Earthquake Basics
What is the shaking of the ground caused by seismic waves?
What is an earthquake?
Which seismic waves travel the fastest and arrive first?
What are P-waves?
What is a crack in rock where no movement has occurred?
What is a joint?
What machine records ground motion during an earthquake?
What is a seismograph?
What plate boundary occurs when plates slide past each other?
What is a transform boundary?
Most earthquakes are caused by what geologic process?
What is faults slipping at plate boundaries?
Which seismic waves cannot travel through liquids?
What are S-waves?
What makes a fault different from a joint?
What is movement between rock sections?
What scale measures the energy released by an earthquake?
What is the Richter scale?
What type of fault is commonly found at transform boundaries?
What is a strike-slip fault?
What is the point underground where an earthquake begins?
What is the focus?
P-waves and S-waves are classified as what type of waves?
What are body waves?
What type of stress pulls rocks apart?
What is tension?
What scale measures damage and shaking felt by people?
What is the Modified Mercalli Scale?
What large ocean wave is caused by underwater earthquakes?
What is a tsunami?
What is the point on Earth’s surface directly above the focus?
What is the epicenter?
Which waves cause the most damage at Earth’s surface?
What are surface waves?
In a reverse fault, how does the hanging wall move?
What is up?
What method uses three seismic stations to locate an epicenter?
What is triangulation?
What type of fault is considered “stuck” and builds stress over time?
What is a locked fault?
Why do many earthquakes occur at plate boundaries?
Because plate movement builds stress that is released when rocks fracture and move.
Why can S-waves not travel through Earth’s outer core?
Because the outer core is liquid and S-waves only travel through solids.
What type of stress pushes rocks together and is common at convergent boundaries?
What is compression?
Why might two earthquakes with the same magnitude cause different amounts of damage?
Because intensity depends on distance, ground type, and building structures.
Why are underwater earthquakes more likely to generate tsunamis than land earthquakes?
Because they displace large amounts of water.