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?
Used to measure the actual amount of seismic activity or magnitude of an earthquake
What is the Moment Magnitude 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 location on the earth's surface directly above an earthquake's origin
What is the epicenter?
This instrument measures and records incoming seismic 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 solid portion of the earth
What is the lithosphere?
These seismic waves travel only across the top of the Earth's crust 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 measure used to measure an earthquake's intensity based on eyewitness observations
What is the Modified Mercalli scale?
Earthquakes don't kill people, but these do
What are (collapsing) buildings?
Energy used when an object is in motion
What is kinetic energy?
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, most of the damage occurs here
What is at the epicenter?
The term used to describe the amount of energy released during an earthquake
What is magnitude?
The process in which the shaking of the ground caused by an earthquake results in loose soil temporarily becoming 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 seismic waves most responsible for the movement of objects back and forth during an earthquake
What are secondary waves (s-waves)?
It's how you find Δt
What is the time of the arrival of the s-wave subtracted from the time of the arrival of the p-wave?
The recorded measurement of the size and time-travel of p-waves and s-waves
What is a seismogram?
The location of the most powerful recorded earthquake in North American history occurred here
What is (Anchorage) 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?
The seismic waves most responsible for the up and down movement of objects during an earthquake
What are secondary waves (s-waves)?
The distance between the crest of a seismic wave and the trough of that wave
What is the amplitude?
Tsunami waves grow in height as the this happens to the approaching wave
What is compression caused by the slope of the continental shelf?
Two common results following earthquakes that occur because of downed power lines and broken gas lines
What are fires and explosions?
Before the brittle crust cracks under strain, it is able to stretch without breaking because of this trait or feature
What is ductile or ductility?
Type of stress that acts to pull an object or substance apart
What is tension?
Following an earthquake, it connects the areas with the same reported damage based on the Modified Mercalli scale
What is an isoseismic map?
It is what happens to the Δt the further away a seismic station is from the epicenter
What is Δt increases?
A scientist who studies the "tossin' and turnin'" caused by earthquakes
What is a seismologist?
The type of motion in a fault zone, named because first there is no movement followed by a period of fast movement
What is stick-slip?
A type of wave that you won't find in the water
What is a secondary wave (s-wave)?
This procedure is used by seismic stations to locate an earthquake's epicenter
What is triangulation?
They travel with alternating periods of compression and periods of expansion
What are p-waves?
The geologic feature in western California that serves as the location of several major earthquakes
What is thee San Andreas Fault?