Hurricane's

A Hurricane or Tropical Cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and flooding rain. These cyclones feed on heat released when the moist air rises resulting in condensation of water vapor. contained in the moist air.

The term tropical refers to both the geographic origin which form almost exclusively in tropical regions of the globe.



While tropical cyclones can produce extremely powerful winds and torrential rain also able to produce high waves and damaging storm surges. A strong tropical cyclone will have an area of sinking air at the center of circulation.

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atantic hurricane season was one of the five most deadliest hurricanes in the history of the united states, over recorded Atlantic hurricanes it is the sixth strongest. It caused severe destruction and loss of life along the Gulf Coast from central Florida to Texas most of which was due to the storm surge. The most severe damage occured in New Lorleans - Louisiana which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed.

Volcanoes

A volcano is an opening in the planet's crust which lets hot, molten rock, ash and gases escape from below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of rock tends to create mountains or features on the world appearing to be mountains over a period of time.

They are generally found where tectonic plates are divering or converging. A mid-oceanic ridge such as the Mid Atlantic Ridge has examples of volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates pulling apart and also the Pacific Ring of Fire has examples of volcanoes caused by comvergent tectonic plates coming together.

The most common appearance of a volcano is a conical mountain spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit. But this only describes one of the many types of volcano. Some have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a crater, whereas others present landscape features such as massive plateaus.
Another type of volcano includes cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) particularly on some moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune. Mud volcanoes are another type, which are formations often not associated with known magmatic activity. Active mud volcanoes tend to involve temperatures much lower than those of igneus volcanoes, unless the mud volcanoe is actually the vent of an igneus one.

Supervolano is the popular term for a large volcano that usually has a large caldera and can potentially produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continetal, scale. Such eruptions would be able to cause severe cooling of global temperatures for many years afterwards. The largest known is Yellowstone Caldera in America, which if erupts, would cause a Nuclear Winter on a massive scale.

Earthquake's

At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacing the ground. When a large earthqaukes epicenter is based offshore then it may cause enough displacement to cause a "Tsunami"

In the generic term, the word "Earthquake" is used to describe any seismic event, whether its a natural occurence or created by humans, that generates seismic waves.

An Earthquake's center is called the "Focus" or "Hypocenter", and the point directly above this is called the Epicenter.
The main area of Earthquakes are at points where Earth's Plates meet.

Nuclear Explosions

A *Nuke* is a destructive weapon that derives its force from nuclear reactions. It releases vast ammounts of energy from small amounts of matter. Even small nuclear devices can devstate cities.

They are considered weapons of mass destruction and their use and control is an international aspect of debate since they were created.

In the history of warfare, only two nukes have been detonated offensively both near the end of World War II. The first went off on the morning of the 6th August 1945 on the Japanese city of Hiroshama. The second was detonated three days later on Nagasaki, this bom was code named "Fat Man".

On a side note, in the Computer Game "Fallout 3" the weapon "Fat Boy" had to be changed in the Japanese version of the game as it referred to the bomb that destroyed one of their cities.

The countries known to have tested Nukes and known to have weapons of their own are United States, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel are believed to have some but they do not acknowledge their existence.