Sinkholes

     If you are scared of a sinkhole under your house then use this blog to test and see if your house has a sinkhole. The list after this paragraph shows things that you can check for to see if you might have a sink hole.

• Fresh exposures on fence posts, foundations or trees that result when the ground sinks around them;
• Slumping, sagging or slanting fence posts, trees or other objects.
• Doors and windows that fail to close properly or exhibit changed behavior such as doors remaining open where they had previously closed of their own accord.
• Small ponds of rainfall forming where water has not collected before.
• Wilting of small, circular areas of vegetation. This happens because the moisture that normally supports vegetation in the area is draining into the sinkhole that is developing below the surface.
• Cloudy water is pumped from nearby wells where the water was previously clear.
• Cracks in walls, floors, pavement and the ground surface. This is most noticeable in a concrete block structure and is different from a few hairline cracks normally seen between blocks.

     I'm going to test the list above against my house. I don't have any fences and there isn't any trees that have visible roots that should be underground. All my doors and windows shut normally and I haven't seen any puddles around. I only have grass and its bermuda grass so it naturally dies in the winter and then comes back so there's not much I can go off there, and there aren't any wells near me. I don't have any cracks in the walls that weren't caused by me, so my house should be completely safe from sink holes.

Landslides

     Some ways of predicting a landslide are as follows

• The slope: the steeper the slope the more likely a landslide is.
• Water table: If the water table is really high then the risk for a landslide / mudslide is higher as well
• Surface water: If there if there is surface water on the slopes of a mountain it could mean the a landslide is imminent.
• Electrical wires: If the electrical wires are very tight then It means that the ground is shifting which means a landslide is imminent.

   I wanted to test the four things above on a mountain in North Carolina. I decided to test these out on Grandfather mountain. Grandfather mountain doesn't have many steep slopes. There isn't much surface water, and there aren't any pictures of the electrical lines to see how tight the line is. Grandfather mountain also has a preservation group protecting it, so as a whole I would declare Grandfather mountain safe.

Where in the world

     If you are ever stuck somewhere and have no idea where you are maybe just maybe this blog post will help you. One way to find roughly where you are is to look at the biome. Here is a map showing biomes all over the world.

     If you don't have a map then you should know that areas around the equator are hotter and the father you go from the equator the colder it gets. Rainforest have lots of plants and is very humid. The savanna is like a grassland but it has a few trees and is prone to fire. The desert is very hot and can be sand or rock. The temperate forest is what everyone thinks of as a forest. The grasslands is a lot like the savanna but has less tress. The tundra wouldn't have a lot of plants because of a thick layer of ice under the ground, and the taiga forest is a very snowy version of the temperate forest.

     You can also tell where you are based on the species of plants in the area. Certain plants are only indigenous to certain areas, but others are seemingly everywhere. The plants can also help you find which biome you are in. If the area you are in has lots of low laying plants and large trees, then you are probably in a rain forest. If there are cacti then you are most likely in a desert.

    Now a short quiz
1. If you are in an area that is very hot and humid area what biome do you think you are in?
a. Desert
b. Tundra
c. RainForest
2. If where you are is very hot where are you roughly on a map.
a. At the poles
b. At the equator
c. In Russia.

NC Fishing

   One of the natural resources in North Carolina is fish. There are three different types of fishing. Commercial, Personal, and Fish hatcheries. Commercial fishing is fishing by big companies, and is normally on a large scale. Personal fishing involves fishing for fun or fishing for food (Not normally large scale). Hatcheries are where fish are grown for food.