Earthquakes Happening

Created by Emily Bruch and Tia Green

Alfred Wegener’s Theory

• Alfred Wegener had a thought that there is a “super continent”. They called this “super continent” Pangea. Pangea is all the continents in one big puzzle piece.

Tectonic Plates

• The major plate that effects America is the Gorda Plate, North America Plate, Jaun De Fuca Plate, Pacific Plate and if you include Puerto Rico then the Carrabian Plate to.

California Earthquakes’

• California lies on the junction of the Pacific Plate and North America Plate. As these two plates slip past each other the movement triggers earthquakes. Florida is situated virtually in the middle of the North America plate and is therefore seismically inactive.

Destructive Earthquakes

• On January 23, 1556 in Shaanxi, China a earthquake with the magnitude of 8 killed more than 830,000 people.

Basic Tectonic Plate Boundaries

• One of the types of plates is a divergent. That is when two tectonic plates move apart from each other. One more would be Divergent boundary. This occurs when two plates come together. Last one is Transform boundary. This is when two plates sliding past each other.

What are Tsunamis

• Tsunamis are waves caused by the displacement of water from an earthquake. They usually move about 600 mph.

Energy Waves

• To types of waves are primary and secondary waves. Primary waves go through all types of matter and secondary waves travel through solids.

Releasing Energy

• The richer scale is a logarithmic so 7.2 earthquakes are 10 times more powerful than 6.2 earthquakes.

Testing Location of Earthquakes

• Seismology use mapping the density of rock besides measuring the magnitude and location of earthquakes.

Last weeks Earthquakes

• Where did most of the earthquakes happen last week. They happened in San Francisco CA, San Jose CA, Mecicari CA, Las Vegas NV, Oregon, and the Pacific Ocean

Predictions

• Scientist can predict earthquakes but they usually have little hope.

Where Earthquakes Occurred

• They use the data collected from as many seismograph stations as possible ( you need at least three) and perform a calculation called “triangulation”.