PAOMBONG HIGH SCHOOL, INC.

School Year 2021-2022

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEETS
SCIENCE 8
Name: Grade and section:
Week: 12 Date: November 2 – 5, 2021
Activity: Earthquake Waves

Directions: Using the diagram below, illustrate how waves travel inside the earth. You may use lines, arrows
and coloring materials to emphasize your answer. Then, answer the questions that follow.

The shaking starts from the focus and spreads out. You can get an idea of how this happens by throwing a
pebble into a pond. See the ripples that move out in circles. The vibrations from the focus are something like that. The
vibrations are more properly called seismic waves. As seismic waves travel through the body of the Earth, they behave in
different ways, depending on what they encounter along way.
For example, as seismic waves travel deeper into the crust, they speed up. That means that at depth the rocks
are denser. In the upper part of the mantle, the waves slow down. That means the rocks there are partially molten. As the
waves reach the core, one kind of seismic waves disappears. That means that the outer core is liquid. At certain depths, the
waves are reflected and refracted. That means the Earth must be layered.
Thus, earthquake waves give us picture of the Earth’s interior, the way an “ultrasound” provides an image of a
baby inside the womb. This is why scientists know a bit about the interior of our home planet, even if no one has gone deep
into the earth yet.

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