Supplementary Note #5.

5A
Geography
Secondary 2 Name: _________________
Date: _________________ Class: _________ ( )

1. What are the effects of earthquakes? (P.58-61)

An earthquake may cause great damage. The damage can be described as primary
damage and secondary damage.

Primary Damage: Its immediate damage caused by earthquakes. For example: Collapse of
buildings and people killed and injured.

Secondary Damage: Its damage after the effects of earthquakes. For example: Collapse of
dam may cause flooding, trigger landslides, and may also lead to tsunamis.

Further explanations
Secondary damage
1. Collapse of dam may cause flooding:
Collapse of dams after shaking may result in a sudden and drastic increase in the
volume of water in the river. It may overflow from the channel and cause flooding.

2. Earthquakes may trigger landslides:

Earthquakes loosen slope materials and therefore reduce shear strength. The slope will
collapse easily under the pull of gravity, leading to landslides.

3. Earthquakes under the sea may lead to tsunamis:

Earthquakes under the sea cause displacement of rocks on the seabed. The seabed is
lifted up and water is displaced and appears as a bulge on the sea surface, forming a
tsunami.

What are tsunamis? (Page 60)

- The focus of the earthquake which triggered the South Asian Tsunami was at a depth of
30 kilometers under the Indian Ocean.
- The absence of an early warning for evacuation (疏散) was the major cause of the high
death toll. The tsunami swept ships and boats, flooded low-lying areas, drowned
thousands of local people and tourists on its way. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand
were the worst hit.

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2. Why do earthquakes happen? (P.62-64)

What is the structure of the earth?

- The crust that constitutes the land is continental crust, while the one that forms the sea
floor is oceanic crust.

Why does the earth’s crust move?

There are 3 types of plate boundaries according to plate movements.:

(1) Constructive plate boundary (divergent or spreading):

a boundary at which 2 plates move apart from each other.

(2) Destructive plate boundary (convergent or subduction):

a boundary at which 2 plates move towards each other.

(3) Conservative pate boundary (transform or lateral sliding):

a boundary at which 2 plates move past each other.

How does plate movement cause earthquakes?

An earthquake (also known as a quake or tremor) is the vibration in the crust. When the
rock layers are torn apart by tension or are pressed, energy will be accumulated inside the
rocks. When it reaches a critical level, a large amount of energy will eb released within a
short moment in the form of waves, forming seismic waves (shock waves). These waves
can shake the earth’s surface and cause widespread damage.

- Focus is the point where energy is released and earthquake waves are generated.
Epicenter is the point on the earth’s surface directly above the focus.

- Richter scale was devised by the well-known seismologist, Charles F. Richter, in 1935.
The scale is commonly used to represent the quantity of energy released by a single
earthquake. It is a logarithmic scale. For example, the difference in energy between scale
no. 1 and no. 2 is 10 times, and nthat between scale no. 1 and no. 3 is 100 times.

3. Why do earthquakes happen? (P.65-67)

There are 3 major-earthquake zones (locations are marked in Figure 10 on page 65):
1. The Mid-Atlantic zone
2. The Circum-Pacific belt
3. The Mediterranean belt