or other uses, see 

Earthquake (disambiguation).
"Seismic event" redirects here. For seismic migration, see Seismic migration.
For the current earthquake season, see List of earthquakes in 2022.

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Earthquake epicenters occur mostly along tectonic plate boundaries, and especially on the Pacific Ring of
Fire.

Global plate tectonic movement

Part of a series on

Earthquakes
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Types

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Causes

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Measurement

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An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the

Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic
waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt,
to those violent enough to propel objects and people into the air, damage critical infrastructure,
and wreak destruction across entire cities. The seismic activity of an area is the frequency,
type, and size of earthquakes experienced over a particular time period. The seismicity at a
particular location in the Earth is the average rate of seismic energy release per unit volume. The
word tremor is also used for non-earthquake seismic rumbling.
At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and displacing or disrupting
the ground. When the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be
displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides.
In its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event—whether
natural or caused by humans—that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by
rupture of geological faults but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine
blasts, and nuclear tests. An earthquake's point of initial rupture is called its hypocenter or focus.
The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter.

Contents

 1Naturally occurring earthquakes

o 1.1Earthquake fault types
 1.1.1Normal faults
 1.1.2Reverse faults
 1.1.3Strike-slip faults
o 1.2Energy released
o 1.3Shallow-focus and deep-focus earthquakes
o 1.4Earthquakes and volcanic activity
o 1.5Rupture dynamics
 1.5.1Supershear earthquakes
 1.5.2Slow earthquakes
 1.5.3Co-seismic overpressuring and effect of pore pressure
o 1.6Tidal forces
o 1.7Earthquake clusters
 1.7.1Aftershocks
 1.7.2Earthquake swarms
 2Intensity and magnitude of earthquakes
 3Frequency of occurrence
 4Induced seismicity
 5Measuring and locating earthquakes
o 5.1Seismic waves
o 5.2Speed of seismic waves
 5.2.1P-wave speed
 5.2.2S-waves speed
o 5.3Seismic wave arrival
o 5.4Earthquake location and reporting
 6Effects of earthquakes
o 6.1Shaking and ground rupture
o 6.2Soil liquefaction
o 6.3Human impacts
o 6.4Landslides
o 6.5Fires
o 6.6Tsunami
o 6.7Floods
 7Major earthquakes
 8Prediction
 9Forecasting
 10Preparedness
  11Historical views
 12In culture
o 12.1Mythology and religion
o 12.2In popular culture
 13See also
 14References
 15Sources
 16Further reading
 17External links

Naturally occurring earthquakes

Three types of faults:

A. Strike-slip
B. Normal
C. Reverse

Tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain
energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each
other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the fault
surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities, which
leads to a form of stick-slip behavior. Once the fault has locked, continued relative motion
between the plates leads to increasing stress and, therefore, stored strain energy in the volume
around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the
asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the locked portion of the fault, releasing the stored
energy.[1] This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves,
[2]
 frictional heating of the fault surface, and cracking of the rock, thus causing an earthquake.
This process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden
earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent
or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the earthquake's
energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by
friction. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available elastic potential energy and raise its
temperature, though these changes are negligible compared to the conductive and convective
flow of heat out from the Earth's deep interior.[3]

Earthquake fault types

Main article: Fault (geology)
There are three main types of fault, all of which may cause an interplate earthquake: normal,
reverse (thrust), and strike-slip. Normal and reverse faulting are examples of dip-slip, where the
displacement along the fault is in the direction of dip and where movement on them involves a
vertical component. Many earthquakes are caused by movement on faults that have components
of both dip-slip and strike-slip; this is known as oblique slip. The topmost, brittle part of the
Earth's crust, and the cool slabs of the tectonic plates that are descending into the hot mantle,
are the o