Problem 1: What percentage of earthquakes and volcanoes occurred on or near plate boundaries?
Problem 2: What were the locations of the volcanoes that didn't erupt near a plate boundary? Can they be tied to hot spot activity?
Problem 3: Choose one earthquake that occurred away from a plate boundary and conduct some research into it. What are some possible reasons it occurred? Is it near an old fault? Was it a result of human activity? Could it be due to a sort of "rebounding" of the land?
Problem 4: What percentage of earthquakes and volcanoes occurred over the "Ring of Fire"? Is this nickname well deserved, based on your research?
Problem 5: Based on your research alone, how would you draw the plate boundaries if you had to start from scratch? Would they be the same or different than they appear now?
Problem 6: Regarding your coin and sediment experiment: if you lived in an earthquake-prone area, which material would you prefer to build a house on, and why?
Problem 7: Did you find a correlation between "damage" and consolidated (wet) vs. unconsolidated (dry) sediment?
Problem 8: Did any particular coin(s) tend to withstand damage better than the others? If so, what might what are some reasons why?
Problem 9: How resistant to earthquake damage is the soil in your local area?
Problem 10: What was the magnitude and location of the earthquake plotted in Part Three?