Earthquakes.

Earthquakes

Luis Villegas

Ivy Tech Community College

Earthquakes

An earthquake is the sudden and transient vibration of the earth caused by an abrupt release of energy. The energy, released by the movement of the plate tectonics, travel as waves on and below the earth’s surface. During an earthquake 3 different types waves are created; the P- wave (primary wave), which is the fastest and can travel through all materials, the S-wave (secondary wave) is slower than the P -wave and cannot travels through liquids, and the Surface waves are the slowest.

The intensity of an earthquake has an enormous importance on the damage that the released energy could cause, there are many little earthquakes happening every day, but the energy released by them does not have enough force to affect us. when a greater energy is released, it can cause a great destruction because there are some other disasters that could be triggered by an earthquake such as liquefaction, landslides, damage to the infrastructure around us, and the worst of all a tsunami.

Not too long ago a magnitude 6.2 earthquake and a series of smaller subsequent quakes struck Italy, causing the death of at least 250 people. “According to the United States Geological Service (USGS), this area along the Apennine Mountains is “tectonically and geologically complex” because there meet different plates that interact constantly”. The earthquake in Italy was caused by the subduction of the Adriatic plate under the Eurasian plate as a consequence the Eurasian plate hit the African plate. The movement of tectonic plates in this area led to the birth of the Apennines and caused several major earthquakes in the past.

Around the same time to Italy’s earthquake, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake occurred on Myanmar. This telluric movement was felt in Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.  The focus of this earthquake was relatively deep, 84 km from earth’s surface. Myanmar is in a seismically active part of the world where the Indo-Australian Plate runs up against the Eurasian Plate, and this was not the only major earthquake that occurred on Myanmar this year. On April, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the country, leaving a few deaths and several damages.

Although these two seismic movements occurred in the same period of time, and have about the same magnitude, they have no relation to each other, they occurred far apart from each other on different plates. According to John Bellini; “A large earthquake, something like an 8 or a 9, or even a large 7, can trigger small things nearby, but not on the other side of the world”.

According to the data, the earthquake that occurred in Italy was weaker than the one on Myanmar, but the damage produced in Italy was greater than the one in Myanmar. The reason for this difference on the damage is because the subduction zone in Myanmar (84 km) is deeper than Italy (4 km). The earthquake in Italy is more destructive because of its proximity to the surface. Also, the infrastructure in Italy is not prepared to support an earthquake, they have an old structure made out stone that does not have the flexibility to do well during an earthquake.

...