An Introduction to

Earthquakes &
Earthquake Hazards
What is an Earthquake?

• An earthquake is the sudden movement of the ground that releases

elastic energy stored in rocks and generates seismic waves.
• These elastic waves radiate outward from the "source" and vibrate
the ground.
• Earthquakes are not the exclusive cause of seismic wave; explosions,
planes, wind, storms, and people also vibrate the ground.
Faults & Earthquakes

• In an earthquake, the initial movement that causes seismic

vibrations occurs when two sides of a fault suddenly slide
past each other. A fault is a large fracture in rocks, across
which the rocks have moved.
• Faults can be microscopic or hundreds-to-thousands of
kilometers long and tens of kilometers deep. The width of
the fault is usually much smaller, on the order of a few
millimeters to meters.
Earthquake Size

The size of an earthquake depends on The area of the fault that

ruptured.
The distance that the rocks on the two sides of the fault slide past one
another.
Small earthquakes rupture small faults or small sections of large faults.
Fault movement during such events is quick, small quakes last only a
fraction of a second and the rocks on either side of the fault don't move
very far.

Large earthquakes rupture faults that are tens to thousands of

kilometers long. Such ruptures can take minutes to complete, so strong
shaking near the earthquakes can last several minutes and rocks across
the fault can be offset tens of meters during very large earthquakes.
Earthquake Magnitude and Frequency

The most commonly used quantification of earthquake size is the

magnitude.
Magnitude is an instrumental measure of the amplitude of ground
shaking; that is, you must have an instrument called a seismograph to
measure the magnitude of an earthquake.
Fortunately, large earthquakes are less frequent that small earthquakes.
The temporal distribution of earthquakes by size follows a logarithmic
rule.
As a rule of thumb, for each magnitude unit increase, there are 10
times less earthquakes during a specified time interval. For example
there are about 20 major earthquakes each year but only one or two
great earthquakes.
Earthquake Sequences
• Earthquakes are not isolated events, they occur in sequences. Most often,
each sequence is dominated by an event with a larger magnitude than all
others in the sequence (usually about one magnitude unit larger).
• We call the large event the mainshock, and the events that follow are
called aftershocks.
• Occasionally, the mainshock is preceded by an event or events that we
call a foreshock(s).
• Sometimes, earthquakes occur in interesting sequences which we call
doublets, triplets, multiplets, or swarms depending on how many similar-
size events are in the sequence.
What Causes Earthquakes?

Earthquakes are the result of slow-moving processes that operate within Earth.

Earth was hot when it formed, and has been cooling ever since (near the
surface, for each km into Earth, the temperature rises by about 30deg. Celsius).

Earth's cooling causes the portions of Earth to move, and that movement is
what we call an earthquake.

We will discuss the details later.

Earthquake Catastrophes

Earthquakes in populated regions have killed many people and have destroyed entire communities.

China has been hit especially hard

Shensi, China, January 23, 1531 more than 800,000 dead

Tangshan, China, July 28, 1976 almost 250,000 dead
In recent years (the 1990s)

Iran 40,000
Philippines 1,700
India 10,000
A Century of Earthquake-Related Deaths

During the last hundred years there has been an average of about 17
large earthquakes each year.

Millions have lost there lives in significant earthquakes. Although these

deaths occur in discrete events, if we average that number killed over
the century, we lose about 15,000 people per year.
The Cost of Earthquakes
Cleaning up and repairing damage after earthquakes is expensive.

October 1989 - San Francisco Bay Area, California - $5.6 billion

January 1994 - Northridge, California - $15 billion
January 1995 - Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe), Japan - $150 billio