Causes of earthquakes

Types of earthquakes
Genetic classification of earthquakes

Types of earthquakes
1 ..Tectonic Earthquakes
2 ..Non Tectonic Earthquakes
i Volcanic Earthquakes
ii Impact Earthquakes

Tectonic Earthquakes
Includes all earthquakes resulting from deformation of rocks during mountain
building.
Majority of earthquakes are of tectonic earthquakes because these results due
to flow of accumulated energy (over long period of time).

These are important

Scientifically---- to study the internal structure of the Earth
Socially----------- due to their tremendous effects on human beings.

Tectonic Earthquakes are caused by

!.............. Elastic Rebound
!.............. Sudden shearing during Plastic flow
!.............. Folding

Elastic Rebound
The plates consists of an outer layer of the earth, the
lithosphere, which is cool enough to behave as more or less
rigid shell.
Majority of earth quakes are caused by Elastic rebound.
According to American Harry Fielding Reid
(1911) Earthquake is not only a just a sudden happening but
is the effect of earth to return to normal after it has been
slowly strained for a long period of time.

The Earthquake cycle progress

from a fault i.e. not under
stresses.
Stresses develop due to plate
tectonic movement. As stresses
accumulate in rocks in both sides
of fault the rock is pressed
tightly, together and slowly
distorted until its elastic limit is
reached.
Then rock is rupture suddenly and
released its stored up energy as it
snaps back into position
approximately its unstrained
conditions.

Folding:
When folding takes place, the sudden tensional cracking and
crushing results, due to which stored up energy releases, in the
form of waves. Since such cracks are usually small, i.e. why the
earthquake caused is minor in size.

Sudden Shearing during plastic flow:

Only lithosphere has the strength and the brittle behavior to
fracture in an Earthquake.
Deep within the earth rocks are thought to be plastic. When
elastic limit is exceeded rocks do not always break, rather
they flow. Non elastic movement in which rocks do not part
(faulted) is called plastic flow.
So during plastic flow rocks may take on a permanent
change of shape in addition to its elastic deformation without
parting anywhere, releasing stored up energy in the form of
waves.

Non Tectonic Earthquakes

Volcanic Earthquakes
It has long been known that Earthquakes are accompanied the
eruption of volcanoes. The movement of magma and gases
within earth especially the spasmodic movement is another
means of shocks.
Shocks may occur before volcanic activity.
A greater number of shocks follow an eruption due to
readjustment within magma and surrounding rocks.
Shocks due to volcanic activity are less sever and destructive
and are upto magnitude of 6.

During volcanic activity the shocks can be caused in various ways,

e.g.
High pressure eruption from a smaller vent.
Falling of volcanic lava on earth
Stopping of flow of magma during activity.
Stoping in magma chamber.
Crystallization in magma.
Tensional cracking during cooling of lava.

Impact Earthquakes
This cause of earthquake is on the surface of the earth and is not
due to any inside reason. These are lesser in size but some times
are of medium sized. Rare these are lager in size, however
depends upon the size of impacting material.

Impact earthquakes are caused in different ways:

Surface Explosion up to magnitude 5.
Meteorite Falling smaller magnitude sometimes medium sized.
Cave ins
Land slides

Cause of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake

2005 - M7.6, Kashmir-Pir Panjal (Main shock)
Date:
Time:
Epicenter:
Depth:
Magnitude:

8 October 2005
o8:50:40 PST
4.1 SE of Ghori (Pir Panjal Mountains, P.O.K.)
20 Kms.
7.6 Richter Magn Scale

A powerful earthquake struck the Indo-Pakistan border on the

morning of 8 October 2005. It had a magnitude of 7.6
and was felt severely in Pakistan, northern India and eastern
Afghanistan. This is one of the strongest earthquakes
in this general area since a M7.6 in 1555. The earthquake resulted
in several thousand deaths in northern Pakistan and adjoining
parts of Jammu & Kashmir.
Tremors from the earthquake were felt more than a thousand
kilometers away in the Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh
and Uttar Pradesh.

There were many secondary earthquakes in the region, mainly

to the northwest of the original epicenter. A total of 147
aftershocks were registered in the first day after the initial
quake, of which one had a magnitude of 6.2. On October 19, a
series of strong aftershocks, one with a magnitude of 5.8,
occurred about 65 km (40.5 miles) north-northwest of
Muzaffarabad. As of 27 October 2005 there have been more
than 978 aftershocks with a magnitude of 4.0 and above that
continue to occur daily.
Since then, measurements from satellites have shown that
mountain parts directly above the epicenter have risen by a few
meters, giving ample proof that the rising of the Himalayas is
still going on, and that this earthquake was a consequence of
that.

Map depicting tectonic plates shows how Pakistan lies on the

direct fault line of South Asia. The African and Arabian plates in
the west and the Eurasian Plate in the north.

Pakistan administered
Kashmir lies in the area
of collision of the
Eurasian and Indian
tectonic plates. The
geological activity born
out of this collision, also
responsible for the birth
of the Himalayan
mountain range, is the
cause of unstable
seismicity in the region.

Earthquakes and active faults in western and northern Pakistan

and adjacent parts of Afghanistan are the result of the Indian
plate moving northward at a rate of about 40 mm/yr
(1.6 inches/yr) and colliding with the Eurasian plate. Along the
northern edge of the Indian subcontinent, the Indian plate is
subducting beneath the Eurasian plate, causing uplift that
produces the highest mountain peaks in the world, including the
Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush
ranges.
West and south of the Himalayan front, the relative motion
between the two plates is oblique, which results in strike-slip,
reverse-slip, and oblique-slip earthquakes.

2008 Quetta Pakistan earthquake

The 2008 Pakistan earthquake was a magnitude 6.4
earthquake that hit the Pakistani province of Baluchistan on
October 29, 2008. The US Geological Survey reported that
the quake occurred 60 km north of Quetta and 185 km
southeast of the Afghanistan city of Kandahar at 04:09 local
time at a depth of 15 km. It was followed by another shallower
magnitude 6.4 earthquake at a depth of 10 km approximately
12 hours after the initial shock.

West and south of the Himalayan front, the relative motion

between the two plates is oblique, which results in strike-slip,
reverse-slip, and oblique-slip earthquakes.
The pattern of elastic waves that were radiated by the
October 28 and 29, 2008, earthquakes implies that each
earthquake was the result of predominantly strike-slip
faulting. Seismographically recorded wave forms imply that
the shocks were caused by either left-lateral slip on a
northeast-striking fault or right-lateral slip on a northweststriking fault. The tectonic setting favors left-lateral slip on a
northeast-trending fault as the likely fault plane.
The 1935 earthquake probably occurred as the result of leftlateral strike-slip motion on a northeast-striking fault.

The October 28 and 29 earthquakes occurred in the Sulaiman

fold-and-thrust belt, a region where geologically young (Tertiary)
sedimentary rocks have been folded and squeezed by forces
associated with the Indian-Eurasian collision. The earthquakes
are located approximately 80 km east of the 650-km-long
Chaman fault, which is a major left-lateral strike-slip fault that
accommodates a significant amount of the slip across the plate
boundary. The occurrence of the earthquakes suggests that
other left-lateral strike-slip faults are present beneath the foldand-thrust belt and that they accommodate some of the relative
motion of the Indian and Eurasian plates.