What a Real Facts of Earthquakes 2012

The Earth is made up of several bocks an when any two of these blocks slip against one another, it results in an Earthquake. The point where Earthquake occurs is called the hypo center while the point on the surface of eh Earth is called epicenter. In this section we will discuss some other facts about Earthquakes.

• The study of Earthquakes is called seismology
• Earthquakes happen at zones of convergent, divergent and transform plate boundaries
• There are two types of waves released n a Earthquake, the surface waves and the body waves
• The different types of body waves allows the seismologists to find the epicenter
• By analyzing the Earthquake waves at three seismic stations, an Earthquake epicenter can be found.
• The point where the Earthquake began i.e. below the surface of the Earth is called the focus and the Earth surface directly above it is called the epicenter.
• We can explain the energy released during an Earthquake through the elastic rebound theory an Earthquake, the moment magnitude scale and the Richter magnitude scale is used.
• To measure the amount of energy released during an Earthquake the moment magnitude scale and the Richter magnitude scale is used.
• The vibration produced during an Earthquake is measured by an instrument called the seismograph
• Almost 80% of the Earthquake occur in the pacific ring of fire or the circum pacific belt
• The aftershocks of the Earthquake where the main Earth bock moves is felt as the main Earthquake
• Sometimes the aftershocks are more intense than the main Earthquake
• More than 150,000 Earth quakes are recorded each year but most of them are too small to be detected.

Some historical facts about Earthquake 

• • The largest recorded Earthquake in the world so far was of magnitude 9.5 and it happened on May 22^nd 1960 in Chilli.
  • The largest recorded Earthquake so far in the history happened in the United States of America on 24^th march 1964. The magnitude  recorded was of 9.2
  • A rare example of plate rift can be found in East African Rift System which is an active volcanic zone and is spread over an area of 50 to 60 Km. It is eastern Africa and extends in the north south direction for more than 3000km i.e. from Zambezi in the south to Ethiopia in the north. In this case a continental plate is splitting into two and both of the splits are moving from one another in the opposite direction.
  • Something similar like earthquakes happen in the interior of Antarctica which are called the ice quakes. They happen in smaller intensity but are more frequent than earthquakes. These ice quakes occur happen within the ice sheets and not on the land which is underneath the surface of the ice.
  • The deadliest earthquake happened in china more than 450 years back in the year 1556 and it happened in the area where people use to live in caves which were carved out of soft rock. When the earthquake happened these caves collapsed killing more than 830,000 people.