the ground starts to quiver glasses
rattle soon wall shifts and everything
begins to collapse telltale signs of
what could be a devastating earthquake
we’ve seen the destruction they unleash
some of us may have even lived through
one and we know they can be deadly but
where does this mountain moving force
come from while we may think we’re
standing on solid ground the earth
beneath us isn’t completely stable at
all our planet’s crust is made up of
about 12 major tectonic plates that fit
together like a giant jigsaw puzzle
these huge slabs of land float on
superheated magma and constantly shift
bump and grind against one another it’s
there along the seams where earthquakes
tend to happen when friction between the
two plates is violent enough seismic
shock waves ripple through the ground
rattling everything that stands on it
the stronger and shallower the quake the
more violent the destruction the most
violent type of earthquake is born in a
subduction zone where one tectonic plate
is shoved beneath another while one
plate is forced downward into the mantle
the other juts upward often violently
this is a type of quake that rocked
Nepal in May 2015
and when subduction happens under the
ocean it can create giant unstoppable
waves called tsunamis like the ones that
killed hundreds of thousands in Japan
and Indonesia
on average earthquakes kill about 10,000
people each year
sometimes numbers are far higher the
quake that hit Haiti in 2010 killed more
than 300,000 by some cows
making it one of the deadliest on record
it is estimated that there are 500,000
detectable earthquakes in the world each
year 100,000 of these can be felt and
100 of them caused damage that’s about
0.1% the magnitude of an earthquake is
measured using the Richter scale which
runs from 0 to 10 10 being the strongest
every whole number increase on the scale
means 10 times more ground motion change
in recorded history the world has never
experienced a 10 on the Richter scale
but scientists predict an average of at
least one major quake of magnitude 8 or
higher every year the fact is the
Earth’s crust is restless and always on
the move we can’t see earthquakes coming
but we can’t prepare for them engineers
are now designing stronger buildings
resilient enough to survive a direct hit
scientists are crunching data to project
the power of future quakes and
anticipate when and where they can
strike next
right now we can only estimate the
probability an earthquake will occur but
perhaps one day we will learn to predict
them minimizing their destruction and
saving countless lives
rattle soon wall shifts and everything
begins to collapse telltale signs of
what could be a devastating earthquake
we’ve seen the destruction they unleash
some of us may have even lived through
one and we know they can be deadly but
where does this mountain moving force
come from while we may think we’re
standing on solid ground the earth
beneath us isn’t completely stable at
all our planet’s crust is made up of
about 12 major tectonic plates that fit
together like a giant jigsaw puzzle
these huge slabs of land float on
superheated magma and constantly shift
bump and grind against one another it’s
there along the seams where earthquakes
tend to happen when friction between the
two plates is violent enough seismic
shock waves ripple through the ground
rattling everything that stands on it
the stronger and shallower the quake the
more violent the destruction the most
violent type of earthquake is born in a
subduction zone where one tectonic plate
is shoved beneath another while one
plate is forced downward into the mantle
the other juts upward often violently
this is a type of quake that rocked
Nepal in May 2015
and when subduction happens under the
ocean it can create giant unstoppable
waves called tsunamis like the ones that
killed hundreds of thousands in Japan
and Indonesia
on average earthquakes kill about 10,000
people each year
sometimes numbers are far higher the
quake that hit Haiti in 2010 killed more
than 300,000 by some cows
making it one of the deadliest on record
it is estimated that there are 500,000
detectable earthquakes in the world each
year 100,000 of these can be felt and
100 of them caused damage that’s about
0.1% the magnitude of an earthquake is
measured using the Richter scale which
runs from 0 to 10 10 being the strongest
every whole number increase on the scale
means 10 times more ground motion change
in recorded history the world has never
experienced a 10 on the Richter scale
but scientists predict an average of at
least one major quake of magnitude 8 or
higher every year the fact is the
Earth’s crust is restless and always on
the move we can’t see earthquakes coming
but we can’t prepare for them engineers
are now designing stronger buildings
resilient enough to survive a direct hit
scientists are crunching data to project
the power of future quakes and
anticipate when and where they can
strike next
right now we can only estimate the
probability an earthquake will occur but
perhaps one day we will learn to predict
them minimizing their destruction and
saving countless lives
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