Earthquakes Worksheet(1)
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University of Houston, Clear Lake *
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1301
Subject
Geology
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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docx
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Uploaded by MajorDragon7685
Earthquakes Worksheet
Week 9
Online Earth Science
Instructions:
Located within the Earthquakes Lab folder, there is a link to the
USGS Natural Hazards website.
Once you open that webpage, you’ll see the
button labeled “Interactive Map”.
Click on it and it will open up a map of the
latest earthquakes in North America and the world.
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You may answer these questions by typing into the lines of this document (after
each question) or you may submit your answers in a separate MS Word
document via email attachment.
Please note:
Anytime you wish to return to the default view of the U.S., click on
the “world” icon located below the two zoom ( + and – ) buttons and choose “U.S.”
Question 1:
When you first open the interactive map, the newest earthquakes will
be generated on the left side of the page along with their magnitudes.
What is
the largest magnitude earthquake that is visible on your opening page and where
is it located?
Note: you may get additional information by clicking on the
earthquake of your choice on the lef
. The largest magnitude earthquake is in
Gansu, China and the magnitude is 5.4.
Question 2:
If you zoom out twice, you will see a more full view of the world.
There appear to be red lines that are drawn on the map in certain regions.
What
do these red lines represent?
(Hint:
you should know this from previous labs and
also from lecture notes.
The red lines represent plate boundaries.
Question 3:
At the top right corner of the interactive screen, there is a white
“wheel” icon.
When you click on it, it reveals an earthquakes menu.
If you
choose “30 days, significant worldwide” first and then click on the buttons directly
below it (one at a time), you will notice changes in the number of dots that appear
on the map.
Explain the correlation between these buttons and the number of
dots that are displayed.
The correlation between these buttons and the number
of dots displayed is as the circles increase the magnitude of earthquake decreases.
Question 4:
Also at the top right corner of the map, there is an icon located on
the map that looks like sheets of paper that are stacked up.
If you click on this,
your view of the map can change.
Choose “Ocean” and then zoom in on the
center of the Pacific Ocean that has a cluster of earthquakes.
Where is this cluster
of earthquakes located?
They are located on the island of Hawaii.
Question 5:
Now if you really zoom in on this cluster of earthquakes located in the
middle of the Pacific ocean (to where you can see a line of islands), you will notice
that the earthquakes are clusters within just one of the islands.
Why are there not
earthquakes currently located on the other islands?
(Hint:
you’ll need to
understand how these islands formed geologically)
The reason as to why the
cluster of earthquakes are located on the big island and not on the rest of the of
the other islands is because the most active volcano is on the big island.
Question 6:
With the layers menu still open, now choose “Terrain” and close that
menu.
Now return your default view to the U.S. (see hint at the top of this lab).
You will notice that there is an enormous amount of earthquakes centered over
the state of Oklahoma.
However, there are no plate boundaries here.
If you click
on one or more of the dots, you can determine the average magnitudes of some
of these events.
Google “Earthquakes in Oklahoma” and see if you can explain
the reason why there are so many quakes located here.
The reason as to why
there are so many earthquakes occurring in the middle of Oklahoma is oil
fracking. The practice of fluid waste from oil and gas production is injected deep
underground.
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