Earthquake Terminology And Science

What is an "earthquake"?
An earthquake is any shaking of the ground - usually intense shaking of the ground - caused by either natural sources or by humans. The most common types of earthquakes are those caused by ruptures of geologic faults or earthquakes associated with volcanic activity.

What is a geologic fault?

A geologic fault is a zone within the earth's crust where there has been displacement of one side relative to the other. We see geologic faults as off-sets in geologic formations.

What are the different types of earthquakes?

There are three major types of earthquake. Firstly, geologic earthquakes - sometimes called tectonic earthquakes - are caused by the rupturing of faults in the earth's crust. There are volcanic earthquakes, caused by the movement of magma in volcanoes. Lastly, there are various types of earthquakes caused by man-made activities, for example, explosions or the collapse of large structures.

What is the "Richter Scale" of an earthquake?

The Richter Scale was invented by Charles Richter in 1935, in Southern California, and was designed to measure the size of earthquakes, the size of fault ruptures that cause earthquakes specifically. Charles Richter did that by looking at the size of the waves that the earthquakes produced. The scale is based on measurements of the size of those waves.

What is the "Moment Magnitude Scale" of an earthquake?

The "Moment Magnitude Scale" measures the size of the earthquakes, much like the Richter Scale does. However, the Moment Magnitude Scale uses different types of measurements that give us a more precise reading on the size of the fault that ruptured to produce the earthquake.

What is the "epicenter" and "hypocenter" of an earthquake?

The epicenter of an earthquake is the point on the surface of the ground directly above where the earthquake begins. The hypocenter of an earthquake is the point below the earth's surface where the rupture begins. In the 1964 San Francisco earthquake, for example, the hypocenter was located about 1 kilometers below the surface, just west of the San Francisco peninsula.

What is an earthquake "fault"?

An earthquake fault is a zone within the earth's crust where the rocks have been weakened by previous earthquakes, and where we expect earthquake slip to occur.

What are the different types of earthquake faults?

There are various types of earthquake faults, usually recognized by the orientation of the fault and the slip on the fault. For example, we have "Strike-Slip" faults, where the orientation is a vertical plane across which motion occurs horizontally. We have "Normal" earthquake faults, where the fault plane is dipping at an angle to the surface and the motion is the upper block, downward. We have "Reverse" faults, where the plane is dipping and the motion is the upper block, upward. A "Thrust" earthquake fault is a low-angle Reverse fault, so that corresponds to a fault plane which is dipping at shallow angles to the surface, and along which the motion of the upper block is upward.

Can earthquakes be predicted?

Whether earthquakes can be predicted is a very difficult question for we seismologists to answer. Certainly, there are things that we can predict about earthquakes. For example, we know where earthquakes are going to occur: primarily on large geologic faults. We know how big those earthquakes might be. For example, on the San Andreas Fault here in California, we know earthquakes can be as large as magnitude 8. The

difficulty is that we cannot predict when large earthquakes will occur with any kind of reliability or precision needed to warn communities of impending disasters.

What is the probability of a severe earthquake striking a major city?

The probability of a severe earthquake striking a city is typically very small, and of course that probability depends on which city you're talking about. Some cities, such as Los Angeles, are in very geologically active regions where earthquakes are common. In those locations, the probability of an earthquake is higher. Some cities, like New York City on the east coast of the United States, are not in a geologically active region, and therefore the probability of an earthquake occurring is lower.

Where do earthquakes most often occur?

Earthquakes most often occur on the boundaries between major tectonic plates. The earth's surface is broken into a dozen or so major plates, plus a number of smaller plates and those plates are moving with respect to each other. On the boundaries between two plates is where that motion occurs and that's where we find the big earthquakes. For example, in California there is a major plate boundary between the pacific plate to the west and the North American plate to the east. The fault that marks that boundary is the San Andreas fault and that's where we have some of the largest earthquakes in the continental United States.

What are tectonic plates?

The earth's surface is broken into a number of tectonic plates. These are regions that comprise the earth's crust and the upper part of its mantel, about 1 kilometers thick, that can extend laterally for large distances. For example, the Pacific Plate occupies most of the Pacific Basin and has dimensions as large as 1, kilometers across. We have, in addition to large plates such as the Pacific Plate, the North American Plate, the Eurasian Plate, we have a number of smaller plates, which can also be significant sources of tectonic activity.

What is the USGS?

The USGS is an acronym that stands for the United States Geological Survey. The USGS is the government agency that has the responsibility

for mapping geologic features in the United States and for understanding geologic hazards, such as earthquakes, landslides and volcanoes.

What is SCEC?
SCEC stands for the Southern California Earthquake Center, which is a large collaboration among scientists, in universities and in the government, to understand earthquakes in Southern California and communicate that understanding to the public. The SCEC works so that we might understand earthquakes, throughout the country and across the world, much better.

What are the most common earthquake myths?

There are many earthquake myths. One of my favorite is the myth of earthquake weather. Some people believe that certain weather patterns are condusive to the occurrence of earthquakes, and there is no scientific evidence that this is the case. Another earthquake myth is that large regions like California might break off and fall into the ocean. Even the largest earthquakes produce motions along geologic faults of only about 1-2 meters--not nearly enough to submerge California. Another earthquake is that animals can sense earthquakes coming in advance. Although there are many stories of this sort, there is, again, no scientific evidence that animals can detect earthquakes in ways that humans cannot.

What is the "Foreshock", "Aftershock", and "Main Shock" of an earthquake?

A foreshock is a small earthquake that occurs before a larger earthquake. Aftershocks are small earthquakes which occur following a larger earthquake. Main shock is a term that is used to distinguish a large earthquake from its foreshocks or its aftershocks.

How long do most earthquakes last?

Earthquakes can last different periods of time depending on their size. Small earthquakes typically last only a few seconds. A large earthquake, such as the 24 earthquake which occurred in Sumatra, can last for many minutes.

Inside the Earth

Printout: Label the Inside of the Earth The Earth is made of many different and distinct layers. The deeper layers are composed of heavier materials; they are hotter, denser and under much greater pressure than the outer layers. Core: The Earth has a iron-nickel core that is about 2,100 miles in radius. The inner core may have a temperature up to about 13,000F (7,200C = 7,500 K), which is hotter than the surface of the Sun. The inner core (which has a radius of about 750 miles (1,228 km) is solid. The outer core is in a liquid state and is about 1,400 miles (2,260 km) thick. Mantle: Under the crust is the rocky mantle, which is composed of silicon, oxygen, magnesium, iron, aluminum, and calcium. The upper mantle is rigid and is part of the lithosphere (together with the crust). The lower mantle flows slowly, at a rate of a few centimeters per year. The asthenosphere is a part of the upper mantle that exhibits plastic properties. It is located below the lithosphere (the crust and upper mantle), between about 100 and 250 kilometers deep. Convection (heat) currents carry heat from the hot inner mantle to the cooler outer mantle. The mantle is about 1,700 miles (2,750 km) thick. The mantle gets warmer with depth; the top of the mantle is about 1,600 F (870 C); towards the bottom of the mantle, the temperature is about 4,000-6,700 F (2,200-3,700 C). The mantle contains most of the mass of the Earth. The Gutenberg discontinuity separates the outer core and the mantle. Surface and crust: The Earth's surface is composed mostly of water, basalt and granite. Oceans cover about 70% of Earth's surface. These oceans are up to 3.7 km deep. The Earth's thin, rocky crust is

composed of silicon, aluminum, calcium, sodium and potassium. For a page on soil, click here. The crust is divided into continental plates which drift slowly (only a few centimeters each year) atop the less rigid mantle. The crust is thinner under the oceans (6-11 km thick); this is where new crust is formed. Continental crust is about 25-90 km thick. The lithosphere is defined as the crust and the upper mantle, a rigid layer about 100-200 km thick. The Mohorovicic discontinuity is the separation between the crust and the upper mantle.

Structure of the Earth

The Earth is an oblate spheroid. It is composed of a number of different layers as determined by deep drilling and seismic evidence (Figure 10h-1). These layers are: The core which is approximately 7000 kilometers in diameter (3500 kilometers in radius) and is located at the Earth's center. The mantle which surrounds the core and has a thickness of 2900 kilometers. The crust floats on top of the mantle. It is composed of basalt rich oceanic crust and granitic rich continental crust.

Figure 10h-1: Layers beneath the Earth's surface. The core is a layer rich in iron and nickel that is composed of two layers: the inner and outer cores. The inner core is theorized to be solid with a density of about 13 grams per cubic centimeter and a radius of about 1220 kilometers. The outer core is liquid and has a density of about 11 grams per cubic centimeter. It surrounds the inner core and has an average thickness of about 2250 kilometers. The mantle is almost 2900 kilometers thick and comprises about 83% of the Earth's volume. It is composed of several

different layers. The upper mantle exists from the base of the crust downward to a depth of about 670 kilometers. This region of the Earth's interior is thought to be composed of peridotite, an ultramafic rock made up of the minerals olivine and pyroxene. The top layer of the upper mantle, 100 to 200 kilometers below surface, is called the asthenosphere. Scientific studies suggest that this layer has physical properties that are different from the rest of the upper mantle. The rocks in this upper portion of the mantle are more rigid and brittle because of cooler temperatures and lower pressures. Below the upper mantle is the lower mantle that extends from 670 to 2900 kilometers below the Earth's surface. This layer is hot and plastic. The higher pressure in this layer causes the formation of minerals that are different from those of the upper mantle. The lithosphere is a layer that includes the crust and the upper most portion of the asthenosphere (Figure 10h-2). This layer is about 100 kilometers thick and has the ability to glide over the rest of the upper mantle. Because of increasing temperature and pressure, deeper portions of the lithosphere are capable of plastic flow over geologic time. The lithosphere is also the zone of earthquakes, mountain building, volcanoes, and continental drift. The topmost part of the lithosphere consists of crust. This material is cool, rigid, and brittle. Two types of crust can be identified: oceanic crust and continental crust (Figure 10h-2). Both of these types of crust are less dense than the rock found in the underlying upper mantle layer. Ocean crust is thin and measures between 5 to 10 kilometers thick. It is also composed of basalt and has a density of about 3.0 grams per cubic centimeter. The continental crust is 20 to 70 kilometers thick and composed mainly of lighter granite (Figure 10h-2). The density of continental crust is about 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter. It is thinnest in areas like the Rift Valleys of East Africa and in an area known as the Basin and Range Province in the western United States (centered in Nevada this area is about 1500 kilometers wide and runs about 4000 kilometers North/South). Continental crust is thickest beneath mountain ranges and extends into the mantle. Both of these crust types are composed of numerous tectonic plates that float on top of the mantle. Convection currents within the mantle cause these plates to move slowly across the asthenosphere.

Figure 10h-2: Structure of the Earth's crust and top most layer of the upper mantle. The lithosphere consists of the oceanic crust, continental crust, and uppermost mantle. Beneath the lithosphere is the asthenosphere. This layer, which is also part of the upper mantle, extends to a depth of about 200 kilometers. Sedimentary deposits are commonly found at the boundaries between the continental and oceanic crust. Isostacy One interesting property of the continental and oceanic crust is that these tectonic plates have the ability to rise and sink. This phenomenon, known as isostacy, occurs because the crust floats on top of the mantle like ice cubes in water. When the Earth's crust gains weight due to mountain building or glaciation, it deforms and sinks deeper into the mantle (Figure 10h-3). If the weight is removed, the crust becomes more buoyant and floats higher in the mantle. This process explains recent changes in the height of sealevel in coastal areas of eastern and northern Canada and Scandinavia. Some locations in these regions of the world have seen sea-level rise by as much as one meter over the last one hundred years. This rise is caused by isostatic rebound. Both of these areas where covered by massive glacial ice sheets about 10,000 years ago. The weight of the ice sheets pushed the crust deeper into the mantle. Now that the ice is gone, these areas are slowly increasing in height to some new equilibrium level.

Figure 10h-3: The addition of glacial ice on the Earth's surface causes the crust to deform and sink (a).When the ice melts, isostatic rebound occurs and the crust rises to its former position before glaciation (b and c). A similar process occurs with mountain building and mountain erosion Some 80 percent of all the planet's earthquakes occur along the rim of the Pacific Ocean, called the "Ring of Fire" because of the preponderance of volcanic activity there as well. Most earthquakes occur at fault zones, where tectonic plates; giant rock slabs that make up the Earth's upper layer; collide or slide against each other. These impacts are usually gradual and unnoticeable on the surface. However, immense stress can build up between plates. When this stress is released quickly, it sends massive vibrations, called seismic waves, often hundreds of miles through the rock and up to the surface. Other quakes can occur far from faults zones when plates are stretched or squeezed. Scientists assign a magnitude rating to earthquakes based on the strength and duration of their seismic waves. A quake measuring 3 to 5 would be considered minor or light; 5 to 7 is moderate to strong; 7 to 8 is major, and 8 or more is great.

On average, a magnitude 8 quake strikes somewhere every year and some 10,000 people die worldwide annually in earthquakes. Collapsing buildings claim by far the majority of lives, but the destruction is often compounded by mud slides, fires, floods, or tsunamis. Smaller temblors that usually occur in the days following a large earthquake can complicate rescue efforts and cause further death and destruction. Loss of life can be avoided through emergency planning, education, and the construction of buildings that sway rather than break under the stress of an earthquake.

Earthquake Safety Tips

Earthquakes are a common occurrence, rumbling below Earth's surface thousands of times every day. But major earthquakes are less common. Here are some things to do to prepare for an earthquake and what to do once the ground starts shaking.

Marina District home damage Safety Tips:

Have an earthquake readiness plan. Consult a professional to learn how to make your home sturdier, such as bolting bookcases to wall studs, installing strong latches on cupboards, and strapping the water heater to wall studs. Locate a place in each room of the house that you can go to in case of an earthquake. It should be a spot where nothing is likely to fall on you. Keep a supply of canned food, an up-to-date first aid kit, 3 gallons (11.4 liters) of water per person, dust masks and goggles, and a working battery-operated radio and flashlights. Know how to turn off your gas and water mains.

If shaking begins:

Drop down; take cover under a desk or table and hold on. Stay indoors until the shaking stops and you're sure it's safe to exit. Stay away from bookcases or furniture that can fall on you. Stay away from windows. In a high-rise building, expect the fire alarms and sprinklers to go off during a quake. If you are in bed, hold on and stay there, protecting your head with a pillow. If you are outdoors, find a clear spot away from buildings, trees, and power lines. Drop to the ground.

If you are in a car, slow down and drive to a clear place. Stay in the car until the shaking stops. Earthquakes are a naturally destructive effect of Earth's constantly changing surface. Shake up your day with these devastating photos of past earthquakes.

A 1976 earthquake near Guatemala City shattered this bridge in Agua Caliente, cutting off the citys main supply route to the Atlantic. The 7.5-magnitude quake killed more than 23,000 people and left thousands more injured and homeless.

A crane and several construction vehicles lay toppled on a fractured road in Kobe, Japan, after a 7.2-magnitude temblor shook the quake-prone country. The Great Hanshin Earthquake Disaster of 1995 was one of the worst in Japans history, killing 6,433 people and causing more than $100 billion in damages.

A steel-fortified railroad lies twisted like a toy after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Kobe, Japan, in 1995. The earthquake was the biggest to hit Japan in 47 years and shook the city for 20 seconds.

The San Andreas Fault scars Southern Californias Carrizo Plain like a battle wound. The 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) fault runs through western and southern California, dividing the Pacific and North American plates.

Workers position support beams to steady titling homes in San Francisco's Marina District after a disastrous earthquake hit the city in 1989. The 7.1-magnitude earthquake buckled highways and bridges, crushed cars, and toppled homes and buildings throughout the city.

The Next Big One: Where on Earth Will It Strike?

Republished from the pages of National Geographic magazine Written by Joel Achenbach April 2006 The Hayward Fault, a long and lethal crack in the Earth, slices along the base of the Berkeley Hills and directly through the University of California. It passes under a theater and a couple of dormitoriesno problem, they're just freshman dormsand kinks the concrete steps outside California Memorial Stadium. You can straddle the fault, one leg up the steps, one leg down.

This Mexico City building survived a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. THIS ARTICLE IS FROM

National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic Magazine
Limited time offer! 12 issues for the special introductory rate of $15. ORDER NOW Then the fault runs underneath the stadium. One map shows it splitting the goal posts in the north end zone. It races downfield, barrels through the south end zone, and keeps going, careening down the street toward Oakland. Back in the 1920s, when architects drew up plans for a grand football stadium at California's flagship university, they refused to let a geologic imperfection stand in their way. Earthquake science was still young, but the architects apparently realized that the Hayward is a fault, where two pieces of crust move past each other. So the architects gamely built the stadium in two halves, shaped sort of like a coffee bean, with a line, the fault, essentially splitting the structure. Each half of the stadium could move independently, riding the shifting crust without breaking a sweat. Scientists now know that the Hayward creepsit inches along steadily, although millimeters along would be more accurate. At the rim of the stadium, a Berkeley professor named Richard Allen shows me the result of 80 years of creep: a four-inch (ten-centimeter) jog in the concrete, inelegantly bandaged with a rusty metal plate. We're both a little amused. What hubris to build a stadium on a fault! But Allen points out the central problem: Faults don't just creep. They also "break." They "rupture." The creep happens in plain sight, but the breaking, the rupturing, the lurchingthe earthquakingwill hit you

blindside. Allen teaches Berkeley's oldest course on earthquakes. He calls it Earthquakes in Your Backyard. The name couldn't be more appropriate, because the Hayward is a particularly dangerous fault. It hasn't spawned a major earthquake since 1868. Sometime soon, it could go. Much of the stadium is built on soft ground, the kind that amplifies seismic waves. "In an earthquake," says Allen, "the entire field may liquefy." The players wouldn't sink into a jiggling vat of goo. They'd just get knocked off their pinstackled by a temblor. But of course no one on that field is worried about an earthquake. It's a hot summer day a few weeks before the start of the season. The players are worried about making the team. They're worried about beating Stanford. You see right there a fundamental problem with earthquakes: They refuse to operate on human standard time. They're on their own peculiar schedule. Earthquake faults have a nasty way of combining patience with impulsiveness. Wait, wait, waitlurch. It's been a hundred years since the last big one in California, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which helped give birth to modern earthquake science. A century later, we have a highly successful theory, called plate tectonics, that explains why 1906-type earthquakes happen along with why continents drift, mountains rise, and volcanoes line the Pacific Rim. Plate tectonics may be one of the signature triumphs of the human mind, geology's answer to biology's theory of evolution. And yet scientists still can't say when an earthquake will happen. They can't even come close. Some of the simplest questions about earthquakes remain hard to answer. Why do they start? What makes them stop? Does a fault tend to slip a littletelegraphing its malign intentbefore it breaks catastrophically? Why do some small quakes grow into bigger quakes, while others stay small? And there's the broader question: Are there clear patterns, rules, and regularities in earthquakes, or are they inherently random and chaotic? Maybe, as Berkeley seismologist Robert Nadeau says, "A lot of the randomness is just lack of knowledge." But any look at a seismicmap shows that faults don't follow neat and orderly lines across the landscape. There are places, such as southern California, where they look like a shattered windshield. All that cracked, unstable crust seethes

with stress. When one fault lurches, it can dump stress on other faults. UCLA seismologist David Jackson, a leader of the chaos camp, says the field of earthquake science is "waking up to complexity." This regular versus chaotic debate isn't some esoteric academic squabble. Earthquakes kill people. They level cities. The tsunami of December 26, 2004, spawned by a giant earthquake, annihilated more than 220,000 lives. The magnitude 7.6 quake centered in Kashmir last October killed at least 73,000 people. Perhaps as many as a million would be dead or injured if a major quake felled the unreinforced highrise structures of Tehran, Kabul, or Istanbul. One of the world's largest economies, Japan, rests nervously atop a seismically rambunctious intersection of tectonic plates. A major earthquake on one of the faults hidden underneath Los Angeles could kill ten thousand people. A tsunami could smash the Pacific Northwest. Even New York City could be rocked by a temblor. Yet at the moment, earthquake prediction remains a matter of myth, of fabulations in which birds and snakes and fish and bunny rabbits somehow sniff out the coming calamity. What scientists can do right now is make good maps of fault zones and figure out which ones are probably due for a rupture. And they can make forecasts. A forecast might say that, over a certain number of years, there's a certain likelihood of a certain magnitude earthquake in a given spot. And that you should bolt your house to its foundation and lash the water heater to the wall. Turning forecasts into predictions"a magnitude 7 earthquake is expected here three days from now"may be impossible, but scientists are doing everything they can to solve the mysteries of earthquakes. They break rocks in laboratories, studying how stone behaves under stress. They hike through ghost forests where dead trees tell of long-ago tsunamis. They make maps of precarious, balanced rocks to see where the ground has shaken in the past, and how hard. They dig trenches across faults, searching for the active trace. They have wired up fault zones with so many sensors it's as though the Earth is a patient in intensive care. Surely, we tell ourselvestrying hard to be persuasivethere must be some way to impose order and decorum on all that slippery ground. We've been trying ever since the Earth humbled San Francisco. In April 1906 the city was the commercial and financial powerhouse of the West, a crucible of great fortunes, a place utterly decadent by reputation, gorgeous by any definition, with some 400,000 citizens and perhaps

nearly as many bars. The famed Enrico Caruso performed at the opera the night of April 17. All that changed at 5:12 the next morning, when the bars had finally emptied. Something happened deep under the seafloor just off the Golden Gate, out near the shipping channel. Along an ancient crack in the Earth, two slabs of rock began moving in opposite directions. An earthquake will unzipper a fault at two miles per second (3.2 kilometers per second). This one broke north and south. In some places the slip was just 6 or 7 feet (1.8 or 2 meters), but elsewhere the ground lurched fully 16 feet (4.8 meters) in a snap. The fault broke for 270 miles (435 kilometers), from Shelter Cove, way up in the redwood country of northern California, all the way south to the old mission town of San Juan Bautista. It wasn't the worst earthquake in history by a long shot, but it was sensational. Not only did it heave the ground and topple buildings, it ruptured the water mains, leaving San Franciscans helpless as their Victorian homes and bustling shopping districts and warehouses and opera burned to the ground. No one knows how many people died, but about 3,000 is the consensus. It inspired a kind of war on earthquakes, using the weapons of science. Until the San Francisco earthquake, geologists weren't sure how earthquakes and faults were connected. Many believed that faults were the by-products of earthquakes, not their source. The great Berkeley geologist Andrew Lawson had discovered the San Andreas Fault more than a decade earlier, naming it after the San Andreas Valleyand possibly himself (Andreas equals Andrew). But he thought it was just a little sniffle of an earth crack, a trivial thing not much more than a dozen miles in length, responsible for the narrow valley that holds San Andreas Lake and Crystal Springs Reservoir on the San Francisco Peninsula. But earthquakes are teachable moments. When the fires died down and San Francisco started to rebuild, Lawson and a team of colleagues set out to solve the mystery of the Great Earthquake. They literally walked the "mole tracks" where the fault rupture had churned across barnyards and meadows. Then they continued south for 600 miles (965 kilometers), reading the landscape, discovering the unbroken sections of the fault. This fault just kept going and going, all the way down past Los Angeles. In 1908 the team published the fabled Lawson report, which showed this rip in the Earth in vivid photographic detail. In the course of the investigation, a scientist named Harry Fielding Reid

figured out why earthquakes happen. Reid studied all the reports of ground motion, of roads and fence lines offset by the fault, and came up with the key concept of "elastic rebound." The surface of the Earth isn't perfectly stiff. It bends. Land at some distance from a locked fault will slowly stretch in opposite directions, but the fault itself will remain locked, under increasing strain. Finally the fault breaks, and the land springs back violently, releasing accumulated strain. An earthquake, says Bill Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, is "a relaxation process"from the standpoint of the planet at least. Lawson, Reid, and their colleagues had no way of understanding the ultimate source of the forces behind earthquakes. But by the late 1960s, scientists had conic to realize that the Earth is divided into about 15 plates of crust, constantly shifting as new rock forms at mid-ocean ridges and old crust dives into the Earth's interior at subduction zones in the deep sea. Suddenly the Himalaya were revealed as a crash site, with India slamming into Asia. And the San Andreas was not just a long strikeslip fault: It was a plate boundary, where the North American and Pacific plates grind slowly past each other at a rateprecisely measured by GPSof two inches (five centimeters) a year. But except for a section called the "creeping zone" in central California, the San Andreas is locked. Around San Francisco, the fault hasn't budged since 1906. North of Los Angeles, a long stretch of the fault has been stuck since 1857. Near Palm Springs, there's been no action on the fault since about 1680. At some point the San Andreas will have another relaxation event. When that happens, despite all the forecasts, all the measurements, all the scientific conferences, nearly everyone will be caught by surprise. Although it is probably the most famous fault on the planet, the San Andreas is often strangely hard to find. It slices an enigmatic path through wildly varied topography. Sometimes it's obviousviewed from above on the Carrizo Plain in south-central California, for example, where it looks like a zipper, or at Thousand Palms in the Mojave Desert, where fan palms line up neatly to drink water percolating upward through the fault. But usually the San Andreas lurks in the landscape, a shadowy presence. When you search for the fault you spend a lot of time thinking: Is this it? Or is that it? Is this the boundary between two enormous tectonic plates, one stretching to Japan and the other to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? Or am I standing in a random ditch? A century after Lawson et al. rambled across California, researchers are still pinpointing the fault's active trace. I tagged along with Carol

Prentice, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, who has been stomping through the dense redwood forests of northern California. She is aided by a new technology called LIDAR, which uses aircraft-borne lasers to trace the contours of the land. Photos and maps in hand, she hikes through the woods, noting every feature that might reveal the exact location of the fault: sag ponds, offset streams, displaced fences. She has even found what appears to be a redwood stump literally ripped apart by the great quake. Prentice takes you into brush so thick and tangled you have to crawl. What we couldn't see on foot, we saw on knee. I asked her what would happen if the fault broke right under us, out here in the boondocks. "That'd be so cool, if we were right here," she said. "Oh! I would love it. You wouldn't be able to stand up. It'd knock you on your butt. Presumably you'd see the 'rending and heaving of the sod.'" She was quoting from the Lawson report. Scientists like Prentice would love to know when, exactly, the San Andreas had a major quake prior to 1906. You sometimes read that the San Andreas breaks every 150 years or 200 years or 250 years, but that is not hard data. That's an informed guess. On the Point Reyes Peninsula, a knuckle of land north of San Francisco, Tina Niemi is digging for an answer. In the compacted sediment and peal of a trench dug across the fault trace, the University of Missouri geologist can discern a faint fracture, a line that slants across the trench wall from upper left to lower right. The line isn't perfectly straight; it jogs and splays. Along with other clues, these kinks suggest that something has jolted the soil here as many as 12 times over the past 3,000 years. Niemi doesn't see any simple pattern to the quakesnot in time, not in magnitude. "Our data support more of a model for irregular occurrence," she says. Nearby faults add another level of uncertainty. High in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Palo Alto you can stand on the San Andreas not far from the epicenter of the 1989 magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake. That quake was strong enough to destroy freeways and bridges and kill scores of people, but it never ruptured the surface. To this day, no one is sure how much of the quake to blame on the San Andreas and how much on other, unknown faults. "With faults, you don't have the luxury of tinkering under the hood to see what's what," writes USGS seismologist Susan Hough in her book Earthshaking Science. But some scientists want to sneak a look. Their idea: Drill the San Andreas. Find the biggest oil drilling rig in California

and ram huge steel pipes into the depths of the fault and send a bunch of gadgets down there to sample the rock and record its twitching. The project is under way near Parkfield, a village in a dusty central California valley. Parkfield's claim to fame is earthquakes. At the Parkfield Cafe there's a sign that says, "If you feel a shake or a quake get under your table and eat your steak." The quakes aren't actually very strong here. They tend to be magnitude 6. There has been a string of them. After the M6 in 1966, scientists realized that these quakes had occurred fairly regularly, roughly every 22 years, and so in the early 1980s the notion arose that there ought to be another Park field quake around 1988. Scientists wired the fault every which way, hoping to detect signs of building strain, moving water, or some other quake precursor. But year after year, the quake refused to show. It became something of an embarrassment for everyone who argued that earthquakes follow patterns. Finally, on September 28, 2004, an M6 struck near Parkfield, although its epicenter was miles farther south than expected. A camera had been set up to catch the fault rupturing from north to south, but it broke from south to north. "We missed Parkfield by over ten yearsand that was an earthquake in a barrel," said UCLA's David Jackson, he of the chaos camp. Most disappointing to scientists was the lack of any precursors. They pored over the data and could find no evidence of anything unusual on the fault prior to the September 28 rupture. Maybe there was a very tiny change in crustal strain a day before the quakebut even that wasn't certain. The unsettling notion arose that the jig was up, that these things are just flat-out unpredictable, random, weird. But science marches onand digs deeper. At Parkfield there are still seismometers and GPS stations everywhere, and now there's even that 185-foot (56-meter) oil-drilling rig, a monument to what you might call testosterone science. By late summer 2005 it had punctured the fault and reached its terminal depth of two miles (3.2 kilometers). "In a sense we're testing the predictability of earthquakes," says Mark Zoback of Stanford University, part of the drilling team. Of the chaotic versus linear debate, he says, "we're the guys who are trying to find out which side is right. Not to be sanctimonious, but I think a lot of those positions are held more on belief than on data." His rig is the next best thing to sending a person down into the fault directly, although even the rig can't get instruments down to the six-mile (9.5-kilometer) depths

where many large earthquakes start. In Japan, government scientists say they have settled the question. Earthquakes are not random. They follow a pattern. They have detectable precursors. The government knows where Japan's big one will most likely strike. This is a country where the trains run on time, and earthquakes are supposed to do the same. "We believe that earthquake prediction is possible," says Koshun Yamaoka, a scientist at the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo. In fact, Japan has already named its next great earthquake: the Tokai earthquake. The government has identified and delineated by law the precise affected areaa region along the Pacific coast about a hundred miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo. After a series of small quakes in the Tokai area in the 1970s, scientists predicted that a major quake might be imminent there. The Japanese government passed a law in 1978 mandating that preparations begin for the Tokai earthquake. Scientists have estimated a death toll of between 7,900 and 9,200 for a quake striking without warning in the wee hours. Estimated property damage: up to 310 billion dollars. At the Tokai earthquake preparedness center in Shizuoka, a map pinpoints 6,449 landslide locations. Another map shows where 58,402 houses could burn in quake-related fires. It's all remarkably enumerated. The only thing left is for the earthquake to happen. There is, indeed, a plate boundary, called the Nankai Trough, that runs off the coast of the island of Honshu, where the Philippine plate is subducting beneath Japan. The boundary has generated massive earthquakes every 100 to 150 years. Two sections of it, side by side, broke in 1944 and 1946. But the section along Tokai hasn't generated a major quake since 1854, right about the time Commodore Perry sailed his warships into Tokyo Hay. The theory is that it's time tor this part of the subduction zone to relieve its accumulated stress. At the Earthquake Research Institute, Keiji Doi, who is in charge of public outreach, lays out the entire scenario. The land near Shizuoka is sinking toward the underwater trough at about five millimeters a year, indicating that strain is building up. "The earthquake occurrence is imminent, we believe," Doi says. Up to this point, the Tokai tale is more a forecast than a prediction. But a precise prediction of time and place would be far more valuable for emergency planners. Thus has arisen the idea of "pre-slip," a notion that skeptics say is part science and part wishful thinking.

Naoyuki Kato, another scientist at the Earthquake Research Institute, says his laboratory experiments show that before a rock fracture gives way, it inevitably slips a little. He believes that what happens in a lab at small scale will also happen on a fault hundreds of miles long and running deep into the crust, just before the next big one. The government has an action plan built around pre-slip. Strain meters are embedded in the ground all over the Tokai area. If one or two meters show anomalies, scientists will confer and schoolkids will go home. Three anomalies will put the country on high alert. Police, soldiers, and firefighters will race to the border of the vulnerable area. The prime minister will make a speech and say that an earthquake is imminent. Posters outlining this plan show a cartoon prime minister sitting at a desk with hands folded, looking very worried, but very much in charge. Yet none of the experts on the Tokai earthquake describe this scenario with much conviction. Press them, and they will admit their uncertainty. Yamaoka and Kato, for example, are both bullish on pre-slip, yet they also say it may be too small to be detected. Robert Geller, an American geophysicist who works half a mile away at the University of Tokyo's school of science, is less circumspect. Geller has been in Japan for decades and has made "bashing earthquake prediction," as he puts it, a passionate hobby. He calls the prediction program "faith-based science." Pre-slip, he adds, "has never been verified to exist for actual earthquakes." Geller's skepticism is not just a case of American outspokenness. Hideki Shimamura, an earthquake scientist at Musashino Gakuin University near Tokyo, is almost as blunt. "There may be pre-slip, but I rather doubt it," he says, adding that few researchers are willing to question the focus on Tokai lest they lose funding. The situation has potentially lethal consequences, he says: Prior to the Kobe earthquake in 1995, which killed 6,400 people, few people or public officials in Kobe had any inkling that they were vulnerable. Earthquakes were mainly someone else's problemfar to the east, in Tokai. "They didn't prepare," Shimamura says. Since the Kobe quake, Japan has vowed to improve its readiness for a big jolt. Many of the bullet trains now brake at the first seismic tremor. Construction plans are supposed to get closer scrutiny, particularly in Tokyo, which sits on or near several dangerous faults. But the country has been shaken in recent months by a scandal: As officials looked the other way, crooked builders put up scores of structures that were far too fragile to withstand earthquakes. Their occupants were lucky that the

scandal broke before the inevitable next earthquake. Near Tokyo's sumo stadium is the Tokyo Restoration Memorial Hall, commemorating disasters that have struck the city. A clapper gentleman named Nobuo Yanai, 82 years old, visits every year to honor nine family members lost in the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. They died not in the quake itself but in a fire that raced through a field that had become a temporary home for 40,000 peoplea huge throng suddenly immolated. "They went up. Rose up in the sky. You may see the paintings over there"and there, indeed, were paintings that showed the firestorm lifting people to the heavens. "My great-grandmother went up in the sky and disappeared." People still die in stunning numbers when the ground beneath their feet begins to shake. Almost always it's not the earthquake that kills them, but rather their collapsing homes, offices, stores, and schools. An earthquake that might kill dozens or hundreds in California or Japan can kill tens of thousands in Latin America and Central and South Asia, where many buildings are little more than unreinforced masonry piles. There's a seismic gap between rich and poor. Last October a magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked northern Pakistan and Kashmir, the mountainous region claimed by both Pakistan and India. Within minutes, tens of thousands of people were dead, and countless others died later of injuries and exposure. Many were crushed when apartment buildings that had little or no steel in the concrete pillars simply pancaked. Had the quake been centered in nearby Rawalpindi, a city of 1.8 million, the casualties could have been in the hundreds of thousands. Geophysicist Brian Tucker, head of a nonprofit organisation called GeoHazards International, has been traveling the planet to lobby local officials to build sturdier housing projects, schools, and highways. He's seen cities where impoverished citizens expand their dwellings vertically, piling one brick floor on top of another, waiting for gravity to pull it all down. In Kathmandu, a city crammed with brickpile high-rises, an official once told Tucker, "We don't have earthquakes anymore." Surrounding the city are the Himalaya, pushed toward the stratosphere by tectonic forces. Tucker told the official, "Look out the window. That's Mount Everest. As long as you can see that, you're going to have earthquakes."

Mexico City is another catastrophe in waiting. Much of the city is built on soft mud, the remnants of a lake drained by the Spanish. In 1985 more than 9,500 people died when a subduction zone off the western coast of Mexico ruptured, sending seismic waves rolling hundreds of miles into the capital. Building codes have improved since then but only apply to new construction. And the population has boomed. Nearly 20 million people now live in a metropolis ringed by active volcanoes, testimony like the Himalaya to the tectonic forces that can level cities. Calamity has been part of the city's cultural fabric for centuries. Underneath a church in the center of town, Cinna Lomnitz, an earthquake specialist from the University of Mexico, led me down a hidden stairwell to the remains of an Aztec pyramid, sagging on the soft lake bed. An ancient relief carved into the stone shows four suns surrounding a central sun. According to Aztec legend, each sun represents a period of earthly existence, and each is eventually destroyed. "The fifth sun is the last one," Lomnitz said. "And it will end in earthquake." Kerry Sieh believes science can help break the cycle of calamity. Sieh, a Caltech earthquake geologist, is convinced there's a way to read the messages in the rocks, to heed the warnings encoded in their trembling. He knows firsthand how much could be gained it we could pinpoint the most dangerous faults and know when they are due to rupture. At 6:16 p.m. on Christmas 2004, Sieh was at his computer at home when he received an emailed bulletin about a seismic event at 3.3 degrees north latitude and 95.8 degrees east longitude, near Sumatra. For Sieh, earthquake bulletins are routinequakes happen every day, all over the world. But a number jumped out at him: 8.5. That was the initial estimated magnitude of the quake, which had happened just over an hour earlier. An 8.5 is enormous. Soon came the aftershocks, scores of them in the next few hours. Gradually the data began to harden around the obvious fact: This was a great quake, upwards of magnitude 9. News reports said a tsunami had killed perhaps several thousand people in Sri Linka. And then those numbers began to climb too. The Sumatran earthquake was not a total geologic surprise. Two weeks earlier Sieh had given a talk about his research on the great undersea fault paralleling the coast of Sumatra, where one plate is subducting beneath another. He had warned that the section of the fault he was

studying, well south of the part that actually ruptured, could break at any time and trigger tsunamis. It had happened before, in the late 1300s, around 1600, and in 1797 and 1833dates Sieh had determined by studying old coral heads along the islands off the west coast of Sumatra. When the Earth shifted in major quakes, the coral heads were lifted out of the water, leaving a gap in their growth layers. But the last really large earthquake had happened long before anyone now alive in Sumatra had been born. Sieh and his team had distributed posters in some villages of southern Sumatra, warning of catastrophic tsunamis. But Sieh's colleague Catharine Stebbins found that the novelty of the posters and the American scientific expedition seemed to outshine the posters' message. "It was like a circus came to town." And no one thought the northern part of the fault would go first. Late Christmas Day, as the news about the disastrous tsunami came over the wire, Sieh feared for his friends in Sumatra, and he had an ominous thought: There would be another huge quake. By releasing stress on one segment of the fault, this earthquake had increased stress on the next segment to the south. Three months later, on March 28, 2005, that segment broke in a magnitude 8.7 quakesmaller than the first hut still one of the ten biggest on record. Another tsunami followed, but this time collapsing buildings and falling debris were the big killers, taking more than 1,000 lives. In his Caltech office, Sieh showed me a map of the Sumatran plate boundary, detailing the GPS stations he had placed along the fault before the March quake. They had all moved, yanked to and fro and up and down. One directly over the March rupture had jumped 10 feet (3 meters ) up and 14 feet (4 meters) to the southwest. The pattern of movements indicates that strain is still building. "If another great earthquake happens in the next year," he said, "my guess is that there'll be another couple hundred thousand dead." He has heard the refrain that earthquakes are chaotic and unpredictable. That's not what he sees on the map of the plate boundary. He sees a fault breaking incrementally from north to south. "Obviously this is not chaos. This is linear." Sieh pointed to the area that he thinks is next in line. That's where he and his colleagues will spend the coming years, listening to the fault,

tracking the Earth's movements, taking the measure of shaky ground. "I would like to predict this earthquake," he said.

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

Earthquake
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the natural seismic phenomenon. For other uses, see Earthquake (disambiguation). An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of stored energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are accordingly measured with a seismometer, commonly known as a seismograph. The magnitude of an earthquake is conventionally reported using the Richter scale or a related Moment scale (with magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes being hard to notice and magnitude 7 causing serious damage over large areas). At the Earth's surface, earthquakes may manifest themselves by a shaking or displacement of the ground. Sometimes, they cause tsunamis, which may lead to loss of life and destruction of property. An earthquake is caused by tectonic plates getting stuck and putting a strain on the ground. The strain becomes so great that rocks give way by breaking and sliding along fault planes. Earthquakes may occur naturally or as a result of human activities. Smaller earthquakes can also be caused by volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, and nuclear tests. In its most generic sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic eventwhether a natural phenomenon or an event caused by humansthat generates seismic waves. An earthquake's point of initial ground rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The term epicenter means the point at ground level directly above this.

Global earthquake epicenters, 19631998

Global plate tectonic movement

Contents

1 Naturally occurring earthquakes 2 Size and frequency of occurrence 3 Effects/impacts of earthquakes o 3.1 Shaking and ground rupture o 3.2 Landslides and avalanches o 3.3 Fires o 3.4 Soil liquefaction o 3.5 Tsunamis o 3.6 Human impacts 4 Preparation for earthquakes 5 Specific fault articles 6 Major earthquakes o 6.1 Pre-20th century o 6.2 20th century o 6.3 21st century 7 Earthquakes in mythology and religion 8 See also 9 References

10 External links o 10.1 Educational o 10.2 Seismological data centers 10.2.1 Europe 10.2.2 United States o 10.3 Seismic scales o 10.4 Scientific information
o

10.5 Miscellaneous

[edit] Naturally occurring earthquakes

Fault types Most naturally occurring earthquakes are related to the tectonic nature of the Earth. Such earthquakes are called tectonic earthquakes. The Earth's lithosphere is a patchwork of plates in slow but constant motion caused by the release to space of the heat in the Earth's mantle and core. The heat causes the rock in the Earth to become flow on geological timescales, so that the plates move, slowly but surely. Plate boundaries

lock as the plates move past each other, creating frictional stress. When the frictional stress exceeds a critical value, called local strength, a sudden failure occurs. The boundary of tectonic plates along which failure occurs is called the fault plane. When the failure at the fault plane results in a violent displacement of the Earth's crust, the elastic strain energy is released and seismic waves are radiated, thus causing an earthquake. This process of strain, stress, and failure is referred to as the Elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the earthquake's energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth and is converted into heat, or is released to friction. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available potential energy and raise its temperature, though these changes are negligible.[1] The majority of tectonic earthquakes originate at depths not exceeding tens of kilometers. In subduction zones, where older and colder oceanic crust descends beneath another tectonic plate, Deep focus earthquakes may occur at much greater depths (up to seven hundred kilometers). These seismically active areas of subduction are known as WadatiBenioff zones. These are earthquakes that occur at a depth at which the subducted lithosphere should no longer be brittle, due to the high temperature and pressure. A possible mechanism for the generation of deep focus earthquakes is faulting caused by olivine undergoing a phase transition into a spinel structure.[2] Earthquakes may also occur in volcanic regions and are caused there both by tectonic faults and by the movement of magma in volcanoes. Such earthquakes can be an early warning of volcanic eruptions. A recently proposed theory suggests that some earthquakes may occur in a sort of earthquake storm, where one earthquake will trigger a series of earthquakes each triggered by the previous shifts on the fault lines, similar to aftershocks, but occurring years later, and with some of the later earthquakes as damaging as the early ones. Such a pattern was observed in the sequence of about a dozen earthquakes that struck the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey in the 20th century, the half dozen large earthquakes in New Madrid in 1811-1812, and has been inferred for older anomalous clusters of large earthquakes in the Middle East and in the Mojave Desert.

[edit] Size and frequency of occurrence

Small earthquakes occur nearly constantly around the world in places like California and Alaska in the U.S., as well as in Chile, Indonesia, Iran, the Azores in Portugal, New Zealand, Greece and Japan.[3] Large earthquakes occur less frequently, the relationship being exponential; for example, roughly ten times as many earthquakes larger than magnitude 4 occur in a particular time period than earthquakes larger

than magnitude 5. In the (low seismicity) United Kingdom, for example, it has been calculated that the average recurrences are:

an earthquake of 3.7 or larger every year an earthquake of 4.7 or larger every 10 years an earthquake of 5.6 or larger every 100 years.

The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past because of the vast improvement in instrumentation (not because the number of earthquakes has increased). The USGS estimates that, since 1900, there have been an average of 18 major earthquakes (magnitude 7.0-7.9) and one great earthquake (magnitude 8.0 or greater) per year, and that this average has been relatively stable.[4] In fact, in recent years, the number of major earthquakes per year has actually decreased, although this is likely a statistical fluctuation. More detailed statistics on the size and frequency of earthquakes is available from the USGS.[5] Most of the world's earthquakes (90%, and 81% of the largest) take place in the 40,000-km-long, horseshoe-shaped zone called the circumPacific seismic belt, also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, which for the most part bounds the Pacific Plate.[6][7] Massive earthquakes tend to occur along other plate boundaries, too, such as along the Himalayan Mountains.

[edit] Effects/impacts of earthquakes

Chetsu earthquake.

Smoldering after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Man walking around in Ruins after Tsunami. There are many effects of earthquakes including, but not limited to the following:

[edit] Shaking and ground rupture

Shaking and ground rupture are the main effects created by earthquakes, principally resulting in more or less severe damage to buildings or other rigid structures. The severity of the local effects depends on the complex combination of the earthquake magnitude, the distance from epicenter, and the local geological and geomorphological conditions, which may amplify or reduce wave propagation. The groundshaking is measured by ground acceleration. Specific local geological, geomorphological, and geostructural features can induce high levels of shaking on the ground surface even from lowintensity earthquakes. This effect is called site or local amplification. It is principally due to the transfer of the seismic motion from hard deep soils to soft superficial soils and to effects of seismic energy focalization owing to typical geometrical setting of the deposits.

[edit] Landslides and avalanches

Earthquakes can cause landslides and avalanches, which may cause damage in hilly and mountainous areas.

[edit] Fires

Following an earthquake, fires can be generated by break of the electrical power or gas lines.

[edit] Soil liquefaction

Soil liquefaction occurs when, because of the shaking, water-saturated granular material temporarily loses their strength and transforms from a solid to a liquid. Soil liquefaction may cause rigid structures, as buildings or bridges, to tilt or sink into the liquefied deposits.

[edit] Tsunamis
See, for example, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

[edit] Human impacts

Earthquakes may result in disease, lack of basic necessities, loss of life, higher insurance premiums, general property damage, road and bridge damage, and collapse of buildings or destabilization of the base of buildings which may lead to collapse in future earthquakes.

[edit] Preparation for earthquakes

Emergency preparedness Household seismic safety HurriQuake nail (for resisting hurricanes and earthquakes) Seismic retrofit Seismic hazard Mitigation of seismic motion Earthquake prediction

[edit] Specific fault articles

Alpine Fault Calaveras Fault Cascadia subduction zone Geology of the Death Valley area Great Glen Fault Great Sumatran fault Hayward Fault Zone Highland Boundary Fault Hope Fault Liquie-Ofqui Fault North Anatolian Fault Zone New Madrid Fault Zone

San Andreas Fault

[edit] Major earthquakes

Main article: List of earthquakes

[edit] Pre-20th century

Pompeii (62). Aleppo Earthquake (1138). Basel earthquake (1356). Major earthquake that struck Central Europe in 1356. Carniola earthquake (1511). A major earthquake that shook a large portion of South-Central Europe. Its epicenter was around the town of Idrija, in today's Slovenia. It caused great damage to structures all over Carniola, including Ljubljana, and minor damage in Venice, among other cities. Shaanxi Earthquake (1556). Deadliest known earthquake in history, estimated to have killed 830,000 in China. Dover Straits earthquake of 1580 (1580). Cascadia Earthquake (1700). Kamchatka earthquakes (1737 and 1952). Lisbon earthquake (1755), one of the most destructive and deadly earthquakes in history, killing between 60,000 and 100,000 people and causing a major tsunami that affected parts of Europe, North Africa and the Caribbean. New Madrid Earthquake (1811) and another tremor (1812), both struck the small Missouri town, reportedly to been the strongest ever in North America and made the Mississippi River temporarily change its direction and permanently altered its course in the region. Fort Tejon Earthquake (1857). Estimated Richter Scale above 8, said the strongest earthquake in Southern California history. Owens Valley earthquake (1872). Might been strongest ever measured in California with an estimated Richter Scale of 8.1 said seismologists. Charleston earthquake (1886). Largest earthquake in the southeastern United States, killed 100. Ljubljana earthquake (14. IV. 1895), a series of powerful quakes that ultimately had a vital impact on the city of Ljubljana, being a catalyst of its urban renewal. Assam earthquake of 1897 (1897). Large earthquake that destroyed all masonry structures, measuring more than 8 on the Richter scale.

The 1988 Spitak earthquake claimed over 25,000 lives and left 500,000-plus homeless.

[edit] 20th century

San Francisco Earthquake (1906). Between 7.7 and 8.3 magnitudes; killed approximately 3,000 people and caused around $400 million in damage; most devastating earthquake in California and U.S. history. Messina Earthquake (1908). Killed about 60,000 people. Great Kant earthquake (1923). On the Japanese island of Honsh, killing over 140,000 in Tokyo and environs. Napier earthquake (1931). 256 dead. 1933 Long Beach earthquake 1935 Balochistan earthquake at Quetta, Pakistan measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale. Anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 people died 1939 Erzincan earthquake at Erzincan, Turkey measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. Assam earthquake of 1950 (1950). Earthquake in Assam, India measures 8.6M. Kamchatka earthquakes (1952 and 1737), measuring >9.0. Great Kern County earthquake (1952). This was second strongest tremor in Southern California history, epicentered 60 miles North of Los Angeles. Major damage in Bakersfield, California and Kern County, California, while it shook the Los Angeles area. Quake Lake (1959) Formed a lake in southern Montana, USA Great Chilean Earthquake (1960). Biggest earthquake ever recorded[8], 9.5 on Moment magnitude scale, and generated tsunamis throughout the Pacific ocean. 1960 Agadir earthquake, Morocco with around 15,000 casualities. Skopje earthquake of 1963, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale kills 1,800 people, leaves another 120,000 homeless, and destroys 80% of the city. Good Friday Earthquake (1964) In Alaska, it was the second biggest earthquake recorded[9], measuring 9.2M. and generated tsunamis throughout the Pacific ocean. Ancash earthquake (1970). Caused a landslide that buried the town of Yungay, Peru; killed over 40,000 people. Sylmar earthquake (1971). Caused great and unexpected destruction of freeway bridges and flyways in the San Fernando Valley, leading to the first major seismic retrofits of these types of structures, but not at a sufficient pace to avoid the next California freeway collapse in 1989.

Managua earthquake (1972), which killed more than 10,000 people and destroyed 90% of the city. The earthquake took place on December 23 1972 at midnight. Friuli earthquake (1976), Which killed more than 2.000 people in Northeastern Italy on the 6th of May Tangshan earthquake (1976). The most destructive earthquake of modern times. The official death toll was 255,000, but many experts believe that two or three times that number died. Guatemala 1976 earthquake (1976). Causing 23,000 deaths, 77,000 injuries and the destruction of more than 250,000 homes. Coalinga, California earthquake (1983). 6.5 on the Richter scale on a section of the San Andreas Fault. Six people killed, downtown Coalinga, California devastated and oil field blazes. Great Mexican Earthquake (1985). Killed over 6,500 people (though it is believed as many as 30,000 may have died, due to missing people never reappearing.) Great San Salvador Earthquake (October 10, 1986). Killed over 1,500 people. Whittier Narrows earthquake (1987). Armenian earthquake (1988). Killed over 25,000. Loma Prieta earthquake (1989). Severely affecting Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Oakland in California. This is also called the World Series Earthquake. It struck as Game 3 of the 1989 World Series was just getting underway at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Revealed necessity of accelerated seismic retrofit of road and bridge structures. Luzon Earthquake (1990). On 16 July 1990, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the island of Luzon, Philippines. Landers, California earthquake (1992). Serious damage in the small town of Yucca Valley, California and was felt across 10 states in Western U.S. Another tremor measured 6.4 struck 3 hours later and felt across Southern California. August 1993 Guam Earthquake, measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale and lasting 60 seconds. Northridge, California earthquake (1994). Damage showed seismic resistance deficiencies in modern low-rise apartment construction. Great Hanshin earthquake (1995). Killed over 6,400 people in and around Kobe, Japan. Athens earthquake (1999). 5.9 on the Richter scale, it hit Athens on September 7. Epicentered 10 miles north of the Greek capital, it claimed 143 lives. Chi-Chi earthquake (1999) Also called the 921 earthquake. Struck Taiwan on September 21 1999. Over 2,000 people killed, destroyed or damaged over ten thousand buildings. Caused world computer prices to rise sharply. Armenia, Colombia (1999) 6.2 on the Richter scale, Killed over 2,000 in the Colombian Coffee Grown Zone. 1999 zmit earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale and killed over 17,000 in northwestern Turkey. Hector Mine earthquake (1999). 7.1 on the Richter scale, epicentered 30 miles east of Barstow, California, widely felt in California and Nevada. 1999 Dzce earthquake at Dzce, Turkey measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. Baku earthquake (2000).

[edit] 21st century

Nisqually Earthquake (2001). El Salvador earthquakes (2001). 7.9 (13 January) and 6.6 (13 February) magnitudes, killed more than 1,100 people. Gujarat Earthquake (26 January 2001). Hindu Kush earthquakes (2002). Over 1.100 killed. Molise earthquake (2002) 26 killed. Bam Earthquake (2003). Over 40,000 people are reported dead. Parkfield, California earthquake (2004). Not large (6.0), but the most anticipated and intensely instrumented earthquake ever recorded and likely to offer insights into predicting future earthquakes elsewhere on similar slip-strike fault structures. Chetsu earthquake (2004). Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake (26 December 2004). By some estimates, the second largest earthquake in recorded history (estimates of magnitude vary between 9.1[10] and 9.3). Epicentered off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, this massive temblor triggered a series of gigantic tsunamis that smashed onto the shores of a number of nations, causing more than 285,000 fatalities. Sumatran (Nias) Earthquake (2005). Fukuoka earthquake (2005). Kashmir earthquake (2005) (also known as the Great Pakistan earthquake). Killed over 79,000 people; and many more injured. Lake Tanganyika earthquake (2005). May 2006 Java earthquake (2006). July 2006 7.7 magnitude Java earthquake which triggered tsunamis (2006). September 2006 6.0 magnitude Gulf of Mexico earthquake (2006). October 2006 6.6 magnitude Kona, Hawaii earthquake (2006). November 2006 8.1 magnitude north of Japan (2006). December 26, 2006, 7.2 magnitude, southwest of Taiwan (2006). February 12, 2007, 6.0 magnitude, southwest of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal (2007). Sumatra Earthquakes March 06, 2007, 6.4 and 6.3 magnitude, Sumatra, Indonesia (2007). March 25, 2007, 6.9 magnitude, off the west coast of Honsh, Japan (2007). April 1, 2007, 8.1 magnitude, Solomon Islands (2007). 2007 Guatemala Earthquake 6.7 magnitude (2007) July 16, 2007, 6.6 magnitude, Niigata prefecture, Japan (2007)

[edit] Earthquakes in mythology and religion

In Norse mythology, earthquakes were explained as the violent struggling of the god Loki. When Loki, god of mischief and strife, murdered Baldr, god of beauty and light, he was punished by being bound in a cave with a poisonous serpent placed above his head dripping venom. Loki's wife Sigyn stood by him with a bowl to catch the

poison, but whenever she had to empty the bowl the poison would drip on Loki's face, forcing him to jerk his head away and thrash against his bonds, causing the earth to tremble.[11] In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of earthquakes.[12] In Christianity, certain saints were invoked as patrons against earthquakes, including Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, Saint Agatha, Saint Francis Borgia, and Saint Emygdius.[13]

[edit] See also

Look up earthquake in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Catastrophe modeling Cryoseism Earthquake insurance Earthquake lights Earthquake weather Earthquake (1974 disaster film) Elastic-rebound theory Geophysics Interplate earthquake Intraplate earthquake List of disasters List of earthquakes List of all deadly earthquakes since 1973 List of earthquakes by death toll List of tectonic plates Megathrust earthquake Meizoseismal area Mercalli intensity scale Moonquake Plate tectonics Richter magnitude scale Seismic scale Seismic wave Seismogenic layer Seismograph Seismology Shock (mechanics) Submarine earthquake Tsunami The VAN method

[edit] References
1. ^ Spence, William; S. A. Sipkin, G. L. Choy (1989). Measuring the Size of an Earthquake. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved on 2006-11-03. 2. ^ Greene, H. W.; Burnley, P. C. (26 October 1989). "A new self-organizing mechanism for deep-focus earthquakes". Nature 341: 733-737. DOI:10.1038/341733a0. Retrieved on 2006-11-03. 3. ^ Earthquake Hazards Program. USGS. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. 4. ^ Common Myths about Earthquakes. USGS. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. 5. ^ Earthquake Facts and Statistics: Are earthquakes increasing?. USGS. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. 6. ^ Historic Earthquakes and Earthquake Statistics: Where do earthquakes occur?. USGS. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. 7. ^ Visual Glossary - Ring of Fire. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. 8. ^ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/10_largest_world.php 9. ^ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/10_largest_world.php 10. ^ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/10_largest_world.php 11. ^ Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson 12. ^ http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Poseidon.html 13. ^ http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pst00245.htm

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Earthquake

[edit] Educational

Earthquakes an educational booklet by Kaye M. Shedlock & Louis C. Pakiser The Severity of an Earthquake USGS Earthquake FAQs Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days - View in near-real time all of the recent earthquake events on the planet. Earthquake Information from the Deep Ocean Exploration Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Geo.Mtu.Edu How to locate an earthquake's epicenter Photos/images of historic earthquakes earthquakecountry.info Answers to FAQs about Earthquakes and Earthquake Preparedness Interactive guide: Earthquakes - an educational presentation by Guardian Unlimited Geowall an educational 3D presentation system for looking at and understanding earthquake data

Virtual Earthquake - educational site explaining how epicenters are located and magnitude is determined HowStuffWorks How Earthquakes Work CBC Digital Archives Canada's Earthquakes and Tsunamis Earthquakes Educational Resources - dmoz

[edit] Seismological data centers

[edit] Europe

European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) Global Seismic Monitor at GFZ Potsdam Global Earthquake Report chart Earthquakes in Iceland during the last 48 hours Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Italy Database of Individual Seismogenic Sources (DISS), Central Mediterranean Portuguese Meteorological Institute (Seismic activity during the last month)

[edit] United States

EQNET: Earthquake Information Network The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center Southern California Earthquake Data Center The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country An Earthquake Science and Preparedness Handbook produced by SCEC Recent earthquakes in California and Nevada Seismograms for recent earthquakes via REV, the Rapid Earthquake Viewer Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), earthquake database and software IRIS Seismic Monitor - world map of recent earthquakes SeismoArchives - seismogram archives of significant earthquakes of the world

[edit] Seismic scales

The European Macroseismic Scale

[edit] Scientific information

Earthquake Magnitudes and the Gutenberg-Richter Law. SimScience. Retrieved on 2006-08-14. Hiroo Kanamori, Emily E. Brodsky (June 2001). "The Physics of Earthquakes". Physics Today 54 (6): 34.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Kashmir Relief & Development Foundation (KRDF) PBS NewsHour - Predicting Earthquakes USGS Largest earthquakes in the world since 1900 The Destruction of Earthquakes - a list of the worst earthquakes ever recorded Los Angeles Earthquakes plotted on a Google map the EM-DAT International Disaster Database Earthquake Newspaper Articles Archive Earth-quake.org PetQuake.org- official PETSAAF system which relies on strange or atypical animal behavior to predict earthquakes. A series of earthquakes in southern Italy - November 23 1980, Gesualdo Recent Quakes WorldWide Real-time, worldwide earthquake list for the past 7 days Real-time earthquakes on Google Map, Australia and rest of the world Earthquake Information - Electricquakes.com Exploring possible links between solar activity and earthquakes with earthquake and solar data streaming sources shown side by side for visual correlation. Earthquake Information - detailed statistics and integrated with Google Maps and Google Earth