Earthquake | Definition, Causes, Effects, & Facts | Britannica
2024年12月21日 · Earthquake, any sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves through Earth’s rocks. Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults, narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another.
The Science of Earthquakes | U.S. Geological Survey - USGS.gov
An earthquake is what happens when two blocks of the earth suddenly slip past one another. The surface where they slip is called the fault or fault plane. The location below the earth’s surface where the earthquake starts is called the hypocenter, and the location directly above it on the surface of the earth is called the epicenter.
Earthquakes: Definitions, Causes, Effect, Measurement - Geology …
2023年11月28日 · Earthquakes are natural geological phenomena that occur when there is a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s crust, resulting in seismic waves. These waves cause the ground to shake, often leading to the displacement of the Earth’s surface.
Earthquake - Wikipedia
In its most general sense, an earthquake is any seismic event—whether natural or caused by humans—that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by the rupture of geological faults but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts, fracking and nuclear tests.
Earthquake Geology and Paleoseismology Overview
2022年12月28日 · We use a mix of techniques from paleoseismology (excavating trenches), describing and dating sedimentary layers affected by earthquakes, mapping and dating landforms offset by earthquakes, and measuring past and current motion of active faults using alignment arrays, global positioning systems (GPS), and airborne, terrestrial and mobile laser ...
What is an Earthquake? - Geology Page
2017年10月23日 · An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earth’s lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to toss people around and destroy whole cities.
Faults, Earthquake Geology, and Special Earthquake Studies
The goals of USGS earthquake geology and paleoseismology research are 1) to make primary observations and develop ideas to improve our understanding of the geologic expression of active faulting, and 2) to acquire data that will improve the National Seismic Hazard Model.
Earthquake geology: Methods and applications - ScienceDirect
2008年6月16日 · The major advantages of Earthquake Geology is to examine a larger time window than instrumental, historical and archaeoseismological studies can do. Not secondarily, Earthquake Geology is also capable of detecting and examining the cumulative effects of earthquakes occurred in an area over very long periods.
Causes of earthquake | Britannica
earthquake, Sudden shaking of the ground caused by a disturbance deeper within the crust of the Earth. Most earthquakes occur when masses of rock straining against one another along fault lines suddenly fracture and slip. The Earth’s major earthquakes occur mainly in belts coinciding with the margins of tectonic plates.
Earthquake - Tectonics, Seismology, Faults | Britannica
2024年12月21日 · Earthquake - Tectonics, Seismology, Faults: Tectonic earthquakes are explained by the so-called elastic rebound theory, formulated by the American geologist Harry Fielding Reid after the San Andreas Fault ruptured in …