Earthquakes
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| http://journalweek.com/pacific-ring-of-fire/ |
Earthquakes are extremely destructive. They happen by the thousand every single day! About 80% of the world’s earthquakes happen in the ‘Ring of Fire’ which is located in the pacific ocean. The main places where earthquakes occur are: South America, North America, Japan, Australia, Africa, Philippines, India, Caribbean and Haiti and this is mainly because of where they are situated and what plate boundaries are around them. Most earthquakes happen at faults that occur around the earths crusts. It happens mostly in destructive and conservative/passive plate boundaries around the earth’s crust.
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| http://ih-igcse-geography.wikispaces. com/3.3+Characteristics,+distribution +and+causes+of+tectonic+events |
The impacts from this are not visible on the surface on the earth but there is an immense amount of pressure that build up underneath the surface. Eventually when the pressure becomes too much the plate slips and the pressure is released when this pressure is released quickly it sends a vibration through the earth’s surface theses are called seismic waves. Scientists then made a scale which they could use to measure theses seismic waves based on strength and duration. It is called a seismograph. An earthquake measuring from 3-5 is considered as a minor one, 5-7 is strong, 7-8 is major and above 8 is great. On average an earthquake that is higher than 8 on the scale happens somewhere every year and on average about 100,000 people die. Most deaths happen from collapsing buildings and people being crushed or trapped but the destruction is from things such as mud slides, fires, floods or tsunamis but that’s all for another day! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about how and where earthquakes occur.
Sara
Sara
