It is not my fault
The crack in the earth's crust where stress is suddenly released causing an earthquake.
What is a fault?
These seismic waves can travel through all of the earth's layers.
What are P-waves (Primary waves)?
Where rocks first begin to move in an earthquake.
What is the focus?
This is the scale used to measure the actual amount of seismic activity or magnitude of an Earthquake.
What is the Richter Scale?
Earthquakes are caused when too much of this has built up in rocks and they can no longer handle it.
What is pressure/stress?
At this type of fault, tectonic plates scrape past each other at a transform boundary.
What is a strike-slip fault
These seismic waves travel only through solids.
What are S-waves (Secondary waves)?
The name of the location directly above the focus.
What is the epicenter?
This instrument measures and records earthquake waves.
What is a seismograph?
A wall of water created when an earthquake occurs in the ocean floor.
What is a Tsunami?
Earthquakes occur along a fault in this layer of the earth.
What is the Lithosphere (Crust)?
These seismic waves travel only across the the Earth's surface and usually cause the most damage.
What are surface waves?
Most earthquakes occur along these areas because their slow movement causes large amounts of stress to build up over time.
What are plate boundaries?
The scale used to measure an earthquake's intensity based on eyewitness observations.
What is the Mercalli scale?
Most injuries and deaths from an earthquake occur due to the collapsing of these structures.
What are buildings?
This type of fault is found where rocks are pulling apart resulting in one block of rock sliding downward in relation to the other.
What is a Normal Fault?
A series of low-frequency shock waves, somewhat like sound waves, traveling through the earth caused by movement of the Earth's plates.
What are earthquakes?
During an earthquake, the most damage occurs here.
What is at the epicenter?
The point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus that will detect seismic waves first.
What is the epicenter?
The process in which shaking of the ground caused by an earthquake causes soil to temporarily become a liquid.
What is liquefaction?
At this type of fault, one block of rock slides upwards in relation to the other one as a result of them being pushed together.
What is a Reverse Fault?
The fastest surface waves that travel across the surface like a snake (side to side)
What are Love waves?
The tremors that follow major earthquakes as the Earth readjusts.
What are aftershocks?
A time span between seismic activity used to help predict future earthquakes.
What is a seismic gaps?
The location of the most powerful recorded earthquake in North America occurred in this state.
What is Alaska?
The type of boundary in which two tectonic plates are moving toward each other - often locations of subduction and mountain building
What is a convergent boundary?
Surface waves that feel like ocean swells moving the ground up and down and side to side.
What are Rayleigh waves?
The angle of slope of a fault face, measured from the horizontal plane to the fault surface.
What is the Dip?
a measure of the damage an earthquake causes using the Mercalli Scale.
What is intensity?
This type of damage is common after earthquakes when there are downed power lines and broken gas lines.
What are fires?
The type of boundary in which two tectonic plates are moving away from each other
What is a divergent boundary?
Type of stress that act to pull an object or substance apart
What is tension?
The compass direction of an imaginary line drawn horizontally on the surface of a fault face; helps indicate the orientation of the fault at a given location
What is the strike?
A measure of the earthquake's energy
What is the magnitude?
The category of faults that include a normal and reverse fault
Dip-slip
The shock waves that travel through the Earth.
What are body waves?
The boundary that causes earthquakes when plates slide past each other horizontally; like the San Andreas Fault
What is a transform boundary?