Favorite Links

USGS - http://www.usgs.gov/

     -Earthquakes - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
This page is a great way to view the most recent earthquake activity throughout the world. On the  very front of the page is a list of the most recent earthquakes with a link to the tectonic summary for the earthquake. This tells us exactly what's going on the area in which the earthquake occurred that caused the earthquake to happen. There's also helpful tabs on the right side of the screen with date and time information as well as nearest cities. Lastly, most of the links have multiple maps that show fault lines and the specific area of activity.

     -Landslides - http://www.usgs.gov/natural_hazards/

The nice part of this page is that on the right under "Events" there are links to actual news stories involving hazards. These are the types of stories I usually like to implement in my blogs, and I feel are the most interesting to write about. There are quite a few links to different news stories involving a variety of affects that landslides may have.

     -Volcano's - http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/

As for news stories to write blogs about, this page doesn't offer much. However, it does have a very helpful interactive map on the front page that allows you to view numerous volcanoes and their current activity. You are able to see which volcanoes have recently had a change in activity, and also click on specific regions that have a high number of volcanoes. What we can do with this information is take the volcanoes that may have had a recent change in activity, and use this to find potential news stories to write about.

     - Flood and Droughts - http://water.usgs.gov/floods/

What I like about this page is that we have the opportunity to looks at both past and present floods. As we've learned in class, history tends to repeat itself in environmental hazards. I specifically like the past floods page where you can looks at floods from the past couple years. Readers are able to click on a specific state or region, and most of these links take you to a pdf file with reports on those past floods. Again, as far as current news stories we could write a blog about it, they're tough to find on the current floods page.

     -Newsroom -  http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/

I found this to be the most helpful link on the USGS website. I want to write a blog that will interest readers. I feel the easiest way to do that is use up to date news regarding environmental hazards. The newsroom page, found at the top of the main page for the USGS website, has multiple news stories and research pieces that I feel would make an affective blog post. At the very least, I could take this information and find a news story from a local or national paper that would have more general facts and less scientific facts that would appeal to the general blog reader. This page is extremely easy to access, and I feel offers great content for blog posts.

The Weather Channel - http://www.weather.com/news/main

This has been the main site I've been using for my blog. I'm always able to find up to date new stories involving environmental hazards, and the articles often have interesting facts and insight. There is a mix of some stories that don't exactly fit what I'm looking for when writing a blog, but I'll generally be able to find something under the "Latest Stories" section.

AccuWeather - http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news

Much like the weather channel, this is another site I use to find current news stories surrounding environmental hazards. What I like about AccuWeather is after clicking on the News and Video tab, you can go to the "All Stories" arrow and pick a specific region you'd like to focus on. Like weather.com, this doesn't just focus on hazards, so I do normally have to look a bit to find a good article to blog about. However, I found this to be another useful site to find interesting stories that I feel readers will enjoy.

USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/

It's sometimes difficult to find stories on hear for blog posts. Their weather link really doesn't have new realted articles, it's more just national and local weather temperatures. However, there are often good news stories from around the world realating to hazards if you search for them by simply scrolling down the initial website page. These stories often contain a lot of strong statistics and facts that are very helpful for writing blogs and that are often lacking from other sites.