EARTHQUAKE ! By Deepak
May 06, 2015
EARTHQUAKE !
By Deepak
Topics What is an earthquake?
What makes the earth quake?
Measuring Earthquakes.
Can we predict earthquakes?
Should you worry about earthquakes?
How can you minimize your risk?
TSUNAMI !
What is an Earthquake? An earthquake is a shaking of the ground
caused by the sudden breaking and movement of large sections (tectonic plates) of the earth's rocky outermost crust. The edges of the tectonic plates are marked by faults (or fractures). Most earthquakes occur along the fault lines when the plates slide past each other or collide against each other.
Tectonic Activity Volcanic Activity Meteoroids Trucks
What makes the earth quake ?
Tectonic Earthquakes
where do earthquakes happen?
Earthquake map
Tectonics and Earthquakes Along what boundaries do DEEP
earthquakes occur? Along what boundaries do ONLY
small earthquakes occur? Along what boundaries does
strike-slip motion occur?
FOCAL MECHANISMS
The DIRECTION the ground moves in at seismometers tells us the direction of motion AT THE FOCUS.
seismometer
UP
FOCUS
FOCAL SPHERE
At the location on thelower half of the focalsphere where the wavecomes out, color thespot BLACK if the first-motion is OUT of thesphere, or white if thefirst motion is in. Withreadings from manyseismometers, the shapeof the “focal mecha-nism” is defined.
Map views of bottom half of focal spheres
What does the focal mechanism for a strike-slip earthquake look like?
What does the focal mechanism for a strike-slip earthquake look like?
FOCAL MECHANISMS AND TECTONICS
SpreadingCednter
TransformFault
TransformFault
SubductionZone
What is the relative motion? How many plates are shown?
SpreadingCednter
TransformFault
TransformFault
SubductionZone
If earthquakes occur along these plate boundaries, what will the focalMechanisms look like?
SpreadingCednter
TransformFault
TransformFault
SubductionZone
SHOW TECTONIC MAP
MEASURING EARTHQUAKES
Seismometers Locating earthquakes Discovering the interior
of the earth
Chinese Seismoscope - first earthquake sensor
Seismograms from many stations for one earthquake
Earthquake Location if P and S-wave data are available
What if you only have P-wave arrivals at three
seismometers… Can you locate the quake?
Station: Arrival Time A 10:22:04 B 10:22:04 C 10:23:34
x
x
x
A
B
C
The wave arrives much later at C and thus thequake location must be much farther from C than itis from A or B. The source must lie along a curvewhere all the points on the curve are locations thatare 90 sec LATER at C than at A. This curve is aHYPERBOLA. Similarly for C and B:
EPICENTER
Interior of the Earth
Almost everything we know about the deep interior of the earth comes from the study of
seismic waves
Seismic velocities and density changes in the earth
Predicting Earthquakes
types of prediction
long-term
intermediate term
short term
earthquake model
science, politics, and the law
How can you tell a VALID prediction from a scam?
• Three factors are needed:- HOW LARGE will the quake be? - WHERE will it occur- WHEN will it happen
•Predicting very small earthquakes is easy - they occur all the time.
•Predicting LARGE quakes may be impossible.
LONG-TERM Predictions (years to decades) are based on tectonic indicators - fault activity, distance to active faults, seismic gaps etc
INTERMEDIATE-TERM: (Year to days) based on increased activity in an area
SHORT-TERM: (Day to hours) very difficult, but very valuable
Predictions should include STATISTICS, such as:
“There is an 80% probability that a magnitude 7.5 or larger earthquake will occur in the San Francisco area within the next two weeks.”
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR PREDICTED QUAKE DOESN’T HAPPEN?
Law suits.
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT’S BIGGER OR SMALLER OR OCCURS EARLIER OR LATER OR IN A DIFFERENT LOCATION?
Law suits.
We need to know how earthquakes are generated
at faults. Tectonic plate motions Elastic Rebound Properties of materials -
elasticity,strength Strength of rocks vary with
pressure, temperature and composition
Elastic Rebound Theory
QuickTime™ and aGIF decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
A Simple Earthquake Model:
What if the STRAIN across the fault continues to grow until a fixed maximum value is reached, at which time the earthquake occurs? AND -
What if the STRAIN always drops to the same minimum value?
With a fixed maximum and minimum strain, earthquakes will all have the same size and will occur at predictable times.
ti me
maximum strain
minimum strain
What if only the Maximum Strain is fixed?
.
time
bend
ing
maximum bending
In this case, the TIME of the next quake will be predictable, but the SIZE will not be.
Sm
a ll q
u ake
LA
RG
E q
u ake
.
minimum bending
time
bend
ing
What if only the Minimum Strain is fixed?
In this case the SIZE of the next quake can be predicted - if it happens tomorrow, but WHEN it occurs is not constrained.
Let’s Try an experiment to see if either of these assumptions hold with a SIMPLE earthquake model…
crankspring
weight
fault
Turning the crank represents the passage of time, and the spring stretches (representing strain across the fault) until the weight moves - representing an earthquake.
What information do we need?crank
springweight
fault
A
B
01020
We need to measure the length “A” to get our measure of how much time has passed, andWe need to measure the length “B” to see how large the earthquakes are. “B” only changes during an earthquake.A-B is a measure of strain, and A is a measure of time, so, from these two measurements, we can make plots of strain vs. time and check our hypotheses.
If we plot “A” along the x axis and “B” along the y axis we get plots like:
A (time)
B (
tota
l motion
on
fault
)
large earthquake
small earthquake
If we plot “A” along the x axis and “A-B” along the y axis we get plots like:
A (time)
A-B
(st
retc
h of
sprin
g)
large earthquake
small earthquake
What did we learn?
Did our hypothesis fit the data? Could we predict the time and size
of the earthquakes? What about predicting earthquakes
along a REAL fault?
Should you worry about earthquakes?
Learn the earthquake history in
your area
Are you likely to be hurt?
Are you likely to loose property?
Damage is caused by things falling on you from above
Adobe is NOT a good building material in earthquake-prone areas.
LOMA PRIETA, I 80
Sometimes things drop out from under you…
Alaska, 1964: Often the GROUND fails, not the building. Build on HARD ROCK!
KOBE
San FranciscoArea Earthquakes
The California 1906 quake
history
the earthquake
the fire
could it happen again?
Before the earthquake and fire
Buildings built on soft fill often collapsed.
Much damage in 1989 earthquake occurred in soft fillWhere the 1906 trash had been dumped into the bay.
Seismogram wiggle size Vs. earthquake magnitude
How can you minimize your risk? avoid earthquake-prone regions
LEARN the earthquake history and fault locations in
your area
don’t live below something that can fall on you, like a
steep hill
don’t live below a dam
Don’t build on soft ground
store emergency supplies
TSUNAMI ! How can you minimize your risk? What are the differences between
surfing waves and tsunami? What would you do if you were on
the beach and the siren blows? What would you do if you were on
the beach and the water starts to slowly recede?
Why did the Dec 26 2005 tsunami waves appear to be many short period waves?
LandOcean
100 m30 m/s
50 m22 m/s
30 m17 m/s
10 m10 m/sv=Ćgh
h=v=
Because the wave speed is decreasing as water depth decreases, the wave piles up on itself as the depthshallows. This may create a series of ŅstepsÓwhere the speed decreases sharply on the shallow side. Thewave itself has a period of tens of minutes, but each individual step may be only tens of seconds apart.Notice that the water depth continues to increase as each step approaches, unlike a surfing wave, wherethe water depth is constant between waves.
LandOcean
Normal Surf Wave
The water level after a normal surf wave passes returns to the same level as beforethe wave. The time between waves varies from a few seconds to 20 seconds.
A tsunami is a long wave with the time between trough to peak of up to 20-30minutes, or a time from normal sea level to maximum of 10 to 15 minutes.
Calm water
Thank you