Earth System

Lecturer: Nguyễn Thuỳ Dương

[email protected]
Textbook: Craig F, John B, David B, Dana D, Corliss K, Mary L, Erik O, Kurt R, Julie S. (2009), “Earth
science”, CK-12 Foundation

Recommended reading:

1. Laura Neser (2025), " Introduction to Earth Science - Second Edition", Virginia Tech Department of
Geosciences in association with the Open Education Initiative and Virginia Tech Publishing.
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7c0aa36a-ac3a-4d16-90bd-b62b28db576c/content

2. Thomas McGuire (2004), “Glencoe Earth Science: Geology, the Environment, and the Universe,
Science Notebook, Student Edition”, McGraw-Hill Education.

Lecture note 5. Earthquakes and Volcanoes

Reading: [1]: 221-318

1. Introduction to earthquakes
When plates are pushed or pulled, the rock is subjected to stress. Stress can cause a rock to
change shape or to break. When a rock bends without breaking, it folds. When the rock breaks, it
fractures. Mountain building and earthquakes are some of the responses rocks have to stress.
Stress is the force applied to an object. In geology, stress is the force per unit area that is placed
on a rock. There are four types of stresses that act on materials.
• A deeply buried rock is pushed down by the weight of all the material above it. Since the rock
is trapped in a single spot, it is as if the rock is being pushed in from all sides. This pushing
causes the rock to become compressed, but it cannot deform because there is no place for it to
move. This is called confining stress.
• Compression is the stress that squeezes rocks together. Compression causes rocks to fold or
fracture. Compression is the most common stress at convergent plate boundaries.
• Rocks that are being pulled apart are under tension (also called extension). Tension causes
rocks to lengthen or break apart. Tension is the major type of stress found at divergent plate
boundaries.
• When forces act parallel to each other but in opposite directions, the stress is called shear.
Shear stress causes two planes of material to slide past each other. This is the most common
stress found at transform plate boundaries.
If the amount of stress on a rock is greater than the rock’s internal strength, the rock bends
elastically. This type of change is called elastic because when the stress is eliminated the rock
goes back to its original shape, like a squeezed rubber ball. If more stress is applied to the rock, it
will eventually bend plastically. In this instance, the rock bends, but does not return to its
original shape when the stress is removed. If the stress continues, the rock will fracture; that is, it
breaks. When a material changes shape, it has undergone deformation and formed geological
structures including fold, joint and fault. When rocks experiencing compressive stress deform
plastically, the rocks crumple into folds. Folds are just bends in the rock. In layered sedimentary
rocks, you can trace the folding of the layers with your eyes. A rock under enough stress will
fracture, or break. When there is a block of rock still standing on either side of a fracture line, the
fracture is called a joint. If the blocks of rock on one or both sides of a fracture move, the
fracture is called a fault. Earthquakes happen when there are sudden motions along faults. When
rocks break and move suddenly, the energy released causes an earthquake. Faults may occur at
the Earth’s surface or deeper in the crust. Faults are found alone or in clusters, creating a fault
zone. A fault may have broken and moved only once, but most faults are active repeatedly. There
are two reasons for this. One is that plate tectonic processes continue in the same locations. The
other is that a fault is a zone of weakness in the crust, and it is easier for movement to take place
along an existing fault than for a new fault to be created in solid crust.
Stress is also closed related to mountain building. Many processes can create mountains.
Although most mountains form along plate boundaries, some result from intraplate activity. For
example, volcanoes build upwards at hotspots within the Pacific Plate. Most of the world’s
largest mountains result from compression at convergent plate boundaries. The largest mountains
arise when two continental plates smash together.
2. Nature of Earthquakes
An earthquake is sudden ground movement caused by the sudden release of energy stored in
rocks. The earthquake happens when so much stress builds up in the rocks that the rocks rupture.
An earthquake’s energy is transmitted by seismic waves. Each year there are more than 150,000
earthquakes strong enough to be felt by people and 900,000 recorded by seismometers.
Almost all earthquakes occur at plate boundaries. All three boundary types—divergent,
convergent and transform—are prone to earthquake activity. Plate tectonics causes the
lithospheric plates to move. Movement of rocks releases the energy that was stored in the rocks,
which creates an earthquake. During an earthquake the rocks usually move several centimeters
or maybe as much as a few meters. This description of how earthquakes occur is called elastic
rebound theory.
The point where the rock ruptures is usually below the Earth’s surface. The point of rupture is
called the earthquake’s focus. The focus of an earthquake can be shallow (less than 70
kilometers), intermediate (70 to 300 kilometers) or deep (greater than 300 kilometers). About
75% of earthquakes have a focus in the top 10 to 15 kilometers of the crust. Shallow earthquakes
cause the most damage because the focus is near the Earth’s surface where people live. Just
above the focus on the land surface, is the earthquake’s epicenter (Figure 1).
 Figure 1. Earthquake mechanism Figure 2. Damage after 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
Some locations are prone to earthquakes and some are not. Nearly 95% of all earthquakes take
place along one of the three types of plate boundaries. Scientists use the location of earthquake
epicenters to draw the boundaries of the plates because earthquakes frequently occur along plate
boundaries.
All three types of plate boundaries have earthquakes. Enormous and deadly earthquakes occur at
transform plate boundaries. Because the slabs of lithosphere slide past each other without
moving up or down, transform faults have shallow focus earthquakes. The most notorious
earthquake fault in North America is the San Andreas Fault that runs through California. The
1,300 kilometer long fault is the transform boundary between the northeastward-moving Pacific
plate and the southwestward-moving North American plate. The San Andreas is a right-lateral
strike-slip fault. The largest earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in historic times occurred in
1906 in San Francisco (2). This earthquake likely measured magnitude 7.8, which is a very large
earthquake. The earthquake and the subsequent fire is still the most costly natural disaster in
California history. An estimated 3,000 people died and about 28,000 buildings were lost, mostly
in the fire.
3. Measuring and predicting earthquakes
Energy is transmitted in waves. The energy from earthquakes (and also from explosions) travels
in waves called seismic waves. The study of seismic waves is known as seismology.
Seismologists use seismic waves to learn about earthquakes and also about the Earth’s interior.
Seismographs are used to measure earthquakes and pinpoint their origins.
Seismic waves move outward in all directions away from their source. There are two major types
of seismic waves. Body waves travel through the solid body of the Earth from the earthquake’s
focus throughout the Earth’s interior and to the surface. Surface waves just travel along the
ground surface. The different types of seismic waves travel at different speeds in different
materials. All seismic waves travel through rock, but not all travel through liquid or gas. In an
earthquake, body waves are responsible for sharp jolts. There are two types of body waves –
primary waves (P-waves) and secondary waves (S waves). These waves travel through the
Earth’s interior. P-waves are the fastest at about 6 to 7 kilometers per second. They are named
primary waves because they are the first waves to reach a seismometer. S-waves are slower and
so are the second waves to reach a seismometer. Body waves move at different speeds depending
on the type of material they are passing through. Surface waves are responsible for rolling
motions. Surface waves do most of the damage in an earthquake.
A seismometer is a machine that records seismic waves. In the past, all seismometers were
seismographs because they produced a graph-like representation of the seismic waves they
received. The paper record is called a seismogram. Modern seismometers record ground motions
using electronic motions detectors. The data are then kept digitally on a computer.
Seismographs have a pen suspended from a stationary frame, while a drum of paper rotates
beneath it. The pen is weighted so that it is suspended and not attached to the ground. The drum
is attached to the ground. As the earth shakes in an earthquake, the pen remains stationary but the
drum moves beneath it. This creates the squiggly lines that make up a seismogram (Figure 3).
Different arrival times of P- and S-waves will tell us how far away it was. The surface waves
arrive just after the S-waves. If the earthquake has a shallow focus, the surface waves will be the
largest ones recorded.
A single seismogram can tell a seismologist how far away the earthquake was but it does not
provide the seismologist with enough information to locate the exact epicenter. For that, the
seismologist needs at least three seismograms. When we defined distance between a seismometer
and epicenter, we can draw 3 circle with centre is 3 seismometer and radius is the distance.
Intersection point of the 3 circles is the epicenter (Figure 4).

Figure 3. A seismograph Figure 4. Defining epicenter

People have always tried to quantify the size of and damage done by earthquakes. Early in the
20th century, earthquakes could only be described in terms of what nearby residents felt and the
damage that was done to nearby structures. This was called the Mercalli Intensity Scale and was
developed in 1902 by the Italian seismologist Giuseppe Mercalli. There were many problems
with the Mercalli scale. What people feel and see in an earthquake is affected by how far they are
from the earthquake’s focus, the type of rock that lies beneath them, the construction type of the
nearby buildings, and many other factors. Different observers will also perceive the experience
differently. For example, one might exaggerate while the other downplays the damage done.
With the Mercalli scale, comparisons between earthquakes are difficult to make.
To address these problems, in 1935 Charles Richter developed his Richter magnitude scale. The
Richter scale measures the magnitude of the largest jolt of energy released in an earthquake.
Because Richter’s scale is logarithmic, the amplitude of the largest wave increases 10 times from
one integer to the next. For example, the amplitude of the largest seismic wave of a magnitude 5
quake is 10 times that of a magnitude 4 quake and 100 times that of a magnitude 3 quake. One
integer increase in magnitude roughly correlates with a 30-fold increase in the amount of energy
released. A difference of two integers on the Richter scale equals a 1,000-fold increase in
released energy.
Seismologists recognize that the Richter scale has limitations, since it measures the height of the
greatest earthquake wave. A single sharp jolt will measure higher on the Richter scale than a
very long intense earthquake that releases more energy. In other words, earthquakes that release
more energy are likely to do more damage than those that are short, but have a larger single jolt.
Using the Richter scale, a high magnitude may not necessarily reflect the amount of damage
caused.
The moment magnitude scale is the current method of measuring earthquake magnitudes. This
method measures the total energy released by an earthquake and so more accurately reflects its
magnitude. Moment magnitude is calculated from the area of the fault that is ruptured and the
distance the earth moved along the fault. Like the Richter scale, the moment magnitude scale is
logarithmic. An increase in one integer means that 30 times more energy was released, while two
integers means that 1,000 times the energy was released released. The Richter and moment
magnitude scales often give very similar measurements.
In a single year, more than 900,000 earthquakes are recorded. 150,000 of them are strong enough
to be felt. About 18 per year are major, with a Richter magnitude of 7.0 to 7.9. Each year, on
average, one earthquake with a magnitude of 8 to 8.9 strikes. To be valuable, an earthquake
prediction must be accurate. A good predication would anticipate the date, location, and
magnitude of the earthquake. The prediction would need to be accurate so that authorities could
convince people to evacuate. An unnecessary evacuation would be very expensive and would
decrease the credibility of authorities who might need to evacuate the region at a later time.
Unfortunately, accurate predictions like these are not likely to be common for a long time.
4. Volcanoes formation
You have already learned about tectonic plates. Beneath the Earth’s surface, powerful forces are
at work. These forces move lithospheric plates and produce huge chambers of magma, molten
rock beneath the Earth’s crust. Like water that bursts from a tiny hole in a water pipe, the liquid
magma seeks cracks or fissures in the Earth’s crust through which it could flow. This is a
volcano — an opening in the earth’s crust through which magma or gases can erupt onto the
surface. When molten rock escapes from beneath the Earth’s surface, it changes from magma to
lava molten rock above the Earth’s surface. Because the temperatures at the Earth’s surface are
much lower than in the magma chambers, the lava does not take long to solidify back into rock.
As layer upon layer of lava solidifies, a mountain is formed (Figure 5).
Because volcanoes are vents for magma, it makes sense that volcanoes would be formed above
underground magma chambers. If you recall, magma is molten rock that has been heated because
of high temperatures and pressures beneath the Earth’s crust. This pressure mostly occurs where
the tectonic plates meet and subduct. So, volcanic activity tends to occur along subduction plate
boundaries, where one plate slides underneath another. For the same reason, the majority of the
volcanic activity on the Earth also occurs along these convergent boundaries. This is called the
Pacific Ring of Fire where over 75% of the world’s volcanoes are found. The Cascade Range of
volcanoes runs through southwestern Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
These volcanoes are the result of subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the North
American plate. (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Diagram showing a Volcano Figure 6. The Pacific ring fire

 formation
5. Volcanic eurptions
All volcanoes share the same basic features. The magma collects in magma chambers that can be
160 kilometers beneath the surface. As the rock heats, it expands, which creates even more
pressure. As a result, the magma seeks a way out pushing toward the surface, the magma seeps
through cracks in the Earth’s crust called vents (Figure 5). Eventually, the magma reaches the
surface; when it comes out, we call it an eruption. There are two major types of Volcano eruption
including explosive and none-explosive eruptions.
Explosive eruptions occur when hotmagma beneath the surface interacts with water, gases
accumulate and the magma pressure builds up. This pressure grows and grows until these
dissolved gases cause it to burst in an enormous explosion. This great explosion takes with it the
magma and volcanic gases, which can shoot many kilometers into the sky and forms a
mushroom cloud, similar to that formed by a nuclear explosion. Sometimes secondary
explosions occur that are even greater than the first. Additionally, volcanic gases like water
vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen chloride can form
poisonous and invisible clouds that roam about the atmosphere. These gases contribute to
environmental problems like acid rain and ozone destruction, and can actually cool the Earth’s
atmosphere.
A second type of volcanic eruption is a non-explosive or effusive eruption. Because the
composition of magma is different in different volcanoes, the properties of the lava are different.
In effusive eruptions, lava flows are relatively calm and do not explode out of the volcano. As a
result, people generally have a great deal of warning before lava reaches them, so non-explosive
eruptions are much less deadly. That does not keep them from being destructive, however. Even
when we know that a lava flow is approaching, there are few ways of stopping it, given the huge
quantity and temperature of lava.
6. Lava, volcanoes and their landforms
Deep beneath the Earth, magma forms as the first stage in creating a volcano. This occurs
because rock below the surface is subjected to great amounts of pressure from gravity. The decay
of radioactive materials generates additional heat. The substantial heat and pressure melt the rock
below the surface to form a taffy-like substance. However, different substances melt at different
temperatures. For that reason, the temperature at which rocks melt depends on the specific types
of rocks. The Earth’s crust and mantle are made of many substances so the temperature required
to create magma varies. Most magmas are formed between 600 oC and 1300oC. Because of these
reasons when the magma becomes lava, not all lava acts the same.
Once magma reaches the surface, it becomes lava. A highly viscous lava is one that doesn’t tend
to flow easily. It tends to stay in place. Lavas with high silica contents tend to be more viscous.
Since it is so resistant to moving, it clogs the vents in a volcano. The pressure becomes greater
and greater until the volcano finally explodes. This type of lava is found in explosive eruptions.
It also tends to trap a lot of gas. When the gas is released, it makes the eruption more explosive.
Most of this lava is shot up into the air where it hardens and becomes solid rock. This molten
rock that solidifies in the air is known as pyroclastic material. In an igneous rock like pumice,
small holes in the solid rock show where gas bubbles were when the rock was still liquid lava.
Low-viscosity lava slides or flows down mountainsides. There is more than one type of low
viscosity lava. The differences between them come from the lavas’ different composition and
different spots where they come to the surface. The type of igneous formations formed depends
on which type of lava it is. The three major categories are a’a, pahoehoe, and pillow lava.
Volcanic eruptions can be devastating, particularly to the people who are closer to volcanoes. As
meteorologists attempt to predict, or forecast, hurricanes and tornados, so too do volcanologists
attempt to forecast volcanic eruptions. Although predicting volcanic eruptions is far from
perfect, many pieces of evidence can indicate that a volcano is about to erupt including history of
volcanic activities, earthquakes, slope deformation, gas emissions, remote monitoring. Some of
those factors are hard to measure, contributing to the difficulty in predicting eruptions.
The most obvious landforms created by lava are volcanoes. Volcanoes, of course, are the places
where lava comes to the surface. There are four major types of volcanoes: composite volcano,
shield volcano, cinder cone and supervolcano. However, lava can create other notable landforms
including lava domes, plateaus, land area.
Beneath the surface of the Earth, water works its way through porous rocks or soil. Most caves,
for example, are results of water’s erosion of the ground. At times, that water crosses paths with
volcanic activity. The same heat that melts rock into lava heats the water beneath the surface. If
the water makes its way to the surface, it may emerge as either a hot spring or a geyser. A hot
spring is a crack in the Earth through which water reaches the surface, after being heated below
the ground. Like hot springs, geysers are created by water that is heated beneath the Earth’s
surface. When water is both superheated by magma and flows through a narrow passageway
underground, the environment becomes ideal for a geyser. The narrow passageway traps the
heated water underground, where heat and pressure continue to build. Sooner or later, the
pressure grows so great that the superheated water bursts out onto the surface. This explosion is
called a geyser. here are only a few areas in the world where the conditions are right for the
formation of geysers. About 1,000 geysers exist worldwide and about half of those are found in
the United States of America.