Exam 5: Weathering and Soil

Which buildings fare the worst, close to the epicentre of large earthquakes?

The ________earthquake was accompanied by extensive fire damage.

Why are the travel- time curves for the P- wave and S- wave arrivals curved and not straight lines?

The deepest borehole ever drilled is _____km deep in Russia's Kola Peninsula.

What are the two fundamentally different types of seismic waves?

Approximately how much more energy is released in a 6.5 Richter magnitude earthquake than in one with magnitude 5.5?

Seismic gaps are _____________.

Note the length of rupture for Canada's largest historic earthquake of ML 8.1 on the Queen Charlotte Fault in Fig. 10.21. Assuming that total rupture area is proportional to quake magnitude and energy released, what is the maximum size quake (ML) that could occur if the entire length of the Queen Charlotte Fault were to rupture all at once?

________first recognized the seismic discontinuity between the inner and outer cores.

The _________magnitude scale, better for the largest earthquakes, is a measure of the energy released as judged from the displacement on the fault, its surface area and the rock's shear strength. It can also be calculated from very long period seismograms.

If the S- wave arrival time was 4 minutes later than the P- wave arrival time for a distant earthquake on the same seismogram, what was the distance from the seismic station to the epicentre?

The______ is used to record ground shaking and the earthquake- magnitude scale based on the largest seismic wave motion was invented by____________ .

The ____________earthquake was accompanied by major damage from tsunamis and ground failures.

The___________ magnitude scale is a measure of the energy released as judged from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave. It does not directly measure the extent of building damage.

Why was the Loma Prieta area, California heavily damaged in the 1989 quake?

When, and on what fault, was Canada's greatest earthquake, for which we have a seismic record?

What characterizes P-wave arrivals on the far side of the Earth at epicentral angles beyond 140°?

Along which path is the distance to the epicentre measured?

Which of the following best characterizes how the diameter of Earth's core and the nature of the outer core were discovered?

What instrumentation permits the "Tsunami Warning System" to assess the possibility of a tsunami and decide when to raise the coastal alert?