Activity No.

1
Find the Center
Group Name:_________________ Grade and Section:_________________
Teacher:_____________________ Date: June 27,2017

Objective:
Locate the epicenter of an earthquake using the triangulation method.

Materials:
Hypothetical records of an earthquake waves
Philippine Map
Drawing compass

Procedure
1. Study the data showing the difference in the arrival time of P-waves and S-waves on
three seismic recording stations.

Recording Station Time difference in the arrival time of P-

wave and S-wave (seconds)
Batangas 44.8
Puerto Princesa 32
Davao 38.4

2. Compute the distance of the epicenter from each of the stations using this formula:

= 100
8
Where:

d= distance
Td= time difference in the arrival time of P-wave and S-wave (seconds)

This formula is situated because 8 seconds is the interval between the times of arrival of
P-wave and S-wave at a distance of 100km

3. Choose one of the recording stations and measure the computed distance on the map
scale (the scale of the map below is 1.5 cm:200km. Set your compass for that computed
distance.
4. Center your compass on the station you have chosen. Draw a circle
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the rest of the stations. You should get three circles that
intersect or nearly intersect at a point. This intersection is the epicenter
Data and Analysis

Recording Station Time difference in the Distance of epicenter Measurement for the
arrival time of P-wave from the station (km) compass
and S-wave (seconds)
Batangas 44.8
Puerto Princesa 32
Davao 38.4

Guide Question:

1. Where is the epicenter of this hypothetical earthquake?

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2. What difficulty will you encounter if you only have data from the two recording station?
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 In the previous activity, the hypothetical earthquake happened locally, that is why we use the
formula stated in the procedure. But if the earthquake took place at a far greater distance, seismologist
use the distance-time graph similar to the figure below in determining the location of the epicenter.

The distance-time graph above shows that the S-P intervals is about 10 minutes
Guide Question
3. What is the distance of the epicenter from the seismic station?
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4. What do you think is the importance of determining the epicenter of an earthquake?

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