) Mexican Consulate
- (1) Police Violence
- (1) Mexican Cultural Institute
- (1) Globalization
- (1) Greenleaf Fellow
- (1) Global Development
- (1) Social Equity
- (1) New Orleans Center For The Gulf South
- (1) Africa
- (1) Cimafunk
- (1) Writing
- (1) Carnaval
- (1) New Orleans Jazz Museum
- (1) Stone Center Summer Abroad
- (1) Language Learning
- (1) Gran Fiesta
- (1) Festival
- (1) Centenarios
- (1) Reception
- (1) Stone Center
- (1) Greenleaf Fellowship Program
- (1) Nola
- (1) Christian Science Monitor
- (1) Grants & Fellowships
- (1) Peru
- (1) Natural Disasters
- (1) Hip Hop
- (1) Guitar
- (1) School Of Law
- (1) Trinidad & Tobago
- (1) Bahamas
- (1) Asia
- (1) Vietnam
- (1) School Of Public Health & Tropical Medicine
- (1) International Health & Development
- (1) The Latin American Library
- (1) Doris Stone Librarian And Director
- (1) School Of Architecture
- (1) Emeritus Faculty
- (1) French & Italian
- (1) Tulanian
- (1) Associate Professor
- (1) Europe
- (1) School Of Science & Engineering
- (1) Theatre & Dance
- (1) Haitian Creole
- (1) Tropical Medicine
- (1) Neoliberalism
- (1) Job Opportunity
- (1) Title Vi
- (1) Maternal Health
- (1) Santiago De Cuba
- (1) Payson Center
- (1) Trade
- (1) Social Entrepreneurship
- (1) Child Health
- (1) Researcher
- (1) Indigenous Languages
- (1) Miami
- (1) Cuban Heritage Collection
- (1) Cipr Post-doctoral Fellowship
- (1) Glick Fellowship
- (1) U.s.
- (1) President Obama
An Angry Planet?
June 21st, 2010
By: Fran Simon
fsimon@tulane.edu
This decade has started off with a bang ‘” massive earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China, a still-erupting volcano in Iceland and its neighboring volcano that some scientists speculate may erupt in the near future. Are these geologic events linked in some way, and should we be concerned that they are occurring more frequently?
According to Stephen Nelson, associate professor and chair of earth and environmental sciences at Tulane University, the tectonic activity that results in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is a gradual process that plays out over hundreds of millions of years. In this time scale, any cluster of events that can be observed by humans is trivial and not predictive of significant geologic changes.
Regarding the spate of earth-shaking events that have occurred this year, Nelson suggests it can be chalked up to the randomness of nature.
‘Just like hurricanes, sometimes there‘s more, sometimes there‘s less,‘ says Nelson. ‘The Earth goes through cycles, and I don‘t think we understand why, especially when it comes to earthquakes and volcanoes.‘
Another factor accounting for the higher-than-average number of earthquakes this year is the extraordinary strength of the Chilean earthquake in February. Having a magnitude of 8.8, the quake was followed by a large number of aftershocks.
‘If you look at the number of aftershocks, it distorts the numbers game because you have a whole lot of earthquakes related to this one event,‘ says Nelson.
Nelson, who teaches a course on natural disasters, says that if there is a take-home message from these random, destructive events, it‘s that ‘humans become complacent too quickly‘ after a disaster and do not take the appropriate action to mitigate losses in the future.
Whether it’s the concrete construction in Haiti that proved so vulnerable to the shaking of the earth or the levees in New Orleans that provided such poor protection against the rising of the sea, ‘we just build stuff to satisfy the moment,‘ says Nelson. ‘Through foresight, we can do something to save lives and money.‘
Related + People
Stephen A. Nelson

Copyright © 2021 Roger Thayer Stone Center For Latin American Studies All Rights Reserved.
Tulane University, 100 Jones Hall, New Orleans, LA 70118 (504) 865-5164 rtsclas@tulane.edu