EARTQUAKE SEISMOLOGY

THEORIES OF EARTH FORMATION

WHAT CAUSES EARTHQUAKES?

Large strain energy released during an earthquake travels as seismic

waves in directions through the Earth’s layers, reflecting and
refracting at earth interface.
P-waves are the fastest, followed in sequence by S-waves, Love waves and
Raylegh waves.
For example, in granites, P- and S– waves have speeds ~4.8 km/sec and ~ 3.0
km/sec, respectively.
 SEISMIC WAVES
BODY WAVES

• P-WAVES, material particles

undergo extensional and
compressional strains along
direction of energy
transmission.
• S-WAVES, oscillate
perpendicular to the direction
of wave propagation. (do not
travel through liquids)
SEISMIC WAVES
SURFACE WAVES
• RAYLEIGH WAVE, makes a
material particle oscillate in an
elliptic path.

• LOVE WAVE, cause maximum

damage to structures by their
racking motion on the surface
in both vertical and horizontal
directions.
CLASSIFICATION OF EARTHQUAKES
 BASIC TERMINOLOGY FOR EARTHQUAKE
• FOCUS OF HYPOCENTER:
The point on the fault where
slip starts
• EPICENTER: The point Damaging
vertically above this on the earthquakes:
surface of the EARTH. focus < 70 km.
• EPICENTER DISTANCE:
Distance from epicenter to
any point of interest. • FOCAL DEPTH: The depth of focus
from the epicenter, is an important
• SHOCKS: A number of smaller size
parameter in determining the
earthquakes take place before and
damaging potential of an earthquake.
after a main shock or big earthquake.
EARTHQUAKE SEISMOLOGY
• EARTHQUAKE SEISMOLOGY is the best tool to study
the interior of the earth.
• When an earthquake or explosion occurs, part of the
energy released as elastic waves that are transmitted
through the earth.
• The waves are then detected and recorded by
seismograph, which measure, amplify and record the
motion of the ground
❑ EARTHQUAKE RECORDS
• The output of a seismic recording system
(seismograph), e.g. a paper or film record,
showing the seismic wiggle traces, usually for
a single shot spread.
• In refraction surveys, many shots into one
spread may be summed by a signal-
enhancement seismograph to produce a
single record.
• When records are processed they can be
placed side by side along a profile to form a
“seismic section”.
❑ SEISMOGRAPH
• A seismograph, or seismometer, is an
instrument used to detect and record
earthquakes.
• Generally, it consists of a mass attached to a
fixed base. During an earthquake, the base
moves and the mass does not. The motion of
the base with respect to the mass is
commonly transformed into electrical voltage.
The electrical voltage is recorded on paper,
magnetic tape, or another recording medium.
• This record is proportional to the motion of
the seismometer, mass relative to the earth,
but it can be mathematically converted to a
record of the absolute motion of the ground.
WATER AND MERCURY SEISMOMETER

• A few centuries later, devices using

water movement and later mercury
were developed in Italy.
• In 1855, Luigi Palmieri of Italy designed
a mercury seismometer. Palmieri’s
seismometer had U-shaped tubes filled
with mercury and arranged along the
compass points.
 SEISMOMETER
• Seismometer are held in a very solid position,
either on the bedrock or on a concrete base.
• A network of seismometers is used to calculate the
magnitude and source of an earthquake in three
dimensions.
• Seismographs are used to determine:
➢Magnitude: the size of the earthquake
➢Depth: how deep the earthquake was
➢Location: where the earthquake occurred
❑ ACCELEROGRAPH

• Accelerograph refers to an
instrument used for recording
acceleration of the ground during
an earthquake. It is used to
monitor structures for earthquake
response.
 ❑ SEISMOSCOPE
• It was develop and invented by Zhang
Heng. He was an inventor, astronomer,
engineer, scientist, scholar and artist.
His most intriguing design, created
almost 2000 years ago was the design
of the first earthquake sensing device
invented.
• Is an instrument named “Houfung
didong yi” or the dragon jar that could
remotely detect earthquakes hundreds
of kilometers away. Known as
Seismoscope, this inertia sensing
instrument was the very beginning for
the science’s in the field of seismology.
❑ EARTHWORK NETWORK

• Earthquake Network is a research

project started in January 2013
which develop a crowdsourced
Earthquake Early Warning System
based on networks of
smartphones. As of today, more
than 4 million people took part in
the Earthquake Network project
and the network has sent more
than 1’000 early warnings.
MAGNITUDE AND INTENSITY
• Magnitude: is a quantitative measure of the actual size of
the earthquake. This means that the magnitude of the
earthquake is a single value for a given earthquake.
• Intensity is an indicator of the severity of shaking generated
at a given location. Clearly, the severity of shaking is much
higher near the epicenter than further away.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!