College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

Plate Tectonics Theory

 Earthquake occurrence may be explained by the theory of large-scale tectonic processes, referred
to as ‘plate tectonics’
 Earthquake is now recognized to be the symptoms of active tectonic movements (Scholz, 1990)
 Plates are large and stable rigid rock slabs with a thickness of about 100km forming the crust or
lithosphere and part of the upper mantle of the Earth.
 Shallow and intermediate earthquakes occur at convergent zones in bands of hundreds
kilometers wide.
 Continental converge earthquake can be very large. At convergent plate boundaries, where two
continental plates collide earthquakes are deep and also very powerful.
 Shallow earthquake with large magnitude can occur along transform faults it also require solid
rocks to occur, more specifically, cold, brittle rocks. Only these can store up elastic strain along a
geologic fault, held in check by friction until the strain lets loose in a violent rupture.
 Deep earthquakes are generally located in subduction zones over regions which can be extended
for more than 1000 km. Between deep and shallow earthquake, one is that the ruptures proceed
very slowly, less than half the speed of shallow ruptures, and they seem to consist of patches or
closely spaced subevents. Another is that they have few aftershocks, only one-tenth as many as
shallow quakes do. They relieve more stress; that is, the stress drop is generally much larger for
deep than shallow events.
 Megathrust earthquake occurs in subduction zones where two crustal plates are colliding. Most
subduction zones occur where an oceanic plate is being forced beneath a continental plate.
 Plate tectonic theory provides a simple and general geological explanation for plate boundary or
inter-plate earthquakes, which contribute 95% of worldwide seismic energy release.
 Intra-plate and inter-plate earthquake can be distinguished quantitatively on the basis of the slip
rate of their faults and recurrence time.
 For intra-plate earthquakes, it generally falls into two groups: plate boundary-related which
either takes place in broad bands near plate edges and are tectonically linked to them or in diffuse
plate boundaries; and mid-plate which are not related to plate edges.

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College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

Faulting
 When two ground masses move with respect to one another, elastic strain energy due to tectonic
process is stored and then released through the rupture of the interface zone.
 Elastic rebound is the process in which distorted blocks snap back towards equilibrium and an
earthquake ground motion is produced.
 Fault is the resulting fracture in the Earth’s crust.
 Characteristics of earthquake ground motions are affected by the slip mechanism of active faults.
The most common mechanism of earthquake sources are: Dip-slip faults where one block moves
vertically with respect to the other, Strike-slip faults where the adjacent blocks move horizontally
past one another.
 Oblique slip is a fault wherein it exhibits combination if strike-slip and dip-slip movement.
 Focus or hypocenter of an earthquake is the point under the surface where the rupture is said to
have originates. The projection of the focus on the surface is termed epicenter.

Fault Classification

1. Active Faults – are structure along which we expect displacement to occur. By definition, since
a shallow earthquake is a process that produces displacement across a fault, all shallow earthquakes
occur on active faults.

2. Inactive faults – are structures that we can identify, but which do no have earthquakes. As you
can imagine, because of the complexity of earthquake activity, judging a fault to be inactive can be
tricky, but often we can measure the last time substantial offset occurred across a fault. If a fault
has been inactive for millions of years, it's certainly safe to call it inactive. However, some faults
only have large earthquakes once in thousands of years, and we need to evaluate carefully their
hazard potential.

3. Reactivated faults – form when movement along formerly inactive faults can help to alleviate
strain within the crust or upper mantle.

Faulting Geometry

Faulting is a complex process and the variety of faults that exists is large. We will consider a
simplified but general fault classification based on the geometry of faulting, which we describe by
specifying three angular measurements: dip, strike, and slip.

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College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

1. Dip - is the angle that describes the steepness of the fault surface. This angle is measured from
Earth's surface, or a plane parallel to Earth's surface. The dip of a horizontal fault is zero (usually
specified in degrees: 0°), and the dip of a vertical fault is 90°.

Fig. 7. Dip

2. Strike - The strike is an angle used to specify the orientation of the fault and measured clockwise
from north. For example, a strike of 0° or 180° indicates a fault that is oriented in a north-south
direction, 90° or 270° indicates east-west oriented structure.

Fig. 8. Strike

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College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

3. Slip - Dip and strike describe the orientation of the fault, we also have to describe the direction
of motion across the fault. That is, which way did one side of the fault move with respect to the
other. The parameter that describes this motion is called the slip. The slip has two components, a
"magnitude" which tells us how far the rocks moved, and a direction (it's a vector).

The magnitude of slip is simply how far the two sides of the fault moved relative to one another;
it's a distance usually a few centimeters for small earthquakes and meters for large events. The
direction of slip is measured on the fault surface, and like the strike and dip, it is specified as an
angle. Specifically, the slip direction is the direction that the hanging wall moved relative to the
footwall. If the hanging wall moves to the right, the slip direction is 0°; if it moves up, the slip angle
is 90°, if it moves to the left, the slip angle is 180°, and if it moves down, the slip angle is 270° or
-90°.

Fig. 9. Slip

Fault Styles

1. Dip – Slip With normal dip-slip faults, the rock masses compress on each other vertically, and the
rock that moves heads downward. They are caused by Earth's crust lengthening. When they're steep,
they're called high-angle faults, and when they're relatively flat, they're low-angle or detachment faults.
Dip-slip faults are common in mountain ranges and rift valleys, which are valleys formed by plate
movement rather than erosion or glaciers.

Fig. 10. Dip – Slip and Reverse Dip – Slip Faults

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College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

2. Reverse Dip – Slip Reverse dip-slip faults are created from horizontal compression or contracting of
Earth's crust. Movement is upward instead of downward. The Sierra Madre fault zone in California
contains an example of reverse dip-slip movement, as the San Gabriel Mountains move up and over
the rocks in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.
3. Strike – Slip Strike-slip faults are also called lateral faults because they happen along a horizontal
plane, parallel with the fault line, as the plates slip by each other side by side. These faults are also
caused by horizontal compression.

Fig. 11. Strike – Slip Fault

4. Oblique – Slip When there's more than one type of motion simultaneously (shearing and up or down
motion—strike and dip) and both types of motion are significant and measurable, that is the location
of an oblique-slip fault. Oblique-slip faults can even have rotation of the rock formations relative to
each other. They're caused both by shearing forces and tension along the fault line.

Fig. 12. Oblique – Slip Fault

THE PACIFIC RING OF FIRE

 The Ring of Fire is a roughly 25,000-mile chain of volcanoes and seismically active sites that
outline the Pacific Ocean.
 Also known as the Circum-Pacific Belt, the Ring of Fire traces the meeting points of many tectonic
plates, including the Eurasian, North American, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Caribbean, Nazca, Antarctic,
Indian, Australian, PHILIPPINE, and other smaller plates, which all encircle the large Pacific
Plate.

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College of Engineering – Civil Engineering Department CETE 543 – Earthquake Engineering

 The plates are constantly sliding past, colliding into, or moving above or below each other. This
movement results in deep ocean trenches, volcanic eruptions, and earthquake epicentres along the
boundaries where the plates meet, called fault lines.
 The tectonic activity along the Ring of Fire also results in about 90% of the world’s earthquakes,
including the Valdivia Earthquake of Chile in 1960, the strongest recorded earthquake at 9.5 out
of 10 on the Richter scale.
 The Ring of Fire is also where an estimated 75% of the planet’s volcanoes are located, such as
Mount Tambora of Indonesia, which erupted in 1815 and became the largest volcanic eruption
in recorded history.

 The Ring of Fire is home to the deepest ocean trench, called the Mariana Trench. Located east of
Guam, the 7-mile-deep Mariana Trench formed when one tectonic place was pushed under another.

PACIFIC PLATE TECTONICS

 Much of the volcanic and seismic activity on earth can be contributed to plate tectonics, a relatively
new scientific concept that was brought forth in the 60s. Basically, this scientific theory states that
the earth's surface consists of a solid surface, called the lithosphere. This layer of land actually
floats atop the mantle core, which is believed to be a semi-solid. Furthermore, the lithosphere is not
continuously solid, but consists of many plates, both large and small. When these plates push up
against each other, the resulting friction may result in earthquakes and volcanoes.

 By chance, the Pacific plate is one of the largest and most active plates on the planet. Since it is
located under a large ocean, it is referred to as an oceanic plate. On the other hand plates situated
under land masses are called continental plates. In general, oceanic plates are denser, but not as
deep as continental plates.

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