The primary effects of earthquakes are ground shaking, ground rupture, landslides, tsunamis, and liquefaction. Fires are probably the single most important secondary effect of earthquakes.

The danger of living near fault lines Living near fault lines is inherently dangerous but difficult to avoid. The dangers people face include not only tremors but also other threats: Widespread smoke and ash can pollute the air and block out the sun for miles in every direction.

Earthquake hazard is anything associated with an earthquake that may affect the normal activities of people. This includes surface faulting, ground shaking, landslide, liquefaction, tectonic deformation, tsunamis, and seiches.

An average of 3.5 million people are affected by earthquakes every year. Earthquakes usually cause severe damage to urban centres, resulting in the loss of life and damage to homes and other infrastructure. Earthquakes sometimes trigger tsunamis, landslides and occasionally volcanic activity.

The destructive effects of earthquakes are from landslides, tsunamis, fires, and fault rupture. The violent shaking of the ground produces the greatest property losses and personal injuries.

Surface waves

A powerful earthquake can cause landslides, tsunamis, flooding, and other catastrophic events. Most damage and deaths happen in populated areas. That’s because the shaking can cause windows to break, structures to collapse, fire, and other dangers. Geologists cannot predict earthquakes.

The energy takes the form of motion that spreads out in all directions from the break, causing the ground to shake and move. This sudden release of energy and movement is what makes an earthquake so destructive.

Scientists finally know how big earthquakes start: With many smaller ones. Faults likely weaken or change before a large earthquake, new research has found. The vast majority of earthquakes we feel come soon after smaller ones, according to new research that provides unprecedented insights into how seismology works.

Volcanoes are usually less dangerous than other natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes.

An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault. When the stress on the edge overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the earth’s crust and cause the shaking that we feel. In California there are two plates – the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.

Earthquakes can cause immense damage to buildings and infrastructure, trigger tsunamis, and reshape the Earth’s surface with their force.

Earth’s crust, called the lithosphere, consists of 15 to 20 moving tectonic plates. The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.

These plates are constantly moving (albeit very slowly) at rates up to four inches per year (10 cm/yr) although most rates of travel are considerably less. Also, the rate of travel varies at different locations within each plate.

Plates occasionally collide and fuse, or they can break apart to form new ones. When the latter plates break apart, a plume of hot rock can rise from deep within the Earth’s interior, which can cause massive volcanic activity on the surface.

No, California is not going to fall into the ocean. California is firmly planted on the top of the earth’s crust in a location where it spans two tectonic plates. There is nowhere for California to fall, however, Los Angeles and San Francisco will one day be adjacent to one another!

They can occur underwater or on land, and crust is neither destroyed nor created. Because of friction, the plates cannot simply glide past each other.

No, earthquakes of magnitude 10 or larger cannot happen. The magnitude of an earthquake is related to the length of the fault on which it occurs. The largest earthquake ever recorded was a magnitude 9.5 on May 22, 1960 in Chile on a fault that is almost 1,000 miles long…a “megaquake” in its own right.

Valdivia Earthquake

Stay Safe During an Earthquake

• DROP down onto your hands and knees before the earthquake knocks you down.
• COVER your head and neck (and your entire body if possible) underneath a sturdy table or desk.
• HOLD ON to your shelter (or to your head and neck) until the shaking stops.