EXPLORE Intermediate Science

Hunting
Have you ever wondered what it would be like
to be in an earthquake? Have you ever been in
an earthquake? Do you know what causes
them? Do they occur in certain areas of the
world more often than other areas? In this
activity, you will learn all about earthquakes in
general and study one infamous earthquake in
detail.

Earthquake Hunting 8

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed EXPLORE

First you need to find out the causes of earthquakes around

the world. Visit the following websites and then explain the
causes of earthquakes.

Plate Tectonics: The Cause of Earthquakes

http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/1
00/plate-tectonics.html

Why Do Earthquakes Happen? (PDF file)

http://www.iris.edu/edu/onepagers/no2.pdf

What causes earthquakes?

The following websites are designed to show the most recent

earthquakes as they have happened all around the world.
Visit the sites and answer the questions.

National Earthquake Information Center

http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/current/world.ht
ml

Pre-Assembled Event Information

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

Seismicity Maps of Recent Earthquake Activity in the

USA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus

Where in the world did the most recent earthquake occur?

What was the magnitude (a number from the Richter scale) of

the most recent earthquake?

9 Earthquake Hunting

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

EXPLORE Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed

Write the location and magnitude of five other recent earth-

quakes in the United States.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Does there seem to be any pattern to the distribution of the

earthquakes? If so, why might that be?

Click on the “Near Real Time Earthquake List” on this site:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/index.php?old=
world.html

Have any earthquakes occurred in the last

hour? If so, how many?
____________________________

Identify at least three regions in which an

earthquake occurred in the past day:
____________________________

What was the magnitude of the

largest earthquake?
_____________________________

Earthquake Hunting 10

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed EXPLORE

Describe in general what happens during an earthquake at

each of the following magnitudes:

1-3

7 and above

Now that you have learned something about the most

recent earthquakes around the world, you will need to
choose an earthquake from the past to research. There are
many ways to find an earthquake to study. Search through
some of these sites until you find a historic earthquake that
is interesting to you.

Earthquake “Top 10” Lists and Maps

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/to
p10.php

11 Earthquake Hunting

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

EXPLORE Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed

Recent Significant Earthquakes

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqarchives/
year/byyear.php

Mark Twain and the October 8, 1865, San Francisco

Earthquake
http://projects.crustal.ucsb.edu/understandi
ng/accounts/twain.html

Earthquakes in History
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/earthq1/history.html

Provide the following information about Effects on the structures of the nearest
the earthquake you chose: cities or towns:

Date of the earthquake

Where was the epicenter?

Name of faults or plates involved:

What major population areas were
affected?

Estimated cost of damage:

How many people died because of the
earthquake?
Describe any aftereffects (aftershocks,
landslides, tsunamis).
How many were injured?

Magnitude on the Richter scale or

Intensity on the Mercalli scale:

Earthquake Hunting 12

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

 TEACHER MATERIAL

Earthquake Hunting
From the Encyclopædia
Britannica
Earthquake
… any sudden disturbance within the
Earth manifested at the surface by a
shaking of the ground. This shaking,
which accounts for the destructiveness of
an earthquake, is caused by the passage of
elastic waves through the Earth’s rocks.
These seismic waves are produced when
some form of stored energy, such as
elastic strain, chemical energy, or
gravitational energy, is released suddenly.
Few natural phenomena can wreak as
much havoc as earthquakes. Over the
centuries they have been responsible for
millions of deaths and an incalculable
amount of damage to property. While
earthquakes have inspired dread and
superstitious awe since ancient times,
little was understood about them until the
emergence of seismology at the
beginning of the 20th century.
Seismology, which involves the scientific
study of all aspects of earthquakes, has
yielded answers to such long-standing
questions as why and how earthquakes
occur… .
Principal mechanisms in nature
Earthquakes are caused by the sudden
release of energy within some limited
region of the rocks of the Earth. The form
of energy involved is produced by elastic
strain, gravitational potential, chemical
reactions, or motion of bodies. Of these,
the release of elastic strain energy is the
most important, since this form of energy
is the only kind that is stored in sufficient
quantity in the Earth to produce major
earthquakes. Earthquakes associated with
this type of energy release are called
tectonic earthquakes.
Measurements of triangulation lines
across the San Andreas Fault before and
after its rupture in the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake led to the so-called elastic
rebound theory for tectonic earthquakes.
As formulated by the American geologist
Harry Fielding Reid, the theory explains
that a tectonic earthquake occurs when
stresses in rock masses have
accumulated to a point where they
exceed the strength of the rocks, leading
to rapid fracture. These rock fractures
usually tend in the same direction and
may extend over many kilometers along
the zone of weakness. In the 1906 earth-
quake the San Andreas Fault slipped for
430 kilometers, with a maximum hori-
zontal fault offset of about six meters… .
Earthquake magnitude
Because the size of earthquakes varies
enormously, it is necessary for purposes
of relative comparison to compress the
range of wave amplitudes measured on
seismograms by means of a mathematical
device. In 1935 the American seis-
mologist Charles F. Richter set up a
“magnitude scale of earthquakes” as the
logarithm to base 10 of the maximum
seismic wave amplitude (in thousandths
of a millimeter) recorded on a standard
seismograph (the Wood-Anderson tor-
sion pendulum seismograph) at a dis-
tance of 100 kilometers from the earth-
quake epicenter… .
Intensity scales
The level of violence of seismic shaking
varies considerably over the affected area.
This intensity is not capable of simple
quantitative definition and, particularly
before seismographs capable of accurate
measurement of ground motion were
developed, the shaking was estimated by
reference to intensity scales that describe
the effects in qualitative terms.
Subsequently, the divisions in these
scales have been associated with accelera-
tions of the local ground shaking.
Intensity depends, however, in a compli-
cated way not only on ground accelera-
tions but also on the periods and other
features of seismic waves, the distance of
the point from the source, and the local
geological structure. Furthermore, it is
distinct from magnitude, which is a
measure of earthquake size specified by a
seismograph reading.
A number of different intensity scales
have been set up during the past century
and applied to both current and ancient
destructive earthquakes. For many years
the most widely used was the 10-point
scale devised by Michele Stefano de
Rossi and François-Alphonse Forel in
1878. The scale now generally employed
in North America is the Mercalli scale,
as modified by Harry O. Wood and
Frank Neumann in 1931, in which
intensity is considered to be more uni-
formly graded. Alternative scales have
been developed in both Japan and
Europe for local conditions. The
European (MSK) scale of 12 grades is
similar to the abridged version of the
Mercalli.
Additional Websites
U.S. Geological Survey: Earthquake
Hazards Program – About
Earthquakes
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/lear
ning/kids/
The California Institute of Technology:
Documenting Earthquakes – A Virtual
Exhibit in Six Parts
http://archives.caltech.edu/exhi
bits/earthquake/index.html
The Exploratorium: Faultline –
Seismic Science at the Epicenter
http://www.exploratorium.e
du/faultline/credits.html

13 Earthquake Hunting

© 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.