Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Geology
Second Draft with Art and Photos
September 2006
CHAPTER
12 Earthquakes and
Earths Interior
EARTHQUAKES CAN BE DEADLY. Ground shaking during an earthquake can topple buildings, liquefy
normally solid ground, and unleash massive ocean waves that totally wipe out coastal cities. A single
earthquakes can kill more than 100,000 people. What causes earthquakes, and how do we study them? In
this chapter, we explore the important questions about earthquakes and the interior of the Earth.
The worlds strongest earthquake in 40
years struck Indonesia on December 26,
2004. The earthquake occurred beneath
the ocean, pushing up a large region of
sea oor and displacing sea water as a
massive wave, called a tsunami. The tsunami spread outward across the Indian
Ocean as a low wave, traveling at speeds
approaching 800 km/hour (500 miles/
hour)! The curved lines show the waves
position by hour.
What causes earthquakes, and what happens when an earthquake occurs under
the sea as opposed to on land?
Where are earthquakes most likely to occur, and what controls how powerful an
earthquake will be?
12.11
12.2
12.3
12.12
12.4
What Is an Earthquake?
12.13
12.5
12.6
12.15
12.7
12.16
12.8
12.17
12.9
The destructive power of the tsunami is clear from this photograph
of Banda Aceh, the regional capitol
of Sumatras northernmost province.
This city of 320,000 people was
reduced to rubble, and nearly a third
of its inhabitants were killed or are
missing. The tsunami inicted damage to low-lying coastlines around
the Indian Ocean, including as far
away as Somalia, along the eastern
coast of Africa.
The satellite images below show Banda Aceh, before and after the tsunami
came ashore. The buildings and vegetation on the before image (left) were
stripped bare by the initial inward rush of the waters onto the land and the subsequent retreat of the deluge back to the sea. A slightly higher area to the north
was largely untouched, retaining its forest.
What controls which areas along a coast are most at risk to a tsunami?
12.14
12.0
12.1
What Is an Earthquake?
AN EARTHQUAKE OCCURS WHEN ENERGY stored in rocks is suddenly released. Most earthquakes
are produced by slippage along faults. Similar kinds of energy releases are caused by volcanic eruptions,
explosions, and even meteorite impacts. Earthquakes are denite hazard for those living in earthquakeprone areas, but the energy generated by earthquakes is invaluable for studying the Earths interior.
Normal Faults
Strike-Slip Faults
The worlds largest earthquakes are generated along thrust faults, which are gently dipping varieties of reverse faults. In
thrust and reverse faults, the hanging wall
moves up with respect to the footwall.
Such faults are formed by compressional
stresses, such as are associated with subduction zones and continental collisions.
Meteorite Impacts
Explosions
Mine blasts and nuclear explosions compress Earths surface, producing a seismic
wave with enough energy to be measured
on seismic instruments far away. Monitoring compliance with nuclear test-ban
treaties is done in part using a worldwide
array of seismic instruments, which recorded a nuclear bomb exploded by India in
1998. Recorded seismic waves of a blast
are distinct from a natural earthquake.
12.1
12.2
Pre-Slip
An active strike-slip fault is not obvious on
the surface, but has been offsetting a stream
bed for thousands of years, causing it to
bend to the left. The last fault movement
occurred before people settled in the area.
The straight section of the stream seemed
a perfect place to put a wooden bridge to
provide a crossing for a road.
Post-Slip
After the earthquake, the stress begins to
slowly build up again along the fault. A new
steel bridge is installed over the stream and
the road is realigned, at least until the next
earthquake.
12.2
12.3
Observe this map to note how earthquakes are distributed, and how this distribution compares to other features,
such as edges of continents, mid-ocean ridges, sites of
subduction, continental collisions, etc.
Deep- and intermediate-depth earthquakes occur only near subduction zones, where
there is a consistent pattern from shallow earthquakes close to the trench to progressively
deeper earthquakes away from the trench. This pattern follows, and helps dene, the
depths of the subducted slab, which is inclined from the shallow to deep earthquakes.
3. Large earthquakes
at subduction zones
happen all along the
contact between the
subducting plate and
the overridding plate.
Huge thrust faults, called
megathrusts, form here
from compression.
4. As it is subducted into the mantle, the oceanic plate continues to produce earthquakes from shearing along the boundary and downward-pulling forces on the sinking
slab. Subduction zones are typically the only place in the world producing earthquakes
deeper than 70 km. Below 700 km, the plate is too hot to behave brittlely and fault.
7. In a side view, subduction-related earthquakes are shallower to the west (near the
trench) and get deeper to the east, recording the descent of the oceanic plate.
12.3
2. Continental rifts
mostly cause normalfault earthquakes,
whether the rift is a plate boundary or is
within a continental plate. Such earthquakes are typically moderate in size.
Pre-existing faults
in the crust can readjust and move
as the continental
plate ages and is
subjected to new
stresses. These
structures can
produce large earthquakes, such as those
in Missouri in 1811.
12.4
Shape of Waves
Surface Waves
4. When body waves generated during an earthquake reach Earths surface, some
energy is transformed into new waves that only travel on the surface, that is, surface
waves. People naturally can relate more easily to things on the surface of the Earth, than
within it, so we begin with surface waves, of which there are two kinds.
2. This diagram (seismogram) shows the record of an earthquake as recorded by a seismometer. It plots vibrations versus time. On seismographs, time is marked at regular
intervals so that the arrival of the rst P- and S-wave can be determined.
3. Background noise commonly looks like small,
somewhat random squiggles on seismograms.
4. After an earthquake,
P-waves arrive rst,
marked by the larger
squiggles recording the ground
motion and the
time of its arrival
(2.5 minutes in this case).
5. The S-wave arrives later and is recorded on the seismograph. The delay between the P-wave and S-wave
arrivals depends mostly on how far away the earthquake
occurred. The longer the distance, the longer the delay.
12.4
12.5
Station
Distance (km)
WUAZ
670
DUG
540
ISCO
65
Measuring Amplitude
Magnitude
This graph called a nomograph
represents the mathematical
relationship between distance,
magnitude, and S-wave amplitude.
The maximum
height (amplitude) of
the S- wave is
measured on the
seismogram and
is proportional
to the earthquake energy.
This measure is
used for shallow
earthquakes.
III. Quake felt quite noticeably by persons indoors, especially on upper oors of buildings.
V. Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. Some
dishes, windows broken. Unstable objects overturned.
VI. Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture
moved; some plaster cracks and falls. Damage slight.
X. Some well-built wooden structures destroyed;
most masonry and frame structures destroyed with
foundations. Rails bent.
XI. Few, if any masonry structures remain standing. Bridges
destroyed. Rails bent greatly. Much destruction.
Energy of Earthquakes
12.5
12.6
8. Fractured materials
along fault scarps are prone
to landslides, especially if
faulting displaces the one side
of the fault up relative to the
other side, as occurred here.
Structures built too close to
the scarp may be damaged by
ground ruptures and overrun
by landslides. The building in
the photograph below was
damaged by ground rupturing.
7. In areas
underlain by
water-saturated,
unconsolidated sediment,
ground shaking causes the grains
to lose grain-to-grain contact. When this
happens, the material loses most its strength
and begins to ow, a process called liquefaction.
The building below collapsed due to liquefaction.
5. A tsunami is a
giant ocean wave
that can rapidly travel
across oceans. An earthquake that occurs beneath
sea level or along coastal
areas can generate a tsunami,
which can cause damage thousands of kilometers away on the
other side of the ocean.
6. Aftershocks are earthquakes that
occur after the main earthquake, but in
the same area; they are generally smaller
than the main shock. Aftershocks occur
because the main earthquake changes
the stresses around the epicenter, and the
crust adjusts to these changes by more
faulting. Aftershocks are very dangerous because they can collapse structures
already damaged by the main shock.
Aftershocks after a tsunami can cause
widespread panic among people.
Fire is one of the main causes of destruction after an earthquake. Natural gas lines
may rupture, causing explosions and res.
The problem is compounded if water lines
also break during the earthquake, limiting
the amount of water that is available to
extinguish res. [Northridge, California]
PHO T O OF SU B SI DENCE
PHO T O OF
F L OODI NG
Flooding may occur due to failure of human-made dams as a result of ground rupturing, subsidence, or liquefaction. Near
Los Angeles in 1971, 80,000 people were
evacuated because of earthquake damage
to a nearby dam. The dam was later rebuilt
using earthquake-proof technology.
PHO T O OF BU I L DI NG
ENGI N EER I NG
PHO T O OF R E A L -T I M E
E A RT HQUA K E WA R N I NG
SYST E M
12.6
12.7
Northridge, 1994
This magnitude Mw 6.7 earthquake was generated by a thrust
fault beneath Los Angeles. The quake killed 57 people and
caused $20 billion in damage.
A section of the Interstate-10 freeway
buckled, crushing the steel-reinforced
concrete slabs.
The thrust is not exposed on the surface but when it ruptured it lifted up a
large section of land, as shown by the
color-fringed area on this radar-produced image.
This magnitude Ml 8.0 occurred on an underlying subduction zone to the west and
killed at last 9,500 people. It damaged or
destroyed many buildings in Mexico City,
including this collapsed 21-story apartment building.
Highway 57
was instantly
impassable
as fractures
caused by
slope failure
sliced apart
the road bed.
Charleston, 1886
This quake accounts for the
other high-risk area along
the East Coast. It had an
estimated magnitude Ml of
7.3, the largest ever recorded in the Southeast. Buildings received some damage, and 125 people died.
The tectonic reasons for
this quake are still debated
among geologists.
12.7
12.8
Nicaragua, 1972
On December 23, 1972, a magnitude
(Mw) 6.2 earthquake killed about 6,000
people in central America.
<-- In the capital city of Managua, structures
made of wood
and adobe
were leveled,
while fractures
opened in the
street.
Chile, 1960
This huge, magnitude (Mw) 9.5 earthquake
occurred offshore along a megathrust and
triggered a destructive, Pacic-wide tsunami.
At least 3,000 people died and $550 million
in damages was done to infrastructure and
buildings, such as in the city of Vadivia, Chile.
Lisbon, 1755
Armenia, 1988
Turkey, 1999
Year
1556
1,857
1908
1920
1923
1927
1934
1939
1960
1970
1976
2003
Location
Shaanxi, China
Naples, Italy
Messina, Italy
Ninxia, China
Kanto, Japan
Tsinghai, China
Bihar, India
Erzincan, Turkey
Agadir, Morocco
Columbia
Guatemala
Iran
12.8
12.9
4. A tsunami can
wash many kilometers inland, carrying rocks, sand, and large
chunks of coral. Once stranded
on shore, these deposits may be the
only evidence of ancient tsunami activity.
In Chile, the tsunami waves struck 15 minutes after the earthquake. On Isla Chiloe,
a 10-meter-tall wave swept over towns.
The waves killed at least 2,000 people
along the Peru-Chilean coast.
In 1993, a
magnitude 7.8
earthquake occurred off the
west coast of
Hokkaido and
within ve minutes a tsunami
smashed the
coastline. The
tsunami killed at
least one hundred people and caused $600 million in
property loss. This boat ended up on the landward side
of a protective concrete barrier
In 1998 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake generated three tsunami waves that destroyed villages along the countrys north
coast, killing 2,200 people. The
maximum wave height at the
village of Arop was estimated
at 10 m above the land. Before
the tsunamis, several hundred
houses would have been visible in this photograph.
The tsunami waves excavated a new lagoon behind the old shoreline,
depositing and layer of sand and mud 650 m inland. This layer covered vegetation and dwellings destroyed during the tsunami.
12.9
The tsunami rolled over Hilo, Hawaii damaging many buildings and causing $23
million in damage. Seven hours later, the
tsunami killed 140 in Japan.
12.10
Field Studies
Shallow trenches dug across the fault provide exposures of what is just below the surface. Most trenches are
dug several meters deep to allow geologists to examine the
fault zone for clues about its earthquake history. In the trench
above, orange markers show locations of critical evidence that will
help constrain the history of earthquakes on this section of fault.
12.10
4. From these
careful studies,
the geologists
determined that a
major earthquake
occurs along this
fault about every
200-300 years,
and that previous events were
about the same
size as the 1999
event. So such
earthquakes may
be characteristic
of this fault.
12.11
In the western
U.S., the Basin
and Range Province is pulled by extensional stresses in the crust,
creating many normal faults that are still active.
Especially dangerous is the intermountain seismic
belt, from Utah through the Yellowstone region.
Seismic hazard in
Hawaii is higher
to the southeast,
toward the most
active volcanism.
3. In 1989, a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the Loma Prieta gap. This earthquake and
its aftershocks, shown in the lower section, lled in this gap. The Parkeld gap was lled
by an earthquake in 2004. When will an earthquake ll the San Francisco gap?
PHO T O OF L A SER
MON I T OR I NG
12.11
12.12
PHO T O OF SF EQ
DE ST RUCT ION
PHO T O OF
L OM A PR I ETA EQ
DE ST RUCT ION
South of the creeping segment is the Parkeld segment, a short part of the segment
colored orange. The is characterized by moderate sized earthquakes that occur, on the
average, every couple of decades. The Parkeld segment receives special scrutiny from
geologists and seismologists because its pattern of fairly frequent earthquakes provides
an opportunity to study the behavior of a fault before, during, and after an earthquake.
The San Andreas continues to the southeast through a locked segment of the fault, the entire segment
shown in orange, that last ruptured during the great Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857. This earthquake ruptured
300 km of the fault, from Parkeld all the way to east of Los Angeles. The earthquake was approximately a magnitude 8 quake, but damage was limited because the area was much less populated than it is now. This earthquake is considered by many geologists to be the model for the big one along the San Andreas.
12.12
12.13
PHO T O OF CRUSTA L
I NCLUSIONS
PHO T O F ROM
DEEP M I N E
IN
S OU T H
A F R ICA
4. Mines provide
a more detailed
view of what is
below the surface
because the tunnels
provide continuous exposures
of rocks and structures. Some mines
in South Africa are deeper than 5 km,
as shown in the photo to the left.
5. The geometry of rock units and geologic structures can be explored by sending seismic energy
(sound waves) into the ground and measuring how the waves are reected back to the surface off boundaries between rock types. This is accomplished by using large trucks that shake the ground in a controlled manner, as shown here. The sound waves bounce off rock layers, faults, and other rock boundaries and then are recorded using seismic receivers, called geophones (shown on the next page), that are buried or stuck into the ground.
6. Seismic-reection data, when
processed using sophisticated
computer programs, are plotted
in cross section as a series of lines.
These lines indicate the geometry
of the units, but do not indicate
what rocks are actually present.
7. The geometry of reections, as
expressed on the seismic prole, is
integrated with information about
the areas rock sequence and
structures to construct a geologic
cross-section that represents an
interpretation of the subsurface.
12. A curving
magnetic low,
represented by
the darker blue
colors, coincides
with a buried
stream channel
that forms a band
of gray soil beneath the feet of
the two teams of
geophysicists.
13. The strength of gravity varies slightly from one place to another on the Earths
surface. This is because some rocks, such as basalt, are more dense and cause a
stronger pull of gravity than less dense materials, such as sediments. The variations in gravity can be measured using sensitive gravity meters.
14. In this area, the team of geophysicists measured gravity across the buried stream channel.
These data, when plotted on a prole relative to
the average value of gravity for the area, show a
gravity low caused by unconsolidated sediments
within the buried channel.
15. From the gravity prole, computer programs can model possible congurations of
density that are consistent with the data.
12.13
PHO T O OF T E A M
DOI NG EL ECT R ICA L
SU RV EY I NG
12.14
How Do Seismic Waves Travel Through the Earths Crust and Mantle?
2. In the gures below, an earthquake sends seismic waves into the crust and mantle.
Both waves are refracted back upward toward the surface. Waves in the mantle travel
faster than those in the crust, resulting in an interesting, and useful, phenomenon.
The Moho
12.14
12.15
PHO T O OF SU R FACE
E X P O SU R E S
PHO T O OF
L A B E X PER I M EN T S
PHO T O OF
COM PU T ER SCR EEN
AND
N U M ER ICA L MODE L
Seismic Observations
Seismic Interpretation
12.15
12.16
12.16
2. The detailed
map was used
to identify
broad zones of
subsidence and
uplift, which together affected
an area of over
250,000 km2
(100,000 mi2)!
The large size
of the area affected reects
the huge area
of the fault
surface that
ruptured.
12.17
Use the seismograms to determine which feature is likely to have caused the earthquake
Use your understanding of possible hazards from earthquakes to determine what dangers an earthquake and all its manifestations
might pose for each small town in the area
Decide which town you think is the safest from earthquake-related hazards and justify your decision with supporting evidence
Procedures
The area has a number of small towns and
three seismometers, each named after the
town in which it is near. Seismograms recorded
at each seismic station during a recent earthquake are shown at the top of the next page.
Use the available information to complete the
following steps, entering your answers in the
appropriate places on the worksheet.
Beneath the
ocean, there is
a deep trench
along the edge
of the continent.
Ocean drilling
encountered fault
slices of oceanic
sediments.
1. Observe the features shown on the threedimensional perspective. Read the text boxes
associated with each location and think
about what each statement implies about the
signicance of that setting with regards to
earthquake hazards.
2. Inspect the seismograms for the three seismic
stations to determine where in the area the
earthquake likely occurred. You can get an idea
just from comparing the time intervals between the
arrival of P-waves and S-waves for each station.
3. Your instructor may have you to use the graph next to
the seismograms to determine the distance from each
station to the epicenter and to more precisely locate the
epicenter. Detailed instructions for this procedure are listed in
topic 12.5 earlier in this chapter.
4. From the general location of the earthquake, infer which geologic
feature likely caused the earthquake.
5. Use the information about the topographic and geologic features
of the landscape to interpret what types of hazards that recent
earthquake posed for each small town. From these considerations,
decide which three towns are the least safe and which two are the
safest with regards to earthquakes. There is not necessarily one
right answer, so explain and justify your logic on the worksheet.
Seismograms
These seismograms,
for the three seismic
stations, represent
the same time period,
from just before the
earthquake to 1.5 seconds after it. The rst
arrivals of P-waves and
S-waves are labeled for
each graph, along with
the P-S delay times.
One picturesque
town, called Hillside, lies inland of
some small mountains. The town is
build on a at clearing, anked by hills
with fairly gentle
slopes.
A seismograph
station, shown by a
triangle symbol, lies
just to the east of
the town and so is
named the Hillside
Seismic Station.
12.17