What Causes Earthquakes?

Ancient cultures offered a variety of explanations for seismicity (earthquake activity), most of which
involved the action or mood of a giant animal or god. Scientic study suggests that seismicity instead
occurs for several reasons, including:

the sudden formation of a new fault (a fracture or rupture on which sliding occurs)
sudden slip on an already existing fault
a sudden change in the arrangement of atoms in rock minerals
movement of magma in, or explosion of, a volcano
a giant landslide
a meteorite impact
an underground nuclear-bomb test

Of these various reasons, faulting related to plate movements is by far the most signicant. In other
words, most earthquakes are due to slip on faults.
The place within the Earth where rock ruptures and slips, or the place where an explosion occurs, is the
hypocenter or focus of the earthquake. Energy radiates from the focus. The point on the surface of the
Earth that lies directly above the focus is the epicenter, so maps can portray the position of epicenters
(figure above a, b). Since slip on faults causes most earthquakes, we focus our discussion on faults.

Faults in the Crust

At rst glance, a fault may look simply like a fracture or break that cuts across rock or sediment. But on
closer examination, you may be able to see evidence of sliding that occurred on a fault. For example,
the rock adjacent to the fault may be broken up into angular fragments or may be pulverized into tiny
grains, due to the crushing and grinding that can accompany slip, and the surface of a fault may be
polished and grooved as if scratched by a rasp. In some localities, a fault cuts through a distinct marker
(a sedimentary bed, an igneous dike, or a fence); where this happens, the end of the marker on one side
of the fault is offset relative to the end on the other side. The distance between two ends of the
marker, as measured along the fault surface in the direction of slip, is the faults displacement (figure
above a, b). Many faults are completely underground, and will be visible only if exposed by erosion of
overlying rock. But some faults intersect and offset the ground surface, producing a step called a fault
scarp (figure below a). The ground surface exposure of a fault is called the fault line or fault trace.
19th-century miners who encountered faults in mine tunnels referred to the rock mass above a sloping
fault plane as the hanging wall, because it hung over their heads, and the rock mass below the fault
plane as the footwall, because it lay beneath their feet. The miners described the direction in which rock
masses slipped on a sloping fault by specifying the direction that the hanging wall moved in relation to
the footwall, and we still use these terms today (see Geology at a Glance, pp. 222223). When the
hanging wall slips down the slope of the fault, its a normal fault. When the hanging wall slips up the
slope, its a reverse fault if steep, and a thrust fault if shallowly sloping (figure above ac). Strike-slip

faults are near-vertical planes on which slip occurs parallel to an imaginary horizontal line, called a
strike line, on the fault plane no up or down motion takes place on such faults (figure above d).
Faults are found in many locations but dont panic! Not all of them are likely to be the source of
earthquakes. Faults that have moved recently or are likely to move in the near future are called active
faults (and if they generate earthquakes, news media sometimes refer to them as earthquake faults).
Faults that last moved in the distant past and probably wont move again in the near future are called
inactive faults.

Generating Earthquake Energy: Stick-Slip

What is the relationship between faulting and earthquakes? Earthquakes can happen either when rock
breaks and a new fault forms, or when a pre-existing fault suddenly slips again. Lets look more closely
at these two causes.
Earthquakes due to fault formation: Imagine that you grip each side of a brick-shaped block of
rock with a clamp. Apply an upward push on one of the clamps and a downward push on the
other. By doing so, you have applied a stress to the rock. (Stress refers to a push, pull, or
shear.) At first, the rock bends slightly but doesn't break (figure above a). In fact, if you were to
stop applying stress at this stage, the rock would return to its original shape. Geologists refer to
such a phenomenon as elastic behaviour the same phenomenon happens when a rubber band
returns to its original shape or a bent stick straightens out after you let go. Now repeat the
experiment, but bend the rock even more. If you bend the rock far enough, a number of small
cracks or breaks start to form. Eventually the cracks connect to one another to form a fracture
that cuts across the entire block of rock (figure above b). The instant that this fracture forms, the
block breaks in two and the rock on one side suddenly slides past the rock on the other side, and
any elastic bending that had built up is released so the rock straightens out or rebounds (figure
above c). Because sliding occurs, the fracture has become a fault. A fault cant slip forever, for
friction eventually slows and stops the movement. Friction, defined as the force that resists
sliding on a surface, is caused by the existence of bumps on surfaces these bumps act like tiny
anchors and snag on the opposing surface.
Earthquakes due to slip on a pre-existing fault: Once a fault comes into being, it is a scar in the
Earths crust that can remain weaker than surrounding, intact crust. When stress
builds sufficiently, it overcomes friction and the pre-existing fault slips again. This movement
takes place before stress becomes great enough to cause new fracturing of surrounding intact
rock. Note that after each slip event, friction prevents the fault from slipping again until stress
builds again. Geologists refer to such alternation between stress buildup and slip events
(earthquakes) as stick-slip behaviour.
The breaking of rock that occurs when a fault slips, like the snap of a stick, generates earthquake
energy. The concept that earthquakes happen because stresses build up, causing rock adjacent to the
fault to bend elastically until slip on the fault occurs is called the elastic-rebound theory.

Of note, the major earthquake (or mainshock) along a fault may be preceded by smaller ones, called
foreshocks, which possibly result from the development of the smaller cracks in the vicinity of what
will be the major rupture. Smaller earthquakes, called aftershocks, occur in the days to months
following a large earthquake. The largest aftershock tends to be ten times smaller than the mainshock,
and most are even smaller. Aftershocks happen because slip during the mainshock does not leave the
fault in a perfectly stable conguration. For example, after the mainshock, irregularities on one side of
the fault surface, in their new position, may push into the opposing side and generate new stresses.
Such stresses may become large enough to cause a small portion of the fault around the irregularity to
slip again, or may trigger slip in a nearby fault.

The Amount of Slip during an Earthquake

How much of a fault surface slips during an earthquake? The answer depends on the size of the
earthquake: the larger the earthquake, the larger the slipped area and the greater the displacement. For
example, the major earthquake that hit San Francisco, California, in 1906 ruptured a 430-km-long
(measured parallel to the Earths surface) by 15-km-deep (measured perpendicular to the Earths
surface) segment of the San Andreas fault. Thus, the area that slipped was almost 6500 km2. During the
2011 Tohoku earthquake an area 300 km long by 100 km wide (30,000 km2) slipped.
The amount of slip varies along the length of a fault the maximum observed displacement during the
1906 earthquake was 7 m, in a strike-slip sense. Slip on a thrust fault that caused the 1964 Good Friday
earthquake in southern Alaska reached a maximum of 12 m, and the maximum slip during the Tohoku
earthquake was over 20 m. Smaller earthquakes, such as the one that hit Northridge, California, in
1994, resulted in only about 0.5-m slip even so, this earthquake toppled homes, ruptured pipelines, and
killed 51 people. The smallest-felt earthquakes result from displacements measured in millimetres to
centimetres.
Although the cumulative movement on a fault during a human life span may not amount to much, over
geologic time the cumulative movement becomes signicant. For example, if earthquakes occurring on
a strike-slip fault cause 1 cm of displacement per year, on average, the faults movement will yield 10
km of displacement after 1 million years.

Earthquake hypocenters and epicenters.

Examples of fault displacement on the San Andreas fault in California.

The basic types of fault. Fault types are distinguished from one another by the direction of slip relative to
the fault surface.

A model representing the development of a new fault. Rupturing can generate earthquake-like vibrations.
Credits: Stephen Marshak (Essentials of Geology)