Elizabeth Jimenez Lab 8 Section 1D

     The maps below show three different fires that struck Souther California in the years 2008 and 2009. The first two fires that struck in 2008 were the Sylmar fire and the one that struck Orange County. The fires were both the result of nearby firs and caused many damages to the city. The Station fire which is shown on the third set of maps was one of the biggest fires that lasted a long time. This fire was out of the fire season and managed to spread many acres causing a total of sixty three fires in different counties. 

      The first two maps show the spread of the Sylmar fire in 2008, one shows the layout view of the fire and includes a legend that shows the different incidents that occurred that lead to the spread of this fire. The Sylmar fire started in November of 2008. This fire lasted five days as you can see on the map and was contained completely  on the sixth day. The spread of the fire was 1160 km and managed to result in the loss of 485 residents of the area. It destroyed many structures, homes and buildings. The origins of this fire came from the "the tea fires" which were fires that began in Montecito and also burned parts of Santa Barbara. This fire spread rapidly in to Sylmar because of the strong Santa Ana winds and low humidity. This fire was the fire that broke the previous record of damages held in the mid 1980's.

 

The second pair of maps show the spread of the OC fire. This fire was the smallest of the three. This fire was also a result from the Montecito fire. At least 56 homes were lost in the fire and there were a lot of damages. This map shows the magnitude of this fire and although it was a large area that was on fire in the northern part of Orange County, this fire did not cause as much damage as the ones on the other maps.

  The third pair of maps show the spread of the station fire by day. The station fire took place in the year 2009  and was one of the biggest fires in California. This fire got its name because it began near a fire station and began spreading day by day. There were a total of 63 wildfires that affected the La Cañada and surrounding areas in the year 2009. The fire burned over 336, 020 acres and lasted about four months. This fire claimed the lives of two people but caused a lot of damages to homes surrounding the different ranges. The map below shows the sizes of these different fires that caused many damages.

































erosion



After the fires many damages were recorded. These damages caused the cities millions of dollars to repair. Each fire created a different magnitude of destruction. Destruction ranged from destroying homes,, flash floods, landslides and even the death of many people. The Station fire included the closing of the Angeles Crest Highways which lasted about a year. These fires are very dangerous but they do occur often in the summer time when the land is dry and the winds are strong.

References

http://voices.yahoo.com/california-wildfires-burn-acres-orange-la-riverside-2213004.html?cat=8

http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/2009/09/01/station-fire-perimeters-september-1st-morning-as-is/


<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-is-largest-in-la-county-history.html>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires





http://www.theliberaloc.com/2008/11/15/fires-in-orange-county/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre_Fire

Elizabeth Jimenez Section 1D Lab 7

     The first map I created shows the White population across the continental US. In this map we can see the different levels of concentration of White people across the nation. In the legend we can see the numbers are dispersed however in the countries different regions white people exist most in the numbers between 107-141092. More concentrations of white people are located in many areas of California closer to the south around Los Angeles and some areas of the east coast as well such as florida.  The white population in the United States makes a large presence and they are very distributed across the country.

     The Second map I created shows the Black population and its distribution among the United States. In this map we can see that the Black population is not very well represented across the country. There is less Black people that are distributed throughout the nation and their numbers are very low compared to the above white population. There are very few places across the United states that have a large black population in their cities or regions. Mostly the black population is under represented in many areas across the nation.

     The Asian population in the United States also composes less numbers that the white population across the United States. However the Asian population does make up bigger numbers than the above black population. In the United States we see large concentrations of Asians in Southern California, Florida and New York among other places. Even though their numbers are not larger than the White populations they as well make up a large percent of the population in the US.

     Working with Census data this week was not as frustrating as other weeks because the tutorial was very clear and to the point. GIS on the other hand was not that easy to work with because it constantly lost my work and I found myself having to start a lot of the labs over. From previous weeks GIS had given me a lot of problems and sometimes it would not do what I wanted it to do. There were steps in the instructions that no matter how hard I tried GIS would not cooperate. When I did figure out GIS for some of the labs it gave me a great sense of accomplishment because I felt like it was a mission sometimes. GIS steps could be simplified to help the user to make it easier but overall the experience was both butter when it lost my work ad sweet when I finally completed the task.

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Elizabeth Jimenez LAB 6 section 1D

 

For this week's lab assignment I created a map of the mountains located in Fresno California, the decimal degrees for this map were 0.017453292519943295, and the direction it was facing was north. The spatial of this map was GCS_North_American_1983. Creating this map I was able to see the images of the mountains in 3D as the map above shows and I was able to see the different angles of the mountains using arcscene. Arcmap allowed me to color shade the maps to show the different depths and different inclinations that the mountains I chose had. In Arcscene created a model that was 3D and showed the map above from a different angle.

Elizabeth Jimenez Lab 5 Section 1D

     This weeks lab assignment was to create six different maps. I found this assignment to be particularly hard because the instructions were not clear like they were for the last assignment and I had trouble finding the cities it asked me for. The distances between the cities I found however I could not figure out how to subset the layers.

      I attempted this assignment several times before I was able to create the maps although I feel as it is not exactly what the assigment was asking me for . This was because I could not figure out how to make a new layer with the cities that were asked for .

     Working with ArcMap is always a challenge because the work can get lost which has happened to me several times and sometimes it does not do exactly what I asked. For example it took me a while to figure out how to use the measuring toll for this program because I felt like most of the time it did what it wanted instead of what I wanted to find out. Instead I tried making the maps with original map that was given.

    Once I learned how to properly use the measuring tools the measurements I saw were different for Geodesic, Loxodrome and Great Elliptic. For Geodesic the distance between Afghanistan and Washington DC was about 28.270.18 Miles. The Loxodrome distance was about 18, 867.94 miles and the distance using Great Elliptic was about 20,347.65 Miles.These measurements showed different summed distances for each of the maps.
    

Elizabeth Jimenez-Week 6- Lab 1B

                   Working with ArcMap this week was a bitter sweet experience. There were several times where the program frustrated me and drove me to the point of wanting to go home. After various attempts at mastering the program I was finally able to finish my lab. The first time I worked with ArcMaps was after the lab exam last thursday. I thought the instructions were straight forward and liked how the tutorial showed me step by step how to work with the program. However, after about an hour of working with the program it did not allow me to edit any more. I tried saving my work and restarting the program with no luck. All the data I had worked on was lost, I experienced an ArcMap glitch. ArcMap did not allow me to continue working from where I left off and I had to start over. This was very frustrating after an hour into the lab I lost it all so I decided to come back and try it a different time. 

         The second experience with ArcMap was also very frustrating because after a few steps the program froze again. I tried going to a different computer lab and trying the program there but I accidentally erased my toolbar that showed the data such as the schools and the airport area. After this it did not allow me to continue and I once again lost all my work. Having been pressed for time I gave up once again and decided to come back later. After the second experience I believed that I was not going to complete my lab in time. 

         The third time I came back the program was finally cooperating with me, I was able to follow the instructions successfully and get through the tutorial. There were points where I thought I had lost everything once again, however I was able to recuperate all of my work and figure it out. There were a couple of times where the instructions were misleading, however, after a couple of tries I was able to finish everything. After finishing the lab it gave me a great sense of accomplishment and I attained very useful knowledge from the program. 

    Overall, the program aside from being frustrating because it lost my work a couple of times turned out to be a great experience. Not only did I learn from the program, but it also made me feel as if I could accomplish many things. The tutorial was easy to follow and gave directions that were very straight forward and to the point. After having done this once I definitely think that I could work with this program again and have better experiences. 

Elizabeth Jimenez Section 1D Lab 3

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201010760604948686150.0004be91bf95c2a6e6fe8&msa=0&ll=34.146805,-118.281738&spn=0.005336,0.006899

      This map shows a walking tour of three specific points of Griffith Park. The first the Griffith Park building itself. The reason I chose this park to create a map is because it is a historic land mark and also because it has a lot of history since its creation. In 1882 Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bought an are called rancho Los Feliz, after having claimed to be visited by the ghost of the previous owner the Colonel donated 3015 acres of this land to the city of Los Angeles in 1896. When he reached old age he began creating a trust fund in order to build attractions in the park that would bring many people to his property. After he passed many of the things he envisioned began to be built. This park is often referred to as the Los Angeles version of New York's central Park.

    The second location on the map is  the Griffith Observatory. This site is widely known because it is a place where many people go in order to see and learn about the solar system. On saturdays this site brings many astronomers who want to share their knowledge of the solar system with other people. Many people bring their microscopes and find planets in order for the viewer to see. Different planets are visible depending on the time of day and the day in the year, this is why many times they locate the sun. In many of these microscopes the sun spots are visible, as well as the flares that surround the sun. The observatory is located near the Hollywood sign and because of this many hikers pass the area. This area has attracted so many visitors that they renovated and expanded from 2002-2006. Now visitors can see the moon and its craters in one of their domes, they offer shows and field trips. They have created an establishment that Griffith envisioned that attracts many people.

The third location  on the map is The Los Angeles Zoo which is located in the park in Zoo Drive. The reason I chose the zoo as one of the locations on the map is because it allows many people to see animals from different parts of the world without having to travel far. This includes a large variety of animals such as giraffes, monkeys and even reptiles. This site is widely visited by many people and it brings us knowledge on the different species that are located in different parts of the world. This park is so large that these three points are miles away from each other. This park is great to visit and is so large that you would probably need a couple of days to tour the whole park, but it is a great place to go.


Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_Park

Elizabeth Jimenez Week 2 Lab 1D

11.  The name of the quadrangle is Canoga Park.

22.  The surrounding quadrangles are Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, and Inglewood.

33.  The first quadrangle was created 1995.

44. Datum is from 1929

55.  Scale is 1:24 000

66.    

a.     1194.816

b.     120,00

c.      1 Inch

d.     4.7

77.  The contour interval is 20 feet.

88.

   

a.     Public Affairs Building approximately- 34 degrees, 7minutes, 30 seconds

b.     Santa Monica Pier- 34 Degrees, 7 minutes and 30 seconds

c.      The Upper Franklin canyon reservoir- 34 Degrees, 7 minutes and 30 second

99

a.   Greystone Mansion – 421 feet

b.Woodlawn Cemetary- 375 feet

c.      Crestwood Hills Park- 150 feet

110. The UTM zone of the map is 34 and 118

111. The UTM of the lower left corner is 62 and 63

112. There are 500 square meters in each cell.

113. The grid intersects at 1,885,500.

114. The magnetic declination of the map is 14 degrees

115. The river flows southwest.

116.