Earthquake Basics
Most earthquakes occur near these geological features.
What are plate boundaries?
What is a normal fault?
Vibrations that radiate outward from Earth’s movement are called these.
What are seismic waves?
This instrument records earthquake vibrations.
What is a seismograph?
This occurs when an earthquake happens under the ocean.
What is a tsunami?
Earthquakes occur in this layer of the Earth.
What is the lithosphere?
This type of fault forms when rocks are pushed together and one block moves upward.
What is a reverse fault?
The fastest seismic waves are called these.
What are primary (P) waves?
The greater the amplitude on a seismogram, the greater the __________.
What is the magnitude (size)?
The most damaging seismic waves travel along Earth’s surface.
What are surface waves?
The point on Earth’s surface directly above the focus is called this.
What is the epicenter?
This fault type involves no major vertical movement, only horizontal shifting.
What is a strike-slip fault?
These waves cause the most damage during an earthquake.
What are surface waves?
This scale measures earthquake damage, not magnitude.
What is the Mercalli scale?
The method scientists use to find an earthquake’s epicenter using multiple seismograph stations.
What is triangulation?
This instrument is used to measure earthquakes.
What is a seismograph?
Faults are caused by stress along these boundaries.
What are plate boundaries?
These waves cannot travel through liquid.
What are secondary (S) waves?
This scale measures earthquake magnitude using seismic wave amplitude.
What is the Richter scale?
This is the classification of total destruction cause by an earthquake on the Mercalli scale
What is Cataclysmic?
What is the location of the original slippage causing the earthquake?
What is the focus?
Earthquakes occur when energy is released along these breaks in Earth’s crust.
What are faults?
The discovery of Earth’s liquid outer core was based on the absence of these waves on the opposite side of Earth.
What are secondary (S) waves?
The minimum number of seismograph stations needed to locate an epicenter.
What is three?
Scientists believe that this is the upper limit of the Richter scale.
What is 9.5?