EARTHQUAKE

GENESIS
 Introduction
Ever since human beings first felt the earth shake, they
have had the desire to know why that happens and
developed, as a result, numerous explanations for it. For the
most part, however, these explanations have been based
on superstitious beliefs. For example, the ancient Japanese
believed that the islands of Japan rested on the back of a
giant catfish whose movements made the earth shake. The
Algonquin Indians of North America believed that a giant
tortoise supported the earth, which shook whenever the
tortoise shifted from one foot to another. For the ancient
Mexicans, the earth was a divine being with monster
features, generally with those of a reptile and a fish, which
caused earthquakes when it moved. In a similar fashion, a
frog has been the culprit in parts of Asia, a giant mole in
India, and an ox in China.
Earthquakes were also often interpreted as a form of
punishment from angry gods. In Greek mythology,
Poseidon, ruler of the sea, caused earthquakes when he
was angry. His counterpart in ancient Rome was Neptune,
who not only could instill fear into people with
earthquakes, but also could punish them with floods over
the land and waves onto the shore. Even eighteenth-
century European clergymen tended to view earthquakes
from a moralistic standpoint. In1752, a London journalist
wrote: “Earthquakes generally happen to great cities and
towns. The chastening rod is directed where there are
inhabitants, the objects of its monition, not to bare cliffs
and uninhabited beach.” After the famous Lisbon
earthquake of 1755, which caused a great loss of life from
a sequence of several shocks and a giant tsunami, a
clergyman in England chastised the people of Lisbon for
their lewdness and debauchery, whereas others blamed
the dreadful inquisition and noted that the Palace of the
Inquisition was one of the first buildings destroyed.
 An early attempt for a scientific
explanation was made by Aristotle,
who found an explanation for the
cause of earthquakes in the interior
of the earth. Aristotle theorized that
the winds of the atmosphere were
drawn into the caverns and
passageways in the interior of the
earth and that earthquakes and the
eruption of volcanoes were caused
by these winds as they were agitated
by fire and moved about trying to
Aristotle escape.
TYPES OF EARTHQUAKES

Tectonic Forces
Volcanic Activity
Conventional and nuclear explosions
The sliding or fall of a large soil or rock mass
A meteorite impact
The filling of reservoirs and wells
Tectonic Forces
- Most earthquakes are tectonic earthquakes, which happen when the
large, thin plates of the Earth's crust and upper mantle become stuck as they
move past one another. They lock together, and pressure builds up. When
they finally release, earthquakes occur. Tectonic earthquake is one that
occurs when the earth's crust breaks due to geological forces on rocks and
adjoining plates that cause physical and chemical changes.
Volcanic Activity
-Volcanic earthquake is any earthquake that results from tectonic forces which occur in
conjunction with volcanic activity.
Conventional and nuclear explosions
- It is an explosion earthquake that is the result of the detonation of
nuclear and/or chemical devices.
Tsunami Earthquake
-an earthquake that triggers a tsunami of a magnitude that is very much
larger than the magnitude of the earthquake as measured by shorter-period
seismic waves. A tsunami or tidal wave is a series of waves in a water body
caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an
ocean or a large lake
Meteorite Impact
-happen when rocks from space crash into Earth's surface. The rocks,
called meteorites, can vary greatly in size. A meteorite impact can leave
behind a crater, a large hollow area in the ground, that can still be seen
thousands, or sometimes millions, of years later.
The filling of reservoirs and wells
-Large new reservoirs can trigger earthquakes. This is due to either: change
in stress because of the weight of water, or more commonly by. increased
groundwater pore pressure decreasing the effective strength of the rock
under the reservoir.
EARTH STRUCTURE
 Earth Structure
Crust is the outermost layer of a planet. The crust of
the Earth is composed of a great variety of igneous,
metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks.
Upper Mantle begins just beneath the crust and ends
at the lower mantle.
Lower Mantle is the liquid inner layer of the earth
from 400 to 1,800 miles below the surface. The lower
mantle has temperatures over 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit
and pressures up to 1.3 million times that of the surface
near the outer core.
Outer Core is the second to last layer of the Earth. It is a
magma like liquid layer that surrounds the Inner Core and
creates Earth's magnetic field. The Outer Core is about
4000-5000 degrees Celsius.
Inner Core is the final layer of the Earth. It is a solid ball made of
metal. The Inner Core is about 5000-600degrees Celsius. It
melts all metal ores in the Outer Core causing it to turn into
liquid magma.
PLATE TECTONIC
THEORY
Plate Tectonic Theory
The theory of plate tectonics postulates that the earth’s crust is
fractured and thus divided into a small number of large and rigid
pieces, referred to as plates. The size of these plates varies from a few
hundred to many thousands of kilometers. Their location, as well as
their given names. The theory of plate tectonics also postulates that
these plates float on the semimolten asthenosphere and that they
move relative to one another. At some locations, these plates are
moving apart (diverge) and at others the plates are moving toward
each other (converge) or sliding past each other. Plate tectonics
theory also asserts that plate motion is responsible forthe long-term,
large-scale formation and changes occurring on the earth’s surface
and for most of the seismic and volcanic activity around the world. It
claims, further, that earthquakes take place near these plate
boundaries as a result of the stresses that build up in the earth’s crust
as the plates tend to move and interact with one another.
The theory of plate tectonics has evolved from the
theory of continental drift originally proposed by
the German scientist Alfred Wegener in 1915.
Wegener’s theory of continental drift proclaimed
that the earth’s surface was not static, but
dynamic, and that the oceans and continents are
in constant motion. He based his assertion on the
similarity between the coastlines, geology, and life
forms of eastern South America and western Africa,
and the southern part of India and northern part of
Australia. He believed that 200 million years ago the
earth had only one large continent that he called
Pangaea and that this large continent broke into
pieces that slowly drifted toward the current
position of the current continents.
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