Bryce's Earthquake Predictions

My Earthquake Predictions

By Bryce Owens

What have you learned about earthquakes and earthquake prediction?This project has taught me a lot about how

earthquakes occur and also how to predict them. Before I started this, I just thought that earthquakes occurred randomly. Now, I know how earthquakes work and also when they might occur. I also learned that places will usually have lots of earthquakes, or almost none. There really isn't a middle number of earthquakes. I also learned how to use ArcGis Explorer to help me predict earthquakes.

What factors influence earthquake prediction?The number of earthquakes that

have occurred on a fault, the type of boundary, and the strength of the earthquakes influence earthquake prediction.

Where on Earth do most of the really big earthquakes strike?The really big earthquakes happen on mainly

convergent boundaries. The recent earthquake in Japan is an example of this. According to my map, the big earthquakes are usually in Latin or South America, or in the islands in Asia like Indonesia.

Map of the world with earthquakes

Blue: Earthquakes in the Past YearRed: Significant and Big Earthquakes

Ten Places1. Peru2. Mexico3. Greece 4. New Guinea5. Indonesia6. Japan7. Western China8. Alaska9. California10. Iran

Peru

I chose Peru because according to my data, the South American plate is very active. Also, it seems like they are overdue for an earthquake because of the lack of blue dots (recent earthquakes).

Mexico•I chose Mexico because of all of the activity that took place there in the past. As shown in the picture, there are lots of red dots, (significant quakes) but not a lot of blue dots, (recent earthquakes).

GreeceI think that an earthquake will occur here because

there haven't been very many recent earthquakes even though there have been many earthquakes here in the past. I think that it will be a a powerful earthquake because there haven't been many earthquakes to take away from the tension in the rocks.

New GuineaI chose this boundary

because almost all of the northern Australian plate is incredibly active. Also, there aren't that many recent earthquakes on the map

IndonesiaI predict that an

earthquake will occur here, but not a huge one like the one that occurred in Japan. I think this because there have been many recent earthquakes to take away from some of the pressure in the rocks.

Japan

I chose this boundary because it is an extremely active boundary. However, I don’t think that the earthquake will be very big because recently, there was a 9.0 earthquake so there hasn’t been enough time for lots of pressure to build.

Western ChinaI chose this boundary

because it has been very active recently. Also, there have been some significant quakes here in the past. I think that any quake here would be small because of all the recent activity.

Alaska

I chose this part of the North American-Pacific boundary because there have been lots of big earthquakes compared to the number of recent earthquakes.

CaliforniaSince California is right on the San Andreas

fault, I think that there will be some earthquake activity here soon. Also, they have had many devastating earthquakes in the past, so I predict that it will be a large earthquake.

Iran The middle east hasn’t had a large

earthquake for some time, so they are over due for one. Also, they didn’t have that many quakes recently.

The End