Scribd
Upload
44 views

An Earthquake

An earthquake is caused by the sudden release of stored energy in the Earth's crust along faults or tectonic plate boundaries. Friction between rock masses can build up stress until one mass suddenly slips, releasing this energy as seismic waves. The magnitude of an earthquake depends on the amount of stress released, the distance of rock displacement, and how efficiently seismic energy is transmitted through the surrounding rocks. Major earthquakes can cause significant damage and trigger aftershocks as frictional stress continues to dissipate.

Uploaded by

Bhavna Khanna
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
44 views

An Earthquake

An earthquake is caused by the sudden release of stored energy in the Earth's crust along faults or tectonic plate boundaries. Friction between rock masses can build up stress until one mass suddenly slips, releasing this energy as seismic waves. The magnitude of an earthquake depends on the amount of stress released, the distance of rock displacement, and how efficiently seismic energy is transmitted through the surrounding rocks. Major earthquakes can cause significant damage and trigger aftershocks as frictional stress continues to dissipate.

Uploaded by

Bhavna Khanna
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

An earthquake is a sudden vibration or trembling in the Earth.

More than 150,000 tremors strong enough to be felt by humans occur each year worldwide. Earthquake motion is caused by the quick release of stored potential energy into the kinetic energy of motion. Most earthquakes are produced along faults, tectonic plate boundary zones, or along the mid-oceanic ridges. At these areas, large masses of rock that are moving past each other can become locked due to friction. Friction is overcome when the accumulating stress has enough force to cause a sudden slippage of the rock masses. The magnitude of the shock wave released into the surrounding rocks is controlled by the quantity of stress built up because of friction, the distance the rock moved when the slippage occurred, and ability of the rock to transmit the energy contained in the seismic waves. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 involved a six meter horizontal displacement of bedrock. Sometime after the main shock wave, aftershocks can occur because of the continued release of frictional stress. Most aftershocks are smaller than the main earthquake, but they can still cause considerable damage to already weakened natural and humanconstructed features. Earthquake Any sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves through the Earths rocks. Seismic waves are produced when some form of energy stored in the Earths crust is suddenly released, usually when masses of rock straining against one another suddenly fracture and slip. Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults, narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another. The major fault lines of the world are located at the fringes of the huge tectonic plates that make up the Earths crust. Little was understood about earthquakes 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. About 50,000 earthquakes large enough to be noticed without the aid of instruments occur annually over the entire Earth. Of these, approximately 100 are of sufficient size to produce substantial damage if their centres are near areas of habitation. Very great earthquakes occur on average about once per year. Over the centuries they have been responsible for millions of deaths and an incalculable amount of damage to property.

You might also like