● Focus​: underground originating point

○ Epicenter​: area on land directly above focus

● Transform plate boundaries

○ Strike-slip
○ Sudden jerk in plate movement
○ Can also be slow (fault creep)
● Convergent plate boundaries
○ Sudden slips of one plate underneath another, causing elastic strain
○ Gets locked up, building tension; when it’s released, it creates earthquake
● Divergent plate boundaries
○ Lithosphere extended; caues many shallow, unnoticeable earthquakes
● Intraplate
○ Far from active tectonic plates
○ Along ancient rifts that are no longer boundaries
○ More dangerous and damaging because crust is older and thicker in continental
interiors

● Elastic rebound​ in faults

○ Before an earthquake, rocks are bent and deformed (​elastic strain​)
○ Rocks eventually break, slip
○ However, they unbend and retake old positions (​elastic rebound​)
■ This is what actually causes the earthquakes

● Earthquake waves (seismic energy)

○ Either body or surface
○ Body waves​ travel THROUGH EARTH”S INTERIOR (BODY)
■ P waves (primary waves)​ are com​p​ressional, can move through solid or
liquid; high frequency, velocity
■ S waves (secondary waves)​ are from ​S​hearing; vibrate up-and-down
compared to rocks; can’t move through liquids; lower freq., vel.
■ Can find location of epicenter by analyzing arrival times of P and S waves
at 3 different stations
○ Surface waves​ travel along outer edges of Earth instead of ody
■ Love waves​ vibrate back and forth, not vertically
■ Rayleigh waves​ roll across Earth’s surface llike ocean waves
■ They’re slower than body waves, arrive later