Lesson 1:

What are earthquakes

and where do they
occur
 Where do Earthquakes Occur?
 Earthquakes can occur near the Earth’s
surface or far below the surface.
 Most earthquakes occur at plate boundaries,
but some happen at faults located in the
middle of tectonic plates.

http://www.dosecc.org/html/volcanic_monitoring.
html
What Causes Earthquakes?
• Earthquakes are caused by movement along
faults.
• When stress is placed on rocks it deforms, or
changes.
• This is called Elastic Deformation (remember
faults and folds, tension and compression)
• Rock is stretched and bent until it can no longer
take the stress.
• When enough stress builds up in the rock it, it
slips and energy is released.
• The rock then returns to its original shape. This
is called Elastic Rebound. Think of a rubber
band, you can only stretch it so far until it
breaks and return to its original shape.
• This energy is felt as an earthquake.
Elastic

ELASTIC REBOUND
Lesson 2
 3 Types of Faults associated
with Earthquakes
PLATE MOTION FAULT TYPE

Transform Strike –Slip Fault

Convergent Reverse Fault

Divergent Normal Fault

Strike-Slip Fault occurs at a
Transform Boundary
Reverse Fault occurs at a
Convergent Boundary
Normal Faults occur at Divergent
Boundaries
 Chapter 8: Sections 1: Earthquakes and Faults:
Organizer
PLATE MOTION FAULT TYPE
Transform Plates move past Strike –Slip Fault
each other Fault blocks move past each other

Convergent Plates move together Reverse Fault

Fault blocks move together

Divergent Plates move apart Normal Fault

Fault blocks move apart
 Epicenter
• The epicenter is the point on the
Earth’s surface directly above an
earthquake’s starting point.
 Focus
• The focus is the point inside the
Earth where the earthquake begins.
• The epicenter is located directly
above the focus.
 Measuring Earthquakes
• There are two major ways
earthquakes are measured:
• 1. Richter Scale
• 2. Mercalli Scale