GEO109_SCI210_Lab 7 Earthquakes SP23

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GEO 109L – Earth, Environment, & Society Lab SCI 210L – The Dynamic Earth Lab Lab Exercise 7 – Earthquakes Introduction In this week’s lab we will continue to investigate the behavior of Earth’s tectonic plates. Specifically, we will be focusing on how we observe earthquakes at the surface of the Earth and the effects of significant quakes on the infrastructure and population. Earthquakes occur as a result of sudden movement (release of stored energy) along a fault. Therefore, as long as plates continue to move into, away from, and alongside each other, earthquakes will keep happening and continue to pose a risk to the human populations who live near plate boundaries and other fault systems. Part 1 – Determining the Epicenter of an earthquake In order to find the surface location, or epicenter, of an earthquake, scientists need to know how long it took for the seismic waves (P and S waves) took to arrive at least three different seismic stations. Once the travel time is known for at least three different stations, they then use the technique known as triangulation to determine the earthquake epicenter. Be sure to review the explanations and videos in the Lab Manual related to Earthquake Triangulation before working on this exercise. Step 1 – Seismographs and Earthquake Distance You will use 3 seismographs (from 3 stations across a large area) to determine the epicenter of a major earthquake that occurred on January 12 th , 2010. Download the PowerPoint file “Earthquake Seismographs and Time Travel Chart” from the Lab Manual. Complete the worksheet to obtain the distance that the earthquake occurred from each station and record your results below: Document your work on the PPT slides and include that with your upload to the Assignment Tool. Lab 7 | 1 NAME: ____________________Table # _____ Station Location S-P Interval (minutes) Distance from Epicenter (km) 1. LEBA Lebam, WA USA 2. DBIC Dimbokro, Cote d’Ivoire 3. JSC Jenkinsville, SC USA

Step 2 – Plot Earthquake Distances and Triangulate https://www.iris.edu/app/triangulation/ 4. Use the Earthquake Triangulation App to plot the circles of Earthquake Distances for each Station. Use the User Event Marker to mark the location where the epicenter of the earthquake occurred. Include a screenshot of the triangulation below. Note: Due to estimations used when reading the seismographs, you will likely not have all 3 circles meet at the exact same point. Place your marker in a zone close to where the three circles meet. You can add in layers for Plate Tectonic boundary, change the background, etc to modify your image. Insert a screenshot of your triangulation location in this box – zoom in enough to show the country where this earthquake occurred. 5. Where is this location? (give the country name) – you have most likely heard of this earthquake before. Part 2 Comparing Two Earthquakes – Same Size, Different Impacts So by now you should know that the earthquake you used in the triangulation exercise occurred in Haiti and is in fact the January 12 th , 2010 event that resulted in catastrophic loss of life and destruction of the capital city. In this part of the exercise you will examine this earthquake in more detail and compare it to another recent earthquake of the same magnitude but with very different results. For each earthquake you will go to the USGS Event Page that contains a layered Interactive Map that can be your main source of information. You can also use the site to link to other information related to the earthquake. Just be careful to not get lost in some of the more technical aspects of the website. In addition there is a map and news video related to each earthquake on the Lab 5 page. Be sure to watch the tutorial video for using the USGS Event page and displaying different layers before working on this part of the lab. 2

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