1.

3 Causes of Earthquakes and Faulting

Seismology
The cause and nature of earthquakes is the subject of study of the science of seismology, and further background may be
obtained from the books by Richter, Bolt and Lay and Wallace (Dowrick, 2009). Bangash (2011) defines Seismology as the
study of earthquakes and the structure of the Earth by both naturally and artificially generated seismic waves (Manohar and
Madhekar, 2015). Bozorgnia and Bertero (2006) recounted that In fact, Robert Mallet invented the word seismology, which is
derived from Greek words meaning shake-knowledge; he also coined the term epicenter (Housner, 1984). According to
Housner (1984), “Robert Mallet can be called the primeval earthquake engineer.”

Seismicity
Seismicity is the distribution and frequency of earthquake events.  Seismic is relating to or caused by an earthquake or earth
tremor (Microsoft Encarta, 2009). Whether we  are designing a structure or predicting the magnitude of the earthquake event,
knowledge of seismicity is imperative. Understanding of seismicity depends heavily on aspects of geology, which is the science
of the earth’s crust, and also calls upon knowledge of the physics of the earth as a whole (Dowrick, 2009) .  

Seismicity is defined as the frequency of occurrence of earthquakes per unit area in a given region, and is illustrated in non-
numerical terms by the seismicity map of the world presented in the figure below (Dowrick, 2009). The first seismicity map of
the world was published by Mallet in 1860, and in 1872 Gilbert reported (Otani 2003) that earthquakes are usually centered on
a fault line (Manohar and Madhekar, 2015). The seismicity factor Z relates to severity of the ground motion at the site of the
structure (NAVFAC, 1982, Julio, 2008) and for an effective seismic-resistant design it is important to know the seismicity of the
area under study (Khan, 2013).

 
 

Causes of earthquakes
Plate Tectonic Theory

 Understanding the tectonic causes of earthquakes and identifying the seismogenic geological features in a region, enable the
formulation of distribution patterns of potential sources (Dowrick, 2009).  Bangash (2011) discussed the development of plate
tectonics on the hypothesis of sea-floor spreading during the past few decades. According to this concept, the rigid lithosphere,
consisting of six major plates, drifts on the rheological asthenosphere, like a ship on the ocean, but with a very slow speed. The
six plates are the Eurasian, Pacific, American, African, Indian and Antarctic. Each plate may then be subdivided into smaller
plates. The relative movements of the plates are roughly few centimeters per year and has continued for at least 200 million
years. The theory can be described as follows: (1) Material flows out from the upper mantel through the lithosphere at ocean
ridges where the crust is thin and pushes the lithosphere, whose thickness is a few kilometers, (2) drifting horizontally on the
asthenosphere, which shows rheological properties under high temperature, high pressure and permanent horizontal pushing.
When two tectonic plates collide, one thrusts under the other and comes back to the lithosphere, which forms a deep ocean
trench and subduction zone at the junction of two plates and volcanoes and mountains on the plate which remains on the
Earth’s surface. A reference is made to the basics given in the figure below. 
 

References
BANGASH, M. Y. H. 2011. Earthquake Resistant Buildings: Dynamic Analyses, Numerical Computations, Codified Methods,
Case Studies and Examples, London, UK, Springer.

BOLT, B. A. 2008. The nature of earthquake ground motion. In: NAEIM, F. (ed.) The Seismic Design Handbook. US: Springer
US

BOZORGNIA, Y. & BERTERO, V. 2006. Earthquake engineering: from engineering seismology to performance-based
engineering, UK, Taylor & Francis.

BOZORGNIA, Y. & V.BERTERO, V. (eds.) 2004. EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING: From Engineering Seismology to
Performance-Based Engineering, Florida CRC Press LLC.

ELNASHAI, A. S. & SARNO, L. D. 2015. Fundamentals of earthquake engineering - From Source to Fragilitys, United
Kingdom, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

HOUSNER, G. W. 1984. Historical view of earthquake engineering. Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Earthquake
Engineering, 1, 25–39.

MANOHAR, S. & MADHEKAR, S. 2015. Seismic Design of RC Buildings Theory and Practice, India, Springer India

OKAMOTO, S. 1973. Introduction to Earthquake Engineering, New York. , Wiley.