4. EarthQuakes: An Introduction
Where do the majority of Earthquakes happen?
How many Earthquakes happened this year year in Canada?
How many Earthquakes happened this year year in the world?
How many Earthquakes happened this month in Canada?
How many Earthquakes happened this week?
How many Earthquakes happened since this course started?
How many occurred near Ottawa?
- Wanna see if the Ground is shaking in Ottawa?
Go here. and click on your first option: M1... Earthquakes past 7 days.
When the Earth Moves.....
Earthquake MAGNITUDE...
How much bigger is a 7 magnitude compared to a 5 magnitude tremor?
PLATE TECTONICS
Plate tectonics is essentially the science that studies how and why the earth's crust moves. Recently, both Turkey, Japan and New Zealand have suffered the largest earthquakes in their history.
Japan's earthquake measured 9.1 on the Richter scale.
It was centered approximately 100 kilometres away from the Island of Japan under the Pacific Ocean. It was an earthquake so powerful it knocked the planet off its axis It was so strong that the land mass we call Japan was actually moved almost 4 meters.
" Global positioning stations closest to the epicenter jumped eastward by up to 13 feet. Japan is “wider than it was before,” said Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey. "
Parts of Japan are now 13 feet closer to North America than it was before the Earthquake. The resulting Tsunami wave was devastating.
It was 10 meters tall and moved at a speed of almost 800 KM an hour (500 mph)
when it started underwater. By the time it hit land it was moving between 40 and 60 kmh (15-30 miles per hour)
It wiped out entire villages, covered farms and roads, left hundreds of thousands homeless and killed more than 20 thousand people.