Earthquakes

and
Seismic Waves

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 Where Do Earthquakes Happen?
 Most earthquakes happen at the Edges of
plates, where plates meet
● About 80 percent of all earthquakes
Anne J.
happen along the edge of the Pacific
Plate
● The violent shaking and destruction
caused by Earthquakes are the result of
the rupture and slippage along fractures
of Earth’s crust called FAULT.

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 Three Kinds of Faults…
● Normal Fault
○ Produced at divergent
boundaries
○ Rocks above the fault

surface move down

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 Three Kinds of Faults…
● Reverse Fault

○ Produced at convergent

boundaries
○ Rocks above the fault

move upward

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 Three Kinds of Faults…
● Strike Slip Fault
○ Produced at transform
boundaries
○ Rocks slide past each
other in
different directions

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 SEISMOLOGY…
Is the study of Earthquakes and
Seismic waves that move through
and around the Earth.

SEISMOLOGIST…
Is a scientist who studies
earthquakes and seismic waves.

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 How Earthquakes Start..?
Focus…
 The point where the earthquake
starts, where rocks begin to slide
past each other
 The sudden movement causes
vibrations to spread out from the
focus
These vibrations travel through the
crust in the form of waves.

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 Epicenter…..
 The point on the Earth’s
surface directly above
the focus of an
earthquake
 People can first feel the
ground shaking at the
epicenter

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 Seismic Waves….
○ A vibration that spreads out
away from a focus when an
earthquake starts
○ Seismic waves are generated by
the release of energy during an
earthquake. They travel
through the earth like waves
travel through water.

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 Two types of Seismic Waves…
Two types of seismic waves are generated at the
earthquake focus:

Body waves -A body wave is a seismic wave

that moves through the interior of the earth.

Surface waves -is a seismic seismic wave that is

trapped near the surface of the earth. These
waves move slower than body waves.

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 There are two types of Body Waves:
Primary Wave (P wave): Compressional
wave (travels in the same direction the
waves move).
Example: A slinky
 Push-pull (compress and expand) motion,
changing the volume of the intervening
material
 Can pass through a fluid (gas or liquid)
 Arrives at recording station first

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 There are two types of Body Waves:
Secondary Wave (S wave): Transverse
wave (travels perpendicular to the
wave movement).
Example: Shaking a rope.
• This motion in rocks creates seismic
waves that move in a
perpendicular direction from the
vibration
• Caused by a shearing motion
• Cannot pass through a fluid (gas or
liquid) Travel only through solids

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 There are two types of Surface Waves:

Love Wave: Named after the

British seismologist
A.E.H. Love, in 1911.
 Fastest surface wave
 Moves the ground from side
to side
 Produce entirely horizontal
motion

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 There are two types of Surface Waves:
Rayleigh Wave: Named by
John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh,
in 1885.
 Wave rolls along the ground just
like a wave across a lake or an
ocean
 It moves the ground up and
down and side to side
 Most of the shaking felt from an
earthquake due to Rayleigh
wave

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 Aftershocks….
● After the first shaking, it may
be quiet, and then there are
aftershocks
● This is the shaking of the
Earth’s crust after the initial
shaking of an earthquake

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 Tsunamis…
● If the focus of the earthquake is
beneath the sea floor, the seismic
waves can travel through the
ocean, producing huge ocean
waves called tsunamis.

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 Seismograph….
○ Scientists study and identify
waves using a seismograph

○ A sensitive device that detects

the shaking of the Earth’s crust
during an earthquake

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 Seismogram…

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 Measuring the size of
Earthquakes
● Two measurements that describe the size of an earthquake are :

■ Intensity –Intensity measures the strength of

shaking produced by the earthquake at a certain
location.
■ Magnitude – estimates the amount of energy
released at the source of the earthquake

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 THANK YOU..

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