Exam 7: Earthquakes and the Earths Structure

An area with granite bedrock would be highly prone to liquefaction during a major earthquake.

Explain how plate boundaries from the Precambrian Eon have impacted the New Madrid fault zone today.

If a large earthquake with a shallow focus occurred in a region like Haiti that has loose sediments and limited bedrock, the man-made structures created with brick and mortar and concrete that is not reinforced would be a high risk for building failure.

Seismologists have found evidence that all of the 30 strongest earthquakes recorded since 1900 have occurred at transform plate boundaries where the impact of colliding plates causes fracturing and faulting of rocks.

If you were examining Richter Scale readings from earthquakes at mid-oceanic ridges, you would expect their focus to be deeper and stronger than earthquakes that form at convergent plate.

As a geologist, you would predict what natural disaster to occur as a consequence of earthquakes in hilly areas where liquefaction happened?

A geologist would identify _____________ as the cause of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.

Explain how a big earthquake on the Richter scale could cause limited damage on the Earth's surface.

Slippage at the New Madrid fault zone caused the 1906 San Francisco earthquake because the fault zones are connected allowing for fracturing to occur.

Long-term predictions of when earthquakes will occur are fairly accurate because seismologists have ample seismograph data that indicate specific increments of time between large earthquakes.

Where two tectonic plates move past one another, rock near the plate boundary can stretch or compress elastically for decades, and then fracture suddenly and create an earthquake.

The boundary between the crust and the mantle is known as the ____________________ and the speed of P and S waves increase in this region indicating that a composition change occurs inside the Earth.

Discuss which type of seismic wave causes more damage to human structures and the surface.

Earthquakes are motion or trembling of Earth caused by the abrupt release of ____________ stored in rock?

Explain why shallow earthquakes occur at mid-oceanic ridges and deeper earthquakes occur at subduction zones.

Explain why the Mexico City earthquake of 1985 destroyed much of that city but caused very little damage in Acapulco which was closer to the epicenter.

____________________ are small earthquakes that precede a large quake by an interval ranging from a few seconds to a few weeks but are not good predictors of earthquakes because they do not occur in all earthquake events.

Geologists use a travel-time curve to calculate the distance between the earthquake epicenter and the earthquake focus.

Explain how earthquake mortality is linked to the economic status of a region.

S, or shear, waves ____.